Type in the words “Millennials are ” into any search engine and you will find a laundry list of negativity attached to the 18 to 34-year-olds of today. It is often that you’ll hear “Millennials are LAZY and they don’t want to work,” as was reported by an article in Time Magazine.
Well, here goes the deal. It’s not that any of us have an issue with dedicating ourselves to a craft of work, but the fact is, we were born into this technology age and many of us have decided we don’t want to do traditional blue-collar work. Many labour exploitive corporations stagnate our growth while making millions off our efforts. We don’t want to work for corporations that pay the big bucks ONLY to white collar CEO and executive managers. They take credit for the hard-working blue-collar employee that is never encouraged or trained towards a successful organization of his own.
Specialization & labor division are not help us!
Since the industrial revolution, specialization has been the core of the capitalist economy. While this ideology spurred the greatest advancements in the American economy since the discovery of the light-bulb (arguably), this does not equate to success for the common citizen. Big businesses are exploiting blue-collar workers through the division of labour, training employees for one specific task while alienating them from learning other aspects of the business that would help them to succeed within and without the company they currently work for. Many CEO and execs do little to drive business forward, they delegate work to lower-level employees while achieving riches by the hard work done by those who report to them. This process acts as a barricade to success, and skilled hard-working individuals eventually hit a proverbial ceiling where progress is snubbed.
Specialization guarantees that a hard-working blue-collar worker never leaves a company with job security. This allows him to be held in a position of stagnation.
This “white collar deception” is evident in political entrepreneurs who use the force of government to implement regulations and laws that enhance their financial position. These deceivers manifest positions of power by their ability to navigate the corruption that increases with the vertical corporate ladder. A worker acquiring skill in only one field often leads to boredom, feelings of redundancy, and greater risk of unemployment. The idea that specialization is the key to success is a grand fallacy and millennials have watched previous generations fall into this trap already. And frankly, many of us are tired of selling our labor as a commodity, never being able to see the light at the end of the tunnel, never building upon the fruits of our own labor, and never reaping the benefits of countless hours of hard work. We don’t want to rent ourselves by the hour to be your fry guys, your bank tellers, your mechanics, your cashiers, or your custodians. We don’t want to work for companies that never provide the tools necessary to advance past these positions, despite putting millions in their pockets. We can’t even survive off your “working-wage”.
With that being said, you may not understand our disinterest in your “company goals” or monthly quotas. We know you don’t really care about us. We hope you’ll come to know that, yes, we are entitled. We are entitled to work that is purposeful and provides some meaning to our lives. We are entitled to be properly compensated for our maxed out schedules. We don’t want to repeat the mistakes of our parents, working 50+ hours a week only to remain poor. We know information technology, we fancy the first-hand experience, and traditional workplace rules like “no tattoos” and inflexible schedules are making that $15/ hour juice not worth the squeeze.
Just in case you still don’t get it, allow us to translate into our most recent language: memes & Gifs.
Know More, Grow More 