Millenials Have (Finally) Won

TLDR

This is an open letter to millenials (mostly) but also to Gen Z, for those who are about to be let go in the next 3 months and should put up a fight with their companies depending on how they respond. US corporations have $4 trillion dollars in cash stored up from your efforts over the last 10 years. Millenials have no idea how to unionize or voice their rights, due to our strengths of flexibility, adaptation, and resilience. Yet only collective bargaining will keep millions of workers from passively accepting their fates of unemployment and personal consequences that follow. Unlike Gen X and Boomers, we did not live through great international conflicts and political changes, so we downplay unionization efforts across the board. It is time to wise up.

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Millenials Have (Finally) Won

It has been a long time coming, and it took a global pandemic, but it has finally happened. Congrats. Millenials have won. Finally. Millenials are now best positioned to lead the post-Corona era due to the digitalization of the world. (Gen Z, let’s go!)

If you have been in the workforce, you know the power dynamics of generational divides when it comes to technology, information, and behavior. If you have not yet entered, you are in for a surprise. Spoiler alert: There are people making money doing practically nothing, claiming to have had skills at one point which you now provide them. They are hanging on tooth and nail to their seats because they know the world has changed, and what they value is safety not success. They often don’t understand you because they don’t have a full grasp of: data, code, tech, digitalization, and/or science. These are the fundamentals of everything in the 21st century, permeating every sector, value add, and product or service. All of these are also some of the most capital-intensive and require the longest time and money to learn and master. It is near impossible for anyone over the age of 40 to catch up.

They often don’t understand you because they don’t have a full grasp of: data, code, tech, digitalization, and/or science

Employers are laying off workers who built their products, the very same people who have the advanced know-how to keep them in business. These are often millenials and Gen Z in addition to older workers. This is typical and not new for millenials like myself who graduated post-recession (2008) but may come as a shock to Gen Z.

Let’s get this out of the way: IT IS GOING TO GET BAD. How bad? REALLY bad.

First, take a deep breath. There are others who have gone through this. Recessions occur every 10 years on average. This was somewhat expected.

Second, do not be na?ve. Begin planning to face your problems rather than move on to other things. This will not move on. You will not find a new job right away if you lose your job. This is not like it was last year, or the last 5 years. Imagine what you are doing now for Corona but lasting for 2-3 years, sitting by yourself at home or a café not bored but frantically applying to jobs to face rejection after rejection. That’s what a recession is. I’ve done it. It hurts.

Millenials are told they are expensive because we possess some of the most valuable skills on the market. In despite of this knowledge and the most competitive academic credentials in the history of the world, which is now more populated and more competitive than ever, we are easily let go in a hardship while being told “these kids don’t like to stay in one place,” “they will find something else,” or my favorite, “this work is non-essential to our core business.” Do not believe anything they say. You are so important that you require substantial resources to sustain, which they now seek to downplay. Their privileged managerial position is that they inherited a process or supply chain without now engaging in labor intensive competition. They overextended themselves in times of prosperity, stored up reserves, and reinvested in their own stock through buybacks. They can afford you.

Do not believe anything they say. You are so important that you require substantial resources to sustain, which they now seek to downplay.

Employers need to acknowledge that the people who work for them are often smarter than they are, faster than they are, more relevant than they are. The increase in strict legal nondisclosure agreements and noncompete agreements further show that it is well-known employees are too smart, too threatening, and anything they make can be called IP for their employer, even on weekends.

Decades ago, employees of companies, which were often founded, run, or managed by boomers and Gen X, believed THEY had created technologies and THEY knew best how to use it. Their expertise is psychological more than actual and built not only on the feeling that they participated in the rapid technological change, but also on an illusion that stems from a lucky generation, who inherited a world of affluence and shored it up for themselves in conservative policies focused on mid 20th century priorities.

The truth is, you have your back up against a wall, and they are right about one thing. You are creative, resourceful, and independent, but you aren’t good at addressing conflict. If you think you are going to slowly back out and start your own business instead, you are wrong. This economy will be different. And the literature on entrepreneurship shows the best time to start a business is in a bull market when there are fewer entrepreneurs; the more unemployed and new mom and pop shops that pop up, the less business and lower wages for everyone. It’s a downward spiral. You need to keep your job.

