Gen Z and real world. Dolly Parton may have said it first (good job, sister), but now a college graduate has tearfully taken to TikTok to complain about how difficult it is to transition from education to the world of work, especially the chaos of maintaining a 9-to-5 job.
Brielle posted a video with the following text on the screen: Question of the day: How do you make time for your life in a 9-5 job? She continues to complain that since landing her first full-time job after graduating from university, the daily commute (and grind) of taking the train at 7.30am and returning home around 6.15pm at the earliest leaves her with little time to cook or go to the gym.
“I don’t have time to do anything,” she sobs. “I want to take a shower, eat my dinner and sleep. I don’t have the time or energy to cook my dinner. I don’t have the energy to do sports, so it’s like that job was passed on to me.”
Now, I don’t want to get into millennial rhetoric like “in my time” or “you think these are difficulties”, but Generation Z thinks they are having difficulties… because they are. And I’m not going to lie: it’s not going to get any better. Once you get on the money train, you don’t get off forever. I am sad. But it’s time to be a little hard-hearted.
What I would say to Brielle and others like her is this: you have to make it work for you for your sanity. You have little choice but to embrace the rat race; Use your commute to read, think, or catch up on all those WhatsApp messages you missed while lying in bed after work staring blankly at the latest season of Selling Sunset on Netflix, until the inevitable embarrassing message from your own television attempts an intervention: “Still are you watching?” (For this you press “OK”, you always press “OK”.)
There’s no way around these things, so you just have to dive into it. Figure out how you’ll incorporate exercise into your day (if that’s your thing, definitely not mine): walk to the office, for example, or get off the train a few stops earlier and run the rest of the way. Instead of stuffing sushi into your mouth at your desk, go for a run on your lunch break (maybe start a running club). Take a walk (and breathe) around the block.
Use your weekends: trust me. But don’t fall into the trap of thinking you need to use it to tire yourself out more if you don’t feel like it. If all you want to do is keep watching Chrishell fight with Nicole, then I have nothing to say to that (just try to do a few loads of laundry when you get up for snacks). Take care of yourself (in the way that feels best to you) because you’re an adult now baby and no one is going to do that for you.
How do I know how this sounds to you? I know, beautiful girl, and I can tell you how I do things if it helps. Half of feeling better is about feeling heard, validated, and understood… so let me tell you, I get it.
I wake up at 6.30am, fighting five alarms and tiny legs hitting my face like a tiny, immovable and wet Beckham. I share my bed (forcibly) with a seven-year-old boy, who comes in whenever he wakes up: it could be 10pm, it could be 2am, or he can sleep until that nasty first (snooze) ring. Usually he wets his bed so it spreads to mine so I deal with that first. Then: I drag my legs to the edge of my “pregnancy pillow” (I’m not pregnant, I just feel old and sore), I throw my legs over the edge of the bed, pausing for a moment to gather the threads of dreams and inevitable fear.
I have to move and I have to be fast. You ask why? Because I have to leave the house in less than an hour or I’ll be late for the press conference. This means that in the next 45 minutes I have to: wash, dry and dress the two children; washing, drying and dressing myself; packing lunches; collecting various artifacts like the valuable remains of an archaeological dig: today is Monday, so physical education! Or Tuesday, then forest school. We just lost all the boots and a fox ran away with only one of the spares so we are using last year’s too small school shoes as a last resort. There’s a knock on the door and I greet my ex-husband as he takes the kids to breakfast at school so I can rush to the bus.
Here’s what was going on behind the scenes while we went on (making Biscoff bagels with sprinkles for one kid, chocolate chip muffins for another, Marmite sandwiches, taking coffee intravenously on a stomach that would be empty until 3pm): all the national newspapers (and other tangents). frantically, rapidly reading (the latest social media gossip), scrolling through Google trends.
All the while, I’m reading, scrolling and listening to Nick Robinson on Radio 4. My brain is spinning as I listen to politicians say unthinkable things, methodically identify the day’s big news, chat with colleagues (on Slack and WhatsApp) about what’s popular, what’s new, and what Britney is doing this time around. I immediately direct my mind in scattered beams to suitable writers (and check Twitter for those who haven’t yet caught up in my assignment network). I wish people would do what I do: wake up, see a trending story, and submit an offer to be the first to write it.
When I left the house, I talked to five reporters, contacted reliable people on WhatsApp who I knew could deliver an article in a few hours (or I could write it myself on the way to work, as I do now), applied my bright red lipstick in the hallway mirror, kissed the children, told them I loved them, and fed the cat. , I took my business card, hung it around my neck, took one last sip of my coffee and left the house, letting the door slam behind me as I ran to the bus. I’m late, I’m always late. Today is Monday. The beginning of the work week. It’s only 07.30 in the morning.
This is a difficult situation. “How do you find time for your life?” I wish I knew the answer, but in the meantime, here’s some advice: find the way that works for you. Stop washing the dishes. Open the Selling Sunset program. Take what works and leave the rest (and trust me: you need the rest).
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