As an early 90’s millennial, I’ve never noticed a “gen z stare” as described in news articles like a “blank face that shows lack of social skill or ability to think”. The only times I’ve witnessed it happen and seen the older person accuse them of “gen z stare” is when the older person says something off hand or dumb but isn’t self aware enough to realize they’re being weird. Hell, I’ve given people a blank face countless times because I was taught it was better to say nothing at all sometimes. Especially when it came to talking to older people at work.
I remember when I was 16, some middle aged guy at work accused me of having no personality. In reality, I kept all conversations short as possible with him (like almost everyone in the store) because they were casually racist and misogynistic.
No, 10 years. I have dealt with all the crap you are whining about. I worked for ‘poverty wages’ until I was in my mid 30s. And yet I never felt I was in poverty… weird. Maybe because I didn’t expect to travel, to party, and to own the latest electronic gadgets… because yeah any wage is a poverty wage when you spend more than you make, and you don’t save and invest.
It’s hard to take pride in your work when you’re whiny, entitled, and refuse to take responsibility for yourself, yes. I worked customer service jobs since i was 14, they are ridiculously easy and bare minimum effort. They are not hard back-breaking work, nor are they cognitively demanding. Acting like it’s some heroic difficult job to sling coffee or sell clothes is just sad and disrespectful to people who actually have difficult jobs.
I am so sick of being told to have ‘empathy’ for entitled lazy people who think they are owed a six figure job for doing the bare minimum. I’m glad you think life is so ‘hard’ for them. I don’t. I am not very far removed and I interact with them regularly and a lot of them are just lazy entitled nitwits, a lot of them just depended on the bank of mom and dad. I was help paying family bills at the age of 16 and many of them are still in their 20s and 30s, financially dependent on their parents. It’s pathetic. Nobody owes them anything. They have to go otu and actually make an effort… and funnily enoguh… the gen z kids I know who are making an effort at life… are succeeding and happy. They get jobs, promotions and move up the ladder. They save rather than spend recklessly and they invest and they… become financaily stable and independent?
Nobody is going to become financially successful or independent when they take their 40-50K a year job and blow 10-20K of it on ubereats, traveling, and boozing. But boy do the people who do do that love to whine about hard and unfair and awful life is.