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For a crew who graduated high school and college during the middle of the greatest economic recession since the Great Depression, it’s no wonder that we’re a fairly cynical crew when it comes down to our professional lives.
After seeing our peers, parents, and friends laid off from stable employment as the economy began to collapse, we took in the indisputable truth that no one is ever safe. We’re constantly on the job search, always job hopping every few years to protect ourselves from what is surely eventual unemployment. While we protect ourselves first by constantly moving on, we hedge our bets at our current gig by going above and beyond the call of duty.
We show up early and stay late, we skip out on vacation days, and we check our work e-mail at all hours of the day for fear of being labelled incompetent.
The official term for this phenomenon is “work martyr,” and unsurprisingly, millennial employees are obsessed with becoming one. Thanks to data from a recent survey by Project: Time Off/GfK, we now know that almost half of us – 43% of millennial respondents – believe that they’re work martyrs, and 48% of us hope that our bosses think so too.
After all, we’re not staying all night in the office for ourselves; we’re hoping that by giving up our lives, we’ll be next in line for a promotion, or at least not next in line for the chopping block.
Our work hours aren’t the only thing being affected by our work martyr status – our well-earned vacation time is taking a hit as well. 16% of millennials feel guilty about taking vacation (whereas only 8% of baby boomers surveyed responded similarly), and an even higher percentage of us will actually give up those days so we don’t look like we’re not taking our work seriously.
While I’ve certainly been afraid that my boss wouldn’t take my dedication seriously, it’s time we all took a look at how much of ourselves we’re giving up for our jobs. Yes, we entered the workforce in one of the worst times in history, but we shouldn’t be throwing away our twenties and thirties because of an economic disaster that struck nearly a decade ago.
Take your earned vacation days while showing up on time and busting your ass during your 9-5 hours. If you’re able to focus and give your job everything you have for 40 hours a week, your boss should certainly notice, and you’ll be able to spend your week-long booze cruise guilt-free.
[via Refinery 29]
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Steph W.
Steph W. is a new Master's degree graduate with an intern's salary and six-figure taste. She realizes her expectations far exceed reality, so she spends her days pinning away Loubs she pretends are in her physical closet instead of her virtual one. Her hobbies include attempting to trapping her boyfriend into marriage before he finds out how insane she is and pretending that Black Box wine tastes as good as the kind she could afford when she was gainfully employed. Send her tips for getting out of student debt at recruitchairtsm@gmail.com
@therecruitchair
They have no idea what it means to be a “Real Martyr.” I’m #triggered by this.
yeah and you invented the 3 day weekend. i believe that’s your greatest achievement and contribution to mankind
I haven’t done that in a while. That was a crazy three days. What happens in hell stays in hell!
To forgive is divine.
You should change your username to The Millennial Chair.
If you feel guilty about taking vacation, then you’ve got some other things going on.
Had a great boss/mentor tell me and some colleagues, “If you can’t start getting your job done in 40 hours a week, you’re fired.” Obviously, he was half kidding, but the message was to stop the superfluous shit during the work day so you don’t stay late all the time.
I agree. My first “real job” outta college one of the people with pull in the company said she would show up early, leave late and advised us not to because her higher ups took it to mean that she wasn’t capable of finishing her tasks in the allotted time and took her staying late everyday as a signal that she wouldn’t be able to handle larger responsibilities I t he future. Obviously she changed shot around but warned us not to go down that path, extra unpaid hours shouldn’t be a habit.
As my boss says, “If there is work to be done you should be here doing it, if there is no work to be done I don’t care where you are at 1 o’clock on a Wednesday as long as someone is answering the phone at the office”.
There’s no point in putting in “face time” when you have nothing to do but if you’re billing clients you’re going to have to work past 5 o’clock.
Also this BS of everyone trying to one-up each other by proving that they’re more of a “martyr” than the other is ridiculous. Like we get it, you’re busy, but so is everyone else. You’re not special because of it.
Imagine if we all got to work from home. Our jobs can be done anywhere. Office space is becoming obsolete. Imagine how much companies would save on overheard costs and utilities if they didn’t have office space to house millions of uninspired people? When you can work from home, you can work as late as you want and as hard as you want. If you don’t work hard then it’s easier to fire you. Listen, no one gives a shit about you anyway so don’t be a gym class hero type and work your life away for a company that’s eventually going to fuck you over in the end.
If I worked from home I wouldn’t be able to see the random hot girls in the business district that I work in, that I’ll never talk to everyday
if there’s work then you stay late i don’t understand why stay late when there’s not any work that’s due or has some kind of affect on the ability of others to do their reports. i have no built-in overtime clause in my contract so unless i’m absolutely needed or for the benefit of the accounting group i’m in i have no problem saying deuces at 5:45 or occasionally calling in for a 3 day weekend when all my work for the week is done.