The Evolution of Work in the 21st Century
As a Gen-Xer, I remember in college when I was told my generation comprised a bunch of slackers. As in, we were lazy and didn’t want to do anything. We had no direction. We didn’t write proper thank-you letters. We didn’t listen to our elders. We had no motivation, no work ethic, and we had poor manners.
Sound familiar? Almost every generation faces these accusations as they come of age. It’s not because they are of a particular generation; it’s because they are teens who have underdeveloped frontal lobes and lack the keys for decision-making and executive function. But is there something to the idea of a generational work ethic?
Looking back, I see a group of young people, like every generation before, adjusting to a changing economy, technology, and social norms.
When my Baby Boomer mother graduated from high school, she got a job at the telephone company before moving a couple of towns away to attend business school. Business school at that time was a one-year program that taught her computer data entry on large punch cards. She met my dad, they married, and in 1971, they bought a teeny-tiny house in Rochester, NY, for $22,500.
From age 4 to 18, I grew up in a single-parent household, some 70 miles away from my father, and eventually my stepmother and two half-siblings. Gen-X was the first generation to have many peers living in single-parent homes. With the advent of women’s rights and less stigma and more access to divorce, women were making it (somewhat) on their own.
I saw my mother work hard, but also move us 9 times in 13 years within the same town, so that in kindergarten, I was bereft when I couldn’t remember my home address. She was often tired at the end of each day. My memories of her are smoking and watching television. She complained about work almost constantly. “Marry a rich man with one foot in the grave,” she’d say, then follow it up with “You can do anything you want.”
My mother worked a shift job, as many high-school-educated folks did. Shift work allows for time-specific breaks and a clock in which to punch in and out. She was part of a union, which she complained about, but which also ensured she and her co-workers had top benefits. She hated her commute, only 10 miles, but in one of the snowiest regions of the United States, just a couple of miles from Lake Ontario. She rose at 5:30 a.m. to shower and get ready, drop us off at a sitter, and get to work by 7; she’d leave work by 5 p.m. to get home around 5:30. She did not make us breakfast; we were 80s kids so we ate cereal at the sitter’s house and when we were in high school we fended for ourselves.
She never seemed happy or joyful about anything. She couldn’t wait to retire. But, as retirement approached, she had sleepless nights fearing that her pension, 401K, employer-sponsored healthcare, and Medicare wouldn’t provide enough to live on. She bought her current house in 2003 for $69,000 and recently paid it off. Her monthly mortgage payment was about $250 per month.
This isn’t meant to disparage. She worked hard but was often lonely. She provided for two children primarily on her own, and I’m incredibly grateful to her. But I didn’t want to follow her path as an adult. The continuous barrage of negative work stereotypes made me think hard about what I wanted.
I got two college degrees, one in social science and one in fine arts, and landed in the business world as a marketer. I felt this was a wise path, although an uncertain one, as marketing is an amorphous job. However, the work itself wasn’t the issue as I progressed in my career. At times, I didn’t feel I was making much of a difference in the world. But I had bills to pay, so a well-paying job is nothing to shake your head at. What started to nag at me was the people. The people I spent most of my waking hours with.
Experiences, of course, vary across every business. At a large nonprofit focused on education, the CEO had poor leadership skills. A documentary crew reached out to us to be part of a film exploring Asperger’s and autism education around the world. The film's main subject was Chris Packham, a naturalist and wildlife presenter in England who has autism spectrum disorder. As the marketing director and head of public relations, I worked with the executive team to vet the crew. We invited the team to the school, and the producer asked me, in front of the CEO, if it was okay to film in the gymnasium. The CEO stated, “It doesn’t matter what she thinks.” I recall the producer being slightly shocked that someone would be so dismissive of another to their face. And I, used to the way the CEO treated others, replied, “He’s right. It doesn’t matter what I think.” Because it didn’t. Anything he wanted, he got. Although he was not to participate in this filming, he changed his mind at the eleventh hour, and, unprepared, used a polarizing analogy about applied behavior analysis being “chemotherapy” for autism.
In another instance, my team’s department Chief had an odd relationship with the Director below him. She managed all seven team members, held weekly one-on-one meetings with each, directed the team’s yearly goals, and conducted the hiring. We often wondered exactly what HE did. But their relationship, although never seemingly romantic in any way, was strange. Once, the Chief was out of hot water at his home. He showered at her house. Another time, his daughter called from school to inform him she had left her curling iron on in the bathroom. He had the Director go to his house to turn it off. And during team meetings, the two consistently shared, out loud, inside information or jokes. It was a huge power play - ensuring that everyone in the room knew they were not part of their world, and that they had information we would never have.
These experiences have shaped my professional life and my interest in work culture. They are the basis for a book titled “The Evolution of Work in the 21st Century: Why employees are burnt out and disengaged,” which I am working to complete in the next year.
I hope you’ll follow along.