How GenZ are unearthing the frightening realities of employment way before GenX did

Sound familiar?

You leave college / uni and enter the world of work you're now earning relatively good money but you soon find it's not enough to do much with life and you're probably going to get on the housing ladder when you're 83 (release the balloons!)

You wake up at 7:15, you're going to start work at 9.

That 1hr 45mins is spent getting ready for work. You’re doing nothing for yourself, nothing you actually want to be doing and you’re very much aware of that.

You’re not going into the office today, but you have to once a week and on those days you’ve got to get up a bit earlier because, well, you want to look your best really don't you. You’ve also got your commute so you’ve got to be up earlier to get the tube, train, bus, navigate traffic, perhaps find a parking space to park that car you’ll also probably never own outright.

Office days are EXHAUSTING. They fill you with anxiety because of all the extra thinking, travelling, have you packed everything you need, you'll have to do small talk, where to get coffee, lunch - ugh that’ll all eat (excuse the pun) into that little bit of profit you get from being an employee because you haven't got time to make lunch in the morning; you'll get a coffee with everybody at lunchtime maybe a drink after work because you’ve got to be, you know, socialising; showing your face, building relationships, team building - whereas what you’d rather be doing is starting your Gousto meal around 5 with that bowl you bought from the charity shop at lunch time sitting on the Teams button.

Instead, you get home, you're so exhausted that you can't do anything. There was a Pilates class at 7 but you need to decompress to even consider going out again.?

Even on the days that you're working from home you've got to have that Teams light on. You can't really pop out for a two and a half hour lunch so you get an hour's lunch like everybody else - unpaid of course - and you wander up the road to the nearest park for some nature time - it takes about 20 minutes to get there - not enough time to really find some peace before you have to head back. You could’ve walked up the High Street, maybe have your nails done, haircut, but that’s not really down time because at the back of your head you’re slightly anxious that you have to get back home because some selfish p***k has booked a Teams meeting right after lunch. ‘F*** it I won't even go out’.?

It gets to the end of the week and you’re exhausted, wiped out - surely it’s glandular fever, ME, something similar??

No, this is life now kiddo. This is work. This is how you will make your living until you just can’t anymore.?

The weekend flies by. Sunday was a write off because from 6pm you were just stressing about another five days at work.

You've not caught up with your friends, other than on WhatsApp, you’ve still got loads of WhatsApps to read, you've got loads to reply to - that's going to take some time because you want your friends to feel valued - you want to start reading a new book, but you also wanted a lay-in after the ‘office day’ early start. You just feel like you're wasting your life. For what?

You didn't see any friends at the weekend because you wanted time on your own, you're a bit of an introvert, or is it ambivert? You need to decompress to recharge every so often and if you see your mates, which you want to do, you've had no time to unwind from the week, have time for yourself, get that haircut you’ve been putting off for seven months, book a holiday, breathe.?

Next thing you know you're stuck in a cycle - work, anxiety, sleep, repeat.

They lied when they said ‘when you’re an adult you can do what you want’ and you've realised this early.

You GenZ are savvy!

'“Realising at this age that I don’t care about building a ‘career’ or climbing the corporate ladder,” Daisy Jones’ article, Guardian, 13/07/2023

It's not really great being an employee is it??

But the thing is, GenZ are realising earlier than us GenX, that employment isn't really a safer option, that it can be damaging for our mental health and certainly does not define what being an adult was meant to be like.

As a GenX we'd put in 20/30 years of employment before we realised we don't have to, that there are other options to earn good money and not put limitations on our life. But it was different for us.?

Running a business wasn’t something just anyone could do, not like today. Employment was our option and anyway, we could literally walk out of a job we hated on a Friday and get a new one on a Monday. In fact, I did that a lot during the 90s. You can't do that anymore, so you feel effectively stuck.?

You browse through other jobs and you can see that house deposit might be achievable if you retrain in Law and work 7 days a week, 15 hours a day. Then, you can buy a house that all you do is sleep in! Result!

There’s got to be an easier, less life limiting way to get through the most energetic, fun, years of your life and make a decent income, right? Surely?

One of those is to start your own business.

Doing what?

Well, there are many things but my expertise and experience lies in the world of becoming a Virtual Assistant.

It's what I did in late 2015. I left my 9-5 within 3 months and now earn 5x what I could as an employee. And, since 2018 I've been helping women all over the world lead a happier, healthier, wealthier working life as Virtual Assistants ON THEIR TERMS!

I'm not only a Virtual Assistant mentor I am also the author of the Amazon number one bestselling book, How to be a Virtual Assistant. You can find out more about me here later, but first...

Becoming a Virtual Assistant gathers more and more popularity for many reasons, the main one being it enables you to earn good money, working when you want with whom you want. Offering flexibility and freedom. You become in complete control of your working life.

More and more business owners (and some corporates) work with Virtual Assistants, especially since the pandemic and because of our economic mess - even though you’d charge ￡30+ an hour as a Virtual Assistant - we are more cost effective and we’re zero drama compared to bored employees.?

Those who work with us don't have to pay:

• NI
• Tax
• Pension contributions
• Holiday pay
• Sick pay
• HR costs
• Software costs
• Insurance
• Utility costs

I’m sure you thought that ￡30+ an hour was a typo. But it’s not. Look at this; here’s how many, sorry FEW, hours you’d need work to earn, say, ￡3k a month:

• ￡3000 + 30% for Tax and NI = ￡3900
• ￡3900 / ￡30 = 130 hours a month
• 130 hours x 12 months = 1560 hours a year
• 1560 / 48* weeks = 32.5 hours per week or 6.5 hours a day

You can use my free online calculator to work out how few hours you’ll need to work as a Virtual Assistant. Just put in how much you want to bring home every month and how many weeks holiday you quite fancy.

*I’ve given you four weeks off in my calculation above, but given you can work from anywhere as a VA you might not want that many.

You’ll need to add about an hour a day for your marketing - unpaid - but you don't get paid for your commute at the moment, you don't get paid for lunch and you don't get paid for that God damn pointless team meeting that goes over hours every Thursday afternoon, or those after work drinks you didn’t really want to go on.

“All I want to do is make the most amount of money working the least amount of hours so I can spend … life on my own terms instead of spending 40 years working for a boss who’s paying what they think is ‘fair’.”

Daisy Jones’ article, Guardian, 13/07/2023

You can! Let’s start here > www.catherinegladwyn.co.uk/va-services

NB: Being a Virtual Assistant isn’t a lazy girl job. Becoming a Virtual Assistant requires love and dedication to what you’re doing. But the difference is; you’re in complete control of every day.

Lazy girl jobs are defined as employment where you get paid good money for doing very little. Basically, a lazy girl job will destroy your soul.?