At present, almost every part of fundamental business models depend on milennials, from product design and development to service delivery and customer acquisition and retention. This stands in contrast to the reality that many figureheads, which our society romanticizes under the title “leaders,” learned 1.0 or 1.1 of systems. They barely know how to operate and manage legacy systems within organizations, let alone interface productively between them by hand, not only digital. For typical corporations, the problem gets more severe with the size of the organization and managerial hierarchy. The more levels of management, the more tech-restrained the generational divide; and also the more liable for abuses of power. Many companies have policies in place that provide job security for those who stay longer, with the modern company not suitable for post-industrial labor by a post-modern workforce. High-skilled labor becomes short-term because expensive becomes insecure.

Gen Z, let me update you on how collective bargaining works in America. The corporation is the American form of socialism. You can stay as long as you’d like, and you get benefits for doing less work as you age. Younger people are exploited, just like in socialist regimes to preserve the high quality of life and expectations of the older generation who “earned their turn.” If anything goes wrong, you can sue your way to a cushy early retirement. Millenials have been borderline exploited, emotionally abused, and mocked. We paved the way for your lifestyle. Employers are at once grateful and jealous of what we can do. We are expected to compete in any skill, yet many are told they cannot focus on one issue at a time. It is very much a game of control, America’s endless psychology of insecurity: “What if the next generation actually IS better at everything?” But listen to me. You have a right to this form of financial assistance, a RIGHT. But you have to organize and focus your energy on communicating your needs, seeking legal help if required. You have to work together.

The corporation is the American form of socialism.

We grew up on the Apple app store, Android store, and Google’s developer tools. Millenials know the cutting edge resources, not only the tools; previous generations hardly know where to look for relevant information. Many of us taught our parents or our parent’s parents out of love for them, to keep us all together. They were raised long before the internet, even before Wikipedia was “bad” and had “not credible” or “plagiarized” information; it was non-academic, yet now Wikipedia is recommended by academic sources and even cited in papers, a complete compendium of the world’s knowledge as was envisioned.

Many companies – and owners/operators without relevant skill sets -- have been benefiting from exploiting millenials, telling them they have no attention span, that their tech does not matter, that they “don’t see the big picture” with “years of experience”. Milennials have internalized this negative paternalism to become more rebellious, more off the cuff, more flexible. While it is an asset to pay attention to multiple sources and stay relevant, unfortunately in the second industrial revolution, wisdom does not secure jobs, but neither does endless flexibility. There are only skills, relevant skills, not “soft skills.”

You probably have learned that soft skills are more important to managers because job security and safety is more important than what you are doing for those who are managing you. Soft skills do not matter when hard skills are being laid off. Managers and “leaders” want to exploit hard skills by focusing on teamwork instead of achievement; teams are safe, achievement can only come by teams, not individuals. True leaders have hard skills as well, and in fact that is implied in the term soft skills. It’s a response to actual skill within an industry to round out the hard skills you were supposed to have learned. Keep learning skills.

I must confess something: I lied. It turns out that I was wrong. Millenials are about to lose and lose BIG. Earned in the fires of global conflict, one area which boomers and Gen X know better -- and that millenials have not yet learned -- is the power of unions and collective bargaining. What Corona and collective bargaining have in common is that they are both about sharing the burden. Milennials are so used to moving along when asked, they are so flexible, they do not put up a fight. They simply accept that “free markets” means quick fires and quick fixes. Actually, the opposite is true. Unions have always been a necessary mechanism to make capital markets function, to make sure that workers speak up for themselves in times of need and crisis.

Unions have always been a necessary mechanism to make capital markets function

If you made it this far, employers are still winning. Boomers are still winning. You still work for someone else who does not really know what you actually do. Until of course, they show you the door. The recession is coming... If fired, you will not find a job right away. They are lying to you. You need to speak up and make your company share the burden. Yes, it may be that they held on as long as possible. But always question the line drawn in the sand.

Do you feel an upcoming job loss, or are wondering what you ought to do now?

What can you do?

• Fight for a severance pay that is longer than what you have been offered
• Begin to form company wide communications of others who are concerned; this should be easier over Zoom
• Compare salaries to see what pay cuts are occurring across the board
• Do not accept the lie that this layoff is like others and will result in immediate hires; everyone’s business is contratcing, not just yours. You wlil be unemployed longer than you think.
• Deal with the emotions of grief, anger, and uncertainty
• Organize with others in similar positions to be sure you are being treated fairly

If you have any doubts about your mistreatment, speak to a lawyer immediately

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