WSJ: Gen-Z yearns for stability
WSJ: Gen-Z yearns for stability
Not long ago, a friend who teaches a communications course at a Midwestern business school asked me to speak to her class. Her instructions were invitingly wide: “Just tell them about your career.” And so I did, trying to hit all the points that might be relevant to students about to enter the job market.
Unmentioned in the article, and presumably the address to the class, is that Suzy is married to Jack Welch.
Jack was named “Manager of the Century” by Fortune magazine after his two decade stint as the CEO of General Electric. So, one key to a successful career is to have an affair with a guy shortly after he gets a retirement package worth almost a half-billion dollars.
It reminds me of those home interior design TV shows where everyone is impressed by the clever and tasteful house. It cost eight million dollars, it better be damned impressive. Show me a clever and tasteful house that cost $130,000, and I will be impressed. Suzy Welch may be talented and ambitious, but it sure helps to be married to the manager of the century.
When I was done, my friend opened the floor to questions and, much to my excitement, a line formed at the mic. Then came the first question: “You’ve had such a long career,” the student said. “Could you please tell us how you’ve avoided burnout? Like, what do you do for self-care?”
Welch is on to something. Gen-Z does seem preoccupied with self-care and work/life balance. Keep in mind, these are business school students who haven’t started their careers yet. On teacher forums, it isn’t unusual for a college student in an Ed program to ask how to avoid burn-out. Again, you aren’t even a teacher yet.
I have a unified Gen-Z theory.
When I was in high school, students were allowed to smoke in school. North Olmsted High School had a smoking courtyard. The “burnouts” were the clique who congregated there. They smoked cigarettes in the courtyard and smoked weed behind the school by the creek.
In 1978, many high school students had tried pot and many didn’t. Only the burnouts smoked weed every day. Back then, the marijuana was weak and low quality. Today, surveys say that 40% of Gen-Z smoke weed frequently with 10% smoking daily. The THC levels available through smoking, vaping or edibles is way beyond what was available decades ago.
My theory, Gen-Z has a lot of burnouts who are worried about burning out.
“You’re always hearing the world is filled with opportunity,” one student told me last semester. “And then you turn around and there are layoffs everywhere, and everyone is saying AI is going to make us all obsolete.” She confessed there were days she wished she could crawl under her covers to escape the static and ambiguity of it all, not to mention—as she also did—the threats of global warming and nuclear war.
I am very familiar with the anxiety that can come to a high-quality student who is told that there is opportunity everywhere. The adult wants to be encouraging, but the student is thinking, “okay, can you point me to one path that will work out?”
I once had a student who was great at math and physics, amiable, polite, interesting, tall, good looking in a non-threatening way and captain of the football team. He was living the dream, but anxious about college and his future. He was very impressive, and everyone naturally told him that he could be successful in any field he chose. He was smart enough to realize that he had no basis to make a choice. I told him to go into Engineering Management, and explained why that would work out for him. Two years later, his parents were in for their younger son, so stopped by to thank me for pointing their son in the right direction. Even smart kids don’t know how the world works or specifically what might suit their interests.
That personal career path anxiety anxiety has always been there. I experienced it, so took the time to give each student specific feedback and direction. There is a greater fear that is hitting Gen-Z, and it’s parallelizing them. Being Green is approximately a religion. It is an article of faith that human caused environmental disaster will make the future a hell-scape. The TV show Extrapolations captures that idea. The litany of end-of-the-world predictions that didn’t come true, doesn’t faze them. Human ingenuity is irrelevant. The Covid lockdown showed them that people in charge don’t know what to do or don’t care to do it. The Antifa riots destroyed cities, while mayors and governors seem sympathetic to the Leftist cause.
If everything is going to shit due to environmental, cultural, political or governmental issues, what is the point of knuckling down, powering through, hitting the books or trying to achieve?
Pot can induce paranoia. K-12 students may not be stoned all the time, but they get their news from social media and young, marginally qualified journalists. Young people get their news from people who are stoned all the time.
That is my unified Gen-Z theory: Powerful and ubiquitous weed is destroying Gen-Z.
What do we do about it?
Me, I’m not doing anything. I’m retired, so I live the life that Gen-Z wants. My house is paid off, have all the stuff I need, a few sources of passive income and am only in charge of my dog. Since I am naturally sanguine and lethargic, I don’t smoke pot, and can’t help thinking I got here because I never did.
Generally, I think it will work out. America is screwed up, but everyone else seems to be in worse shape. Universities seem to have lost their way, and we turn out way too many college graduates. Many of them will be childless and bitter, but enough other young people will power through to take advantage of their lackluster generation to make a good life.