Millennials have been called lazy and entitled, yet ambitious enough to be killing countless industries: everything from Applebee’s and diamonds to pet food and napkins.
Look into articles about how terrible millennials are and you’ll be staring into an unending abyss of opinion pieces, outraged managers and distraught business owners.
Go onto Google and type in “millennials are killing” then put in a letter, nearly any letter will come up with a bunch of results on what millennials are ruining.
The next industry the millennials have in their crosshairs is the free labour market.
One recent attack against the entitled youngsters is saying they have an inflated sense of self-worth and are refusing to work for free to advance their career.
At the same time, studies show millennials have lower self-esteem on average, but that’s not the point.
The general manager of a café chain called Muffin Break with locations in UK, Australia, New Zealand and India made public complaints about millennials not willing to work for free for the sake of career advancement.
Her interview included fun opinions like blaming social media for the lack of a desire to work for free and “there’s just nobody walking in my door asking for an internship, work experience or unpaid work, nobody,” said general manager Natalie Brennan.
“I’m generalizing, but it definitely feels like this generation of 20-somethings has to be rewarded even if it’s the most mundane, boring thing, they want to be rewarded for doing their job constantly.”
That constant reward, some may call in the language of the peasant class “being paid.”
She faced a lot of backlash from the public around the world, saying that expecting people to work for free is unethical and sometimes illegal.
She has since offered a half-hearted apology, saying her statement was not reflective of the values of FoodCo, the parent company to Muffin Break and her comments were misunderstood.
Who is more entitled here: managers expecting people to work for free, or people wanting to be paid for their time on the job?
Management expects the peasants (I’ll be referring to them as the working class) to grovel at their feet to appease them and maybe give them a letter of recommendation at the end of it.
Asking employees to work for free under the guise of “advancing your career” is nonsense.
Sure, it shows that you have drive and ambition, but it also shows you’re willing to be taken advantage of by your employer.
Agreeing to work for free once will be a sign to an employer that they can rely on you and will without a doubt ask you to work for free again and again.
If Best Buy gave away free televisions to a few people, soon it will likely be flooded with people looking to get a free TV. It’s a similar idea to giving away free labour, it’s a floodgate that will be difficult to close.
If you’re a member of the working class, you have two things to sell: your time and labour.
Being willing to give that away for free means you don’t value what you have to offer.
If we don’t value our time, why should they?
It’s the perfect opportunity for a business to exploit the millennial’s lack of self-esteem, with the promise of “career advancement,” among other vague promises.
Career advancement can mean anything an employer wants it to mean: a promotion, a raise, will you be lucky enough to get one day off when you asked for the weekend? Who knows.
Intergenerational warfare has been a common thing in the media for a while now and it seems older generations are fed up with the attitudes of millennials. They are portrayed as feeling entitled to things like work benefits, reasonable hours and a living wage.
How dare the working-class demand to be treated like human beings with needs?
With the constant rising cost of living and wages stagnating (yes, Alberta recently had an increase to minimum wage, but the cost of nearly everything has already gone up), companies refuse to budge on paying people more and yet want to charge more for their products.
This is unsustainable for workers and businesses.
How are workers supposed to spend their money on the products and services a company offers, when they struggle to make rent because they aren’t making a living wage?
And still, after all of this, employers expect the working class to give their time away for free?
The most effective act the working class can do to send a message to employers is withhold their labour.
The longest US government shutdown in history ended on Jan 25, 2019, the same day air traffic control workers weren’t showing up to work and caused delays for just a few hours.
Your time is valuable, you only have so much of it. Don’t let your boss have it for free.
