I'm a millenial and have been working for 15 years on a 9-6 office job. I've heard and read about the younger generation complaning about long work hours and unreasonable employer requests that result in burnout.
I'm definitely feeling Gen Z and agree that work today is very different then what it was say.. 15 years ago. This is especially noted for office workers and especially the tech sector.
15 years ago, the work environment was very different. When i was first hired as a junior, i just needed to know a couple of softwares, and email or face to face meetings were our form of communication. Internet wasn't super fast then and that meant work deployment was much slower.
Today, we have communication softwares like whatsapp, slack, teams and so on which meant communication was much convenient, faster but it also meant that work is getting piled on quicker and therefore deadlines are getting shorter.
15 years ago, i only had to learn to use microsoft and a couple of adobe softwares to create materials for marketing. A completed work is usually sent by email or even a usb drive lol But learning less softwares meant that i continued to be good at utilizing them at its fullest rather than being a jack of all trades and master the none.
Today, we need to learn to use a ton of softwares that's always upgrading. This is quite frustrating and it impedes my focus. It also forces us to keep learning new things hence it takes our time away although learning new things can be a good thing but it's not always efficient.
15 years ago, deadlines were somewhat lenient. A month project back then would require us to do in a week today. I cannot fathom how much quicker we have to work today that our brains are not accustomed to such requests. Are we built to be as fast as technology today? I don't think so and that's why there are more burnouts today.
In my conclusion, I don't think the new generation today are burnt out because they have to slog longer hours. They are burnt out because our brains can't just keep up with the tech. Imagine cramming all that knowledge of learning new things every other day, working faster and then doing all of these things overtime. We aren't robots and i feel that society today wants us to be one. I just wonder how long we are able to keep up with this.
In my 15 years of work, i can safely say that i miss the old days and ways of working. yes, it was just as stressful back then but my mind is slightly more calmer and focus. These days i feel like a headless chicken running with work requests coming in every hour. I wonder if i ever will survive this robot race?