August 28, 2023
East Coast Edition — from Starboard Cove, Maine — where the mesmerizing tide ebbs and flows twice each day. Good morning! A good friend is 98 today! Riddle o’ the Day: How many best friends is it possible to have? In a strong wind the seagull often flies backwards but still stays aloft. Since we are coming to you from as far east as it’s possible to come — in the United States, that is — we are providing you with the treat of a summary of a piece that appeared in The Washington Post a few days ago. (Jeff Bezos’s paper, if you’ve forgotten.) We are continuing from last week, providing snippets and editorialized comments for this and the next two (2) editions. Disagree if you must, but think first. For starters, we are hesitant to fall prey to generalizations, but we plead guilty and putter on. There are 8,000,000,000 humans on the planet and each one deserves an unique analysis, but alas, we don’t have time nor the data.
For a culture to survive and thrive it must have collective memories, sustained traditions, and shared experiences.
- What the so-called Generation Z wants in the workplace: (Peterson, 2023)
- (Continued somewhat from last week…)
- “‘What Generation Z wants is to do meaningful work with a sense of autonomy and flexibility and work-life balance — and to work with people who work collaboratively,’
- said Julie Lee, Director of Technology and Mental Health at Harvard Alumni/ae for Mental Health, and an expert on Generation Z health and employment.
- Generation Z is less afraid to ask for the things that everyone else really wants and needs, which sometimes is stereotyped at work as being entitled and narcissistic.
- ‘During the time I entered the workforce, I didn’t feel empowered,’ Lee said. ‘I didn’t feel that I was able to ask for those things.’
- Work places seem to be listening.
- According to several recruiters and hiring managers from companies on the Top Workplaces list,
- Generation Z is making an impact on the way they conduct their jobs and on their office culture, from the significant to the small-bore.
- ‘We started the Generation Z word of the week,’ said Suzanne Hawes, Chief Human Resources Officer at the intellectual property law firm Sterne Kessler
- who says four of her fourteen-person team are Generation Z.
- ‘Every week they’ll present something to me and see if I already know it, and if I don’t already know it they’ll explain it to me…
- and they give me huge kudos when I can use it in a sentence.’
- So far the words have included the fire emoji and the term clout.
- ‘I was like, I know what clout is! But it’s all these new interpretations.’
- Generation Z has been indelibly molded by continuous political and economic upheavals.
- Many of them grew up in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks that led to wars with Iraq and Afghanistan, followed by the Great Recession…
- a global pandemic, demonstrations about racial issues, and a governmental insurrection, to name a few.
- Maintaining trust in authority and the institutions meant to manage society, as a result, can be tough.
- ‘There is this feeling of betrayal,’ admits Kevin Lu, age 23, who wants to work in the burgeoning field of climate technology.
- ‘I feel like so many times continuously throughout this generation’s life, they are promised a certain thing only to get it detoured or pushed back.’
- Billie Gardner, age 24, has already experienced these upheavals personally.
- During her senior year in college, she won a competitive fellowship to work on Joe Biden’s presidential campaign only for the COVIDs to squander all plans and her job.
- She moved back home to Idaho and worked at a Lululemon while she searched for a new job and socialized with friends on the Zooms.
- In early 2021, after applying to different positions for months, Gardner got another fellowship and moved to Washington City
- where she continued to work nights and weekends at a Lululemon outlet to support herself;
- toward the end, she was hired by a nonprofit organization called Represent Us.
- The job paid well and Gardner loved the work, but when donor networks shriveled during the plague she lost her job again.
- ‘I had no idea what I was going to do,’ she said. ‘I called my parents. I was like, “Mom, do I sell this couch I just bought?!”‘
- And yet, despite all the ups and downs, Gardner remains focused on finding a job that aligns with her values, and where she would feel welcome and supported.
- ‘What’s important for me is that not only am I a fit for the job, but is the job a fit for me,’ she said.
- In interviews she paid attention to who was in the room — how many women, how many people of colour — as a clue for the company’s actual commitment to diversity.
- ‘The makeup of the organization is important to me almost as much as the work I’m going to be doing,’ she said.” (Peterson, 2023)
(To be continued next week….)
For more on this topic, check out this quick primer from our friends at McKinsey: Generation Z in the Work Place
This Morning’s Poem
August 23, 2021
By Michael A. Mullin
Do not arrive seeking entertainment.
Come to this place to intimately embrace
a vastness profoundly peaceful.
Be in awe, gently and contentedly so.
Gulls, terns, geese, osprey, crows, and cormorants
live in harmony with the salmon farm and lobster boats.
Breathe.
Marvel at the sensation of seaweed mixed with briny ocean air.
Lanolin breezes caress sensuously.
At its quietest the ocean is never silent.
Listen.
Taste the salt on your tongue, clams freshly dug.
It is not wilderness; human life abounds,
but differently, less frantic.
The sun wrestles the fog, often to a draw.
Lunar tides ceaselessly breathe, pulsate, ebb, flow,
endlessly responding to gravity.
Do not intrude, be the best of guests.
Do not push on nature,
do not wish for it to be different,
hold space for this sacred place,
hold space.
You will be rewarded.
©2021 Michael A. Mullin
