I started noticing something a while ago, but I couldn't quite figure out what it was. These Millennials, some of them, were different (when I refer to 'Millennials' from this point forward, I am referring to these ones).
Young and full of vigor, they really liked to work out. Push themselves to the limit. I saw it first in the gym, I guess. There was a thing called 'Spinning' where a group of them would get on stationary bicycles and get coached through a intense workout by a group leader. Getting all hot and sweaty, out of breath, and fully loaded with adrenaline was the payoff. Cardio to the Nth power- but not cardio done solo. Much better to be in a group.
I also saw this odd performance ethic in the mudder phenomenon I wrote about earlier, where they happily volunteered for a version of military boot camp. This was something no 'slacker' from the 70's would ever do, which I was- but I was not alone in my slacker mentality. Working out and jogging were things that relatively few people did back then, these actions were not yet mainstream (think of Forrest Gump beginning the jogging phenomenon by leaping off of the porch and deciding spur of the moment to run) nor were they seen as overly beneficial. Since then my attitude has changed, I see the benefit in working out and do so strenuously but still not at a level that Millennials would find acceptable. There is a point where I say "Enough!" but for them that is the point where they dig in deeper and push through 'The Wall'' to get to the other side. Rarified air there indeed! The prize, once gained, is known only to them for I can only imagine it.
Millennials choice in hairstyle and accessories puzzled me next. Lots of them seemed to fancy short hair. Not quite military short, but management short. The types of hairstyles a manager would sport. A businessman. Their glasses were throwbacks to the fifties, the kind Mr. Whipple used to wear ("Don't squeeze the Charmin!"). Strange as well, they dressed conservatively. Their attitudes were not the laid back "Wha's Sup?" that I grew up around, where casual and unhurried was the rule. Here it was something different. Time was definitely on these folks' minds. They seemed as obsessed about it as any high school principal.
The internet provided some clues. There was a lot of talk about 'life hacking', where clever ones exposed the truth(!) about day to day life processes and how much time they stole from you. Did you not want that extra time? Of course you did! Follow our lifehack and eliminate that which is unnecessary! Be more productive!
"In every thing that you do?" wondered I, for I didn't understand what was wrong with doing some things the old way.....
...but boy was that ever prehistoric thinking! Maximizing every moment seemed to be the new mantra floating around, an unwritten rule to be followed, obeyed even. It was there, underlying everything. Food was 'fuel', to exercise was to undergo a 'performance workout', your education level was measured in the number of 'skill sets' you had, on and on.
Hot dog! Back at work!
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I didn't realize it, but all of us, those long at The Game or new to it, were now in serious competition with each other, on every level, for every thing. Gulp! Guess I shoulda seen that coming. These Millennials were not like the people I grew up around, the ‘live and let live’ kind. These guys and gals were out for all the marbles and woe to the losers on the playground but even the Millennials occasionally suffered defeat at the hands of ones more capable, which was alright. Which was just. Which was fair. The way it should be. Those that died on the competitive battlefield had put up a fight, but they had died with honor!
Had we all been suddenly turned into Klingons? Apparently so.
I can't ever say a 'slacker', which I or those in my generation didn't even know we were, ever ‘died with honor’ through losing at some aspect of The Game though, 'cuz we ain't the kind to think anything is so very important, but compared to these Navy Seal corps d’elite, these Army Ranger upper crust, these highly trained, specialized, multitasking, frickin' ninjas, whoa! Somehow, somewhen, The Game had changed and these Stormtrooper people had suddenly and without warning crested the hill and caught a lot of us elders off guard. Where the hell did they come from?
In order to find out I looked at tech culture, especially at the culture of start-up tech companies. Oh man! Those cats expected their workers to operate at superhuman levels of performance and take no prisoners when it came to company dedication. Sure, the workers- the 'talent'- were driven, a lot of them, by the prospect of hitting it big like their leaders had. They assumed they would ride whatever company wave they were on to their reward, as if that was somehow destined, due to their being on the inside, ripe with connections and spinoff potential, start up potential, but I had to wonder, when I saw the ghosts around their leaders, if such wasn't really the case.
Lenin and Marx, Chairman Mao, Stalin, various members of royal houses from ages past, the land barons and industrialists of the early twentith century, and other notorious figures were standing near these tech leaders and marveling at what was occurring. The buzz going around all these nonphysical entities was that they had tried to sell the masses on their particular systems, which had also promised the world to their workers, but eventually what they preached didn't satisfy. How were the tech guys doing it?
The tech guys were selling the same old thing in an almost unrecognizable yet seemingly fresh format, and the gullible were snarfing it up voraciously. Hook, line, and sinker, as they say. A glorified work ethic was what I had been witnessing all along, something so far out of the realms of believability that I had been unable to see it. The same old thing was being presented in a reinvented package, and even more compelling, it was up to the nanosecond New and Improved! Work was not something to run away from, it was something to run towards! Dedication to the workplace now approached religious fervor. Living conditions for the worker bees were horrible, yet seen as necessary and acceptable! Housing was prohibitively expensive, any chance at social life was being sacrificed, competition was ruthless, the understanding was winner takes all, and these bees were loving it! The tech guys had sold the impossible!
Eight a.m. or eight p.m.? Who cares?! We are fascinated with these graphs and pie charts!
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Gig economy. No loyalty expected from the company. Forty hour weeks were for lightweights. Why, the bees were all mercenaries, as if they'd en masse volunteered for The French Foreign Legion.
They were compartmentalized, individualized, frenzied members of what we in the 70's called The Rat Race and wanted nothing whatsoever to do with. How had this ultimate Management Miracle been accomplished?
If these bees in tech were so smart, smarter people had outsmarted them, which was to be expected and was of course seen as perfectly acceptable. The buzzwords and catch phrases in tech that are commonly used to motivate workers also serve to neutralize or downplay any potential rebellion or resistance.
It's as if some super clever management guy started a new religion. He took the ingredients of the times- the workout performance culture, the lifehacking phenomenon, people's insatiable appetite for experiences (which costs great deals of money), the prospect of making a pile of dough in a short period of time, the ethical acceptability of unbounded personal wealth accumulation, and voila! An army of worker bees, preprogrammed to pit themselves against each other and the clock in order to hit it big, totally ready to subject themselves to early burnout, arrives on cue clamoring to gain entrance, chanting "Thank God It's Monday!".
Talk about conditioning- this is a throwback to working long hours at the mill six days a week and only getting Sundays off!
(FYI Millennials-You don't need to lifehack if you're pullin' a forty hour week).