The #CareerGeneration

I have always wanted to invent a buzzword, so use this one as often as possible so it may spread like wildfire.
During a social event last night I realized something interresting, and that was that my generation is very career driven. So much so, in fact, that we tend to eschew social events in order to work longer and harder than the rest of the people at the office so that we may distinguish ourselves from our colleagues.
I believe that this is due to the rollmodels that we had on TV, where the wealthy people were always at the office, ignoring their friends and family in favour of getting that last deal through. This illusion, combined with the popular myth that wealth in fact makes us happier, has lead to an entire generation of us being so involved with work that we don’t realize that it is in fact our employers who need us. We are so scared of losing our precious jobs that we don’t complain about overtime, we go to the office over weekends and generally just accept that working through Christmas is part of our lives.
The direct result of this an entire generation of people who work 14+ hours a day just because we somehow believe that this will help us to get better promotions or larger salaries. The truth is that the companies don’t notice this, in fact, it would appear that they don’t notice anything at all we do. I knew a guy who was working with me in Sales at a large IT distribution comany a few years back, and while I was working my butt off to make targets (Averaging 70% of total company turnover) he was idling by playing solitaire and making about 3% of company turnover. Now in a sales team of 5 that is saying something. When I finally decided that I’d had enough of them screwing me on my commission and tendered my resignation I came to learn that he was earning more than me (His commission statement was on the MD’s desk at the time) and doing absolutely nothing for the company. The sad truth is, that in most cases, being a slacker who knows how to talk smoothly, trumps hard work each time. And us, the “Career Generation” are never going to get ahead until we learn that hard work never pays in a company environment. The only people who get anywhere at all with hard work are the people who have their own businesses. If you work for someone, the harder you work, the better you line their pockets.

I made this observation last night, because… I am awesome!