Generation Y isn’t lazy, corporations just suck

Posted by Jesus on July 13, 2007

Bridgette Mogonocutty prayed in this morning to ask for my wisdom in a matter concerning employment. According to this article, Generation Y (those born between 1977 and 1992) are a bunch of whining little crybabies with little work ethic and absolutely no loyalty. Employers, it suggests, must hire these needy weenies due to staffing shortages, though few of the 20-somethings actually pan out.

Well Bridgette, I have some good news. The truth is that Generation Y isn’t all to blame in this matter. Sure, many of you are a little bit spoiled and needy, but the fault in this case actually lies more with the corporations than their most recent hires.

The classic corporate employee was one who would come on board for fifteen, twenty, or even thirty years, during which time they would put in long hours in an attempt to grind their way through the system toward their inevitible rise to middle-management. They would get raises when appropriate, work fastidiously in their offices and meeting rooms, and when they reached sixty-five would retire with a gold watch and a pension. The money one employee from this time period would earn would support a family of four.

The modern employee differs significantly. The average tenure at any given corporation is no longer measured in decades, but in single-digit years. The modern employee still puts in long hours, but the goal is not a slow and steady clawing up the corporate ladder. It is instead a desire to acquire skills and reccomendations so that entire rungs can be glossed over by simply switching companies. It’s true, Generation Y workers have little loyalty to a corporation.

That’s not the end of it, though. Corporations have even less loyalty to their workers these days. Like I said, an office job used to comfortably take care of a family of four, while today it takes a pair of salaries to keep a small family from sinking. Offices have been replaced with wide floors stuffed with cubicles and cheap lights. And if your company can save a buck an hour by outsourcing you to India, you can bet that you’ll be out by week’s end. Generation Y has no reason to offer loyalty to their employers anymore simply because there’s no reasonable expectation of reciprocity.

Of course it’s the corporations which have put the world in such a state. The profit margins in modern Corporate America are enormous, partly due to the excessive costs for goods and services borne by consumers, and partly due to corporations paying the absolute bare minimum for any particular employee, with the notable exception of executives. As much as it makes sense for any corporation to outsource, hire cheap, or cut costs by shrinking cubicles, it makes as much sense for employees to work only as hard as necessary to facilitate a jump to another corporation for the promise of a small raise. It’s the new corporate ladder, so to speak. The most effective way to “make it” as a corporation is to eliminate loyalty to employees, which mandates that the best way to climb to the top today is to game the corporations.

Unfortuntely it’s only Generation Y who seems to get this today. Many older workers are still stuck in their cubicles, slaving away to pay the pensions of men and women they will never meet, and who would cut their jobs in an instant for the promise of a slightly increased bonus payout. Meanwhile, Generation Y treats employers exactly as they should be treated. They demand the best equipment, the highest possible salaries, slack off as much as feasible, and in the end will walk out without giving notice for an extra couple of bucks a week. They’ll do it again, and again, and again, and in the end some of them just might beat the system.

But what about the most important question - what would Jesus do if hired by a corporation today? Well, I’ll answer that. I would show up to work about fifteen minutes late every morning, surf the Internet for a good hour or two, then maybe answer some email, and then follow that by taking an early lunch. Later that afternoon I’d wake up from my lunch nap, grab another shower, play some Chess, then mosey back into the cubicle, where I would spend the rest of the afternoon alternating between updating my resume, doing enough work not to get fired, and chatting with friends from around the world. I’d have my boss so well patterned that sneaking out early would be a breeze, so I’d escape through the side door around three, slip the security guard a $20 to sign me out at five, and grab a milkshake on the way home. At the end of the week I’d bill an extra half-dozen hours of overtime, and once a month I’d ask for a raise.

The Bible is clear on these kinds of things. You reap what you sow. What goes around comes around. God punishes those who punish others. It won’t be held against you on Judgement Day that you had an absolutely pitiful work ethic though, as we understand that the root cause isn’t overprotective and coddling parents, but rather a healthy and altogether Christ-like disgust for the corporate world in general.

So Bridgette, there’s your answer. You Generation Y folks have got nothing to worry about except convincing your older counterparts that the proper motivation for work is to get another job elsewhere for more money at the earliest possible moment. That’s not too bad, now is it?

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