Those TPS reports aren’t going to write themselves, kid.
Noel Hendrickson
Gen Z’ers starting in their first 9-5 jobs are finding themselves shocked by the schedule.They’re realizing there’s little time for socializing, exercising, or hobbies. As someone who has done this for 20 years: kids, I feel your pain.
How can I make sure I’m eating well and seeing my friends and taking time for my hobbies? How am I supposed to fit my whole life into a 9-to-5 work schedule?
Piper Hansen, a 23-year-old with her first real job out of college, posed these questions in a first-person story for Business Insider. The headline: “I’m a Gen Z worker who just graduated and started my first full-time job. I was shocked by the 9-to-5 schedule.”
This is on the heels of a viral TikTok from a recent college graduate bemoaning the same issue. The reaction to her, of course, has been divided. Some cranks mocked her for being shocked by a 9-to-5 — hey, welcome to real life. Others thought that she was pointing out real problems in our modern work culture.
As the eldest of possible millennials who has been working 9-to-5 office jobs for the last 2 decades, I say to Piper: I feel you.
I remember working my first full-time job after graduating college, and having a moment of terror where I sort of looked around and thought: Wait. This is it? I do this … for the rest of my life?
I recall the uncanny moment in my early work life of wondering, “What do people DO on a Tuesday night?”
In college, my weekday evenings were usually spent either studying or socializing — and when it was the latter, it was knowing that there was always more studying I could be doing instead.
Without the ever-present hum of schoolwork that needed to be done, I found myself at 8 p.m. on a Tuesday wondering what to do with myself before bed. I guess just … watch TV? Is that what people do?
I remember the sort of drop in my stomach realizing that I — the main character of my mind — had merely joined the ranks of the sad worker drones, numbing myself, but tuning in on Tuesday nights to watch to whatever the 2003 equivalent of Young Sheldon was.
Of course, there is harder, more backbreaking labor than going to sit in a cushy office chair for 40 hours a week. There are young people who work 80 hours a week, people who do difficult physical labor or have dangerous working conditions. There is shift work and service-industry jobs at night that make social life even more difficult. There are people who can’t find a job, jobs with crummy pay or no benefits.
Of all the kinds of labor that you could have as a 23-year-old, an office job with decent pay, vacation days, and health insurance is a pretty plum gig.
But even though these young workers should probably be happy to have their 9-to-5 jobs, that doesn’t mean Gen Z can’t still struggle with adjusting to the lifestyle.
There was another time in my working life I felt that vertigo-inducing moment of — It’s like this … every day … forever? — was after having my first kid, when babies start having a set dinnertime and bedtime, any flexibility you had to do anything else after work from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. is gone.
Of all the tough adjustments to becoming a parent, I think I found the schedule change one of the hardest.
Now, after 20 years of working 9-to-5 jobs, I’ve gotten used to the schedule. You figure out how to fit in the rest of your life, or adjust it.
Paige says that she would like to have more flexibility to work remotely — seems pretty reasonable to me. I hope she’s able to get that for her next job.
You can love your job, love your kids — and still look around and wonder: Wait, when do I have time to do my own stuff?
Work has changed a lot since I had my first job, but a lot hasn’t. Sometimes it takes hearing hear it out of the mouth of babes to remember what we’ve been taking for granted.