Ambition once came with a promise: a home, a salary, progress and fulfilment. What happens when that promise is broken? Meet the women who are turning their backs on consumerism, materialism and burnout
Ambition once came with a promise: a home, a salary, progress and fulfilment. What happens when that promise is broken? Meet the women who are turning their backs on consumerism, materialism and burnout
I think millennials and zoomer are just being open and honest about things that always happened. We love labels and with the Internet talks with other like-minded people. There have always been people who worked 9 to 5 at a job and prioritized stability over money. We are being open and bragging about it. We just want to break the hustle culture that was always a loud subset
For example my dad a peak boomer worked at the same company for his whole career and turned down “promotions” that gave a manager title with little more money. They have always been there
The problem is, you used to be able to comfortably live that life. Now if you stay at the same company, your wages won’t increase at a rate to sustain your life style. Companies care way more about acquiring talent than retaining talent, so you need to move around to make enough money
I know. But that was the equivalent of jumping every few years to a similar but slightly paying more role. Not grinding to get the biggest promotion and title as possible.
At some point, you end up wanting some stability and the constant jumping gets old. Perhaps you finally hit a target salary that makes you go “well I guess that’s enough”.
This is partially true, but things are actually worse than they used to be in some ways and better in others. I think that, more than anything, the conditions have accelerated a bit more.
I was born in 1976. I remember managers being completely toxic assholes–that was just how it was. But, when I was a kid, there were still pensions–you worked 40 years for a company and they took care of you. I think that both of these things are gone–managers can’t really get away with being as cruel as they used to, though I know that’s out there. Also employees don’t expect a graceful exit at the end of their career.