Gen Zs Why my generation doesn't care about work

"Yes  Why my generation doesn't care about work"

Above:AN AI IMAGE OF THE KENYAN GENERATION GAP

 Not that we don't want to work no the word is we don't care about working the reason is rather simple we don't like working for the current system.

More than any other generation, Gen Z's  have confessed an interest in a ‘Severance’ situation where they have no memory of their nine to five. But why do Gen Z hate work so much?

When I first heard people accusing my generation of not wanting to work, I was incensed. But that’s not because it isn’t true. It is. Only one in 10 Gen Zs want to work from the office full-time set up. We’re less likely to have ever worked beyond our contractual hours, less likely to have looked for work out of the academic qualifications or Hoobies/Talents  they possess and more likely to be frequently wanting to work from home with. With little to no micro management demand enough offtime and don’t want to do any work during this time don’t dress in traditional “office wear” and we tend to want and demand the total amount of our social benefits and a fair job and career growth with a granteed job security and pension benefits.

To me, this is all totally fair. After all, why would we Gen Zs want to work? I’m a 27-year-old in a traditionally “good” career living in Nairobi, and I am still clawing my way out of my overdraft each month. I have to do side hustle jobs to make ends meet. I will probably never own a house. I don’t have dreams of being the highest up person at my company, or in my industry, because it doesn’t seem possible. Not only would that involve working much harder for relatively little financial reward, but all of those jobs are occupied by older people who won’t relinquish them until they literally die. So, yes, why would I want to work here for ever. This a similar thing to many in my generation.

My generation is likely to be more pro a Severance situation (this is where people work and personal lives are totally separated) than any other age group. In case that’s not clear: Gen Zs dislike work so much that they’d rather want a reality where, in their downtime, they have absolutely no memory of their 9 to 5. Sorry to anyone who’s become work friends with a Gen Z recently, but it turns out they might want to forget you altogether.

Gen Z’s  are resistant to most traditional “professionalism” 

Despite their behaviours at their work place the Gen Z employees expect to be handed promotions even when they have been doing the bare minimum. “They don’t have the knowledge that a lot of the older generations have to work extra ordinarily or even bribe for a promotion, or that you will need to be already working at a curtain level before you get a job of that level,” “We know we need to earn somethings. But we think we deserve fair opportunities, without having to do any extra works or curtain levals of experiences beyond their academic qualifications we believe you can start any where you qualify academically or skillfully with a strong support system. We find the current working systems a nightmare to our future so why would i want to work.

For the older Generations they find it all very conflicting. “Gen Z's believe in standing up for their rights at work and everywhere, but the older generations think it’s been taken too far,” “There’s a lack of  taking pride in your job compared to other generations. 

And even if Gen Zs are working, they often working smart, not hard. “one Gen Z employee at ovo plc tells me. “It’s not about doing less work, it’s about freeing up time to focus on the parts of my job that I really enjoy.” This is not always appreciated by the older generations, who's world's have a very minimum free own time to enjoy their own free time away from work and for the few fortunate once that get the free time they are either off attending to other issues not like for a job vacation. We want to work on what interests us not otherwise .

Then there’s workplace etiquette, which Gen Zs also refuse to conform to. “The Gen Zs at my work place dress so inappropriately,”  a older  generation manager will complain ”

 “I think for the most part dress codes are bullshit,”  I should be able to wear what I want, which is a big pair of boots, my nose rings and have my tattoos out and not be judged because it doesn’t affect my work in any way, shape or form.”

And then there’s the mental health talk. While older generations were raised in the ways of the stiff upper lip, Gen Z are fully comfortable with letting it wobble. “They use phrases I hate, like ‘I need to advocate for me or what I believe in ’ and ‘I feel that this is not a safe space’,” you are  familiar with this if you 

HAVE worked with Gen Zs regularly. “But they are much better at being like, ‘This is no way to work and I won’t do it.’ And then of course all the millennials are raging, going, ‘ saying When I was 22 I was on location at 4am every morning for a year solid! I had no days off! I sucked it up and that’s the only way to grow … this lot have no idea what it was like in 2004!’”

All in all, Gen Z aren’t bothered by their bad rep. But would you really expect them to be?  “They are like the cats of the workplace, they do not give a f***!”

Image above:  Gen Zs in protest in  Nairobi CBD over a controversial financial bill in June 2024.

We, reckon that if the system guarantees us working immediately after graduation for a curtain period and time then retiring still young and energetic to explore the world and it's great opportunities not like our parents who have  to work  until they are 60 years to retire, an old age that you are rather not helpful to the community and working to long with out creating new job opportunities for the growing generation and this is the situation with the GENZ the older generation will retire to buying or building a house, to live in a nice property that they didn't enjoy having while working or not enjoy for too long as it should be the case or going on more holidays/vacations but then you too old to enjoy or notice opportunities like you would have if you did it  a little bit younger, otherwise we would work harder and make more of an effort if secure working opportunities are guaranteed by the system just like education is guaranteed to all and we study to implement the knowledge at work why then not guarantee me work. Why should  young educated energetic youths be out here hustling like they didn't go to school just because they can't get job opportunities and if they do get the opportunity ain't what they been expecting until when working is made what we been preparing for  by going to school  and create a smoothly controlled school  to work transition we says: “What’s the point?”