The pandemic-era labor market saw a surplus of workers voluntarily resigning from their careers in search of opportunities that would better benefit them. The economic trend was dubbed "the great resignation" and it has sparked an onset of similar trends, including quiet quitting, in which employees do the bare minimum at work instead of devoting themselves to their jobs.
In short, the great resignation walked so quiet quitting could run. But why are younger generations saying "F it" and following these trends? Aren't you supposed to just go to college, get a degree, and land a good job that will provide you with enough financial stability to buy a home with a white picket fence and your slice of the American Dream? In a viral TikTok video, a fed-up millennial breaks down why "careers are dead."
@averagejoegam3 This has to change. #quietquitting #inflation #truth #millennial #genz #boomer #genx #debate #housingmarket #greenscreen ♬ original sound - Average Joe
In his viral video, TikTok user @averagejoegam3 says the reason why "no one wants to work anymore" is because hard work and a decent job nowadays don't exactly equate to the cushy lifestyle they once did. The TikToker explains that he has been married to his wife for seven years and they have two children. In their seven years together, the couple has come up "the old-fashioned way," struggling, sacrificing, and living paycheck-to-paycheck for a while as they worked toward a joint income of $120,000 a year. He worked his way up at his job while his wife finished college and the pair created a budget plan that would allow them to save around $40,000 over the course of two years to use as a down payment on a house.
After seven years of struggling and "working our a**** off," the TikToker showed a snapshot of the onlyhouse he and his wife could afford in their area with their down payment, good credit, and a joint household income of $120,000 — and let's just say the shack looked like something out of a horror movie.
The fed-up blue-collared man went on to say that he's sick of hearing older generations say that if you really want a good job that makes you valuable to your community, you should just "go to college." (There's that idea again!) Except, the TikToker knows firsthand it hasn't always been that way (and still isn't). When he was growing up, his mother made minimum wage working at the craft store Michael's while his father made just a little bit more than her working as a pressman at a printing company and they lived in a home that is "nowadays probably $600,000." And they were 23 when they did it.
He ends his exasperated video by asking viewers if you have to be a doctor, lawyer, architect, or engineer in order to afford a decent place to live because apparently, any old college degree won't do these days — considering he said earlier in his video that his wife has a degree and their white picket fence looks a bit more like rusty barbed wire.
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