It used to be joked about some long-term unemployed people that they were 'allergic to work'. With certain elements of today’s Gen Z cohort, the joke may now have become a reality.
A report released in December by Trinity College London surveyed 1,500 people aged 16-29 across the UK (albeit presumably not by telephone – see below), that being the age range covered by Gen Z. The data suggested an extraordinarily large proportion preferred to work from home not simply because it offered genuine conveniences like not having to commute or being able to type in bed without any trousers on, but for one main reason overall: the near-total lack of any requirement to interact with their fellow humans face to face. Getting up in the morning and physically going to an out-of-home workplace has been reconceived as a new and serious threat to these delicate individuals’ mental health.
TLC From TCL
Trinity College London (TCL) is an examination board offering diplomas across the performing arts, like Dance, Music and Drama – precisely the kinds of things which, stereotypically, qualify most students for nothing more than a disappointing life spent waiting on tables.
Hoping to dispel this negative image, TCL framed its report in surprising terms. Not only would a TCL diploma in Drama allow students to confidently apply for a role as third spear-carrier from the left in a new am-dram production of Titus Andronicus, it would also be of immense benefit should
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Oh god, I really wish this article was a joke; but I have an awful feeling it isn’t
Basically it just highlights what happens when you treat people as if they are “precious wee things”, no job, no money, that simple, its just mollycoddling, lets hope we really dont go to war!!
I wonder why kiddies are given titles like genz. Most of us over 65 have no idea what genz even means. More importantly, we could care less.
i only see young people pretty much as they have always been. The thing that has changed are primarily external to them. Gadgets, working from home (unheard of in the 50’s, 60’s), travel. Many still play a sport, go to work after education, marry, raise a family and buy a home.
I wonder if it’s anything to do with decades “protecting” children from the freedom previous generations enjoyed as children: out playing until it got dark, falling out of trees, getting dirty, shooting at each other with homemade bows and arrows.
A generation of house-adults has been bred.
I think children don’t have enough real-world interactions. I can’t imagine what the parents are doing. My manager has to do ‘interviews’ with new students who have applied to our 6th form college – so 15 year olds. It’s not really a conventional interview, just a chat. Since the plague years these are all done by phone. The applicant is given a date and time to expect a call. Apparently a significant proportion of these youngsters don’t even know to say ‘hello’ when they pick up the phone – all he gets is silence!
Although, in fairness, nobody wants to work with someone who is “Enthusiastic at work” – it’s not the English way.
Yes what a horrible thought! It would be like working with kids TV presenters.
Never underestimate how much the use of interpretive dance can bring to a meeting.
And first stop when you need a leaky tap fixed.
I’ve had experience of this. A few years ago (pre Covid at least, probably more like 2015) a “man” in his early 20s who was already employed at the large financial services company where I worked applied for, and got, a job in the IT dept where I work. After a couple of days of induction he came and sat next to a colleague for deskside training. When the phone rang he refused to answer it saying he didn’t realise that would be part of the job and went to see the shift manager to arrange to get a different job. (He also expected he’d be able to have every Wednesday night off to be Dungeon Master – despite the job being shift based covering all hours of the day and night on a monthly rota – he didn’t actually last that long though).
I believe the biggest factor is people no longer go to pubs to socialise. When I were a young lad, we started going to pubs even before we were legally entitled to. That’s where you get used to banter, small talk, making fools of ourselves and all the essential interactions with people you don’t get if your social life revolves around social media. What’s more, what was done and said is forgotten about the next morning, and not etched onto computer memory for all eternity.
My grandfather worked 50 years in the Michael Pit in Fife and for a time run what many today know as Athols Chip Shop in Buckhaven. He had a huge garden of vegetables, raised 5 children, and I recall watching the 66 world cup with him where when Helmut Haller scored for West Germany he told me not to worry because the team that has scored first in world cup finals has never won so far. England went on to win 4-2. —–I remember this great big mangle that they had in the corrugated Anderson Shelter from the war they used as a garden shed. My gran and her daughters would be rolling bed clothes and sheets in it out on the lawn in all weathersthen shove it back into the “shed”. But they were the lucky ones because they got a ton of free coal each month because my grandad had been a miner. ——We have pandered to the young so much they are spoiled USELESS and have not a clue what hardship is.
1930: Uruguay scored first and won.
1934: Italy scored first and won.
Without survey results from other age cohorts, the results don’t mean a great deal in terms of defining a “Gen Z” tendency.
I am personally not that keen on all these labels for various generations. There might some generalisations that hold, but speaking as a “boomer” I don’t want to be put into some box and don’t want to put anyone else in a box. It’s just divisive. We have enough true enemies without making blanket statements that get people’s backs up. All the “Gen Z” people I know have excellent work ethics (albeit small sample size).
“the near-total lack of any requirement to interact with their fellow humans face to face”
Speaking as someone whose work colleagues were, almost to a man, branch covidians, many of whom are woke socialists and metropolitan liberals, I find it a blessing to be able to speak to them solely about work and skip all the social chit chat. Perhaps I am on the wrong track, but it works for me.
Incidentally, in our firm it’s not just “Gen Z” who prefer to work from home – we’re at roughly 10% of the desk occupancy pre-lockdowns, and this applies to all age groups.
Not from a youngster’s view, but for a long time I had so many incoming junk landline calls, trying to sell me things I don’t want etc, to the extent of not answering anything unknown. There was (and is) a way of looking up any such numbers, and they really were junk most of the time: https://who-called.co.uk/
I have a call blocker on my landline that requires anyone whose number is not on my list to announce themselves after which the phone will actually ring and what they have said played to me to decide whether to answer or not. I can check to see how many calls there have been that gave up and rang off. Phone rarely rings.
The biggest factors causing work shyness is government hand outs.
Take those away and people will get over any work shyness very quickly.
Cut welfare and let them starve. Don’t work. Dont eat. We have to get back to reality. Natural reality which is: if you don’t work you don’t get to eat or be housed.
Yes but labour’s determined to buy their votes so it can never happen.
The only way to fix the economy is scrap welfare (and the NHS) and stop using taxes to pay people to do jobs that produce nothing, create no wealth, and return public services to the private/voluntary sector whence they came.
Absolutely.
and that’s never going to happen, so basically the country is shafted.
100%.