There are few signs more capable of ruining a morning than the words: \u201cClosed due to staff shortages.\u201d The offending note was sticky taped to\u00a0the window of our local cafe on Mother\u2019s Day weekend. One of the busiest of the year. There should have been queues out the door.<\/p>\n
The owner later explained they just couldn\u2019t get enough of their casual staff to work. They had a variety of social and family commitments. He was understanding. I tried to be but I couldn\u2019t shake the thought: Back in my day.<\/p>\n
Back then, if you had a job, you worked. You made yourself available. If you\u2019d gone out the night before, you still turned up to your shift. <\/p>\n
I can recall some belting hangovers behind the coffee machine at my local Cibo, counting down the minutes to my break, when I\u2019d nap in my car for 20\u00a0minutes. <\/p>\n
What I remember most though is this: in\u00a0the six years I was there, we never closed because nobody could work. <\/p>\n
Another favourite spot couldn\u2019t open on election day in March, facing the same dilemma. Election day! They were next door to a polling booth. <\/p>\n
The line for coffees would\u2019ve been around the block. Instead, there was another sign stuck to the window. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s not just hospitality. A friend whose family runs an accountancy firm told me they recently interviewed a graduate applicant who requested a four-day week \u2013 on a full-time salary \u2013 before she\u2019d even started. <\/p>\n
Whether that\u2019s audacious or just savvy probably depends which side of 30 you sit on.<\/p>\n
But the days of arriving at a job interview, CV in hand, desperate to impress and willing to start immediately are fading. <\/p>\n
Gen Z is increasingly clear about when they want to work and under what conditions \u2013 and increasingly unapologetic about saying so.<\/p>\n
On an episode of SBS\u2019s Insight, a Gen Z woman explained she finishes work at 1pm every Friday because it\u2019s good for her mental health. <\/p>\n
Around her sat a panel of baby boomers staring in mild disbelief. <\/p>\n
But the more she spoke, the more some started to\u00a0nod. <\/p>\n
This generation has grown up watching work creep into every facet of life. <\/p>\n
They\u2019ve experienced parents answering emails at 10pm. <\/p>\n
They\u2019ve seen millennials hustling endlessly, working through burnout, missing family dinners, skipping holidays and still finding themselves unable to afford a home. <\/p>\n
It seems they\u2019ve looked at that and thought, no thanks. <\/p>\n
A viral Wall Street Journal article labelled gen Z potentially \u201cunemployable\u201d. <\/p>\n
They\u2019ve been derided as lazy, entitled and unreliable \u2013 the same slights once levelled at millennials. <\/p>\n
Doesn\u2019t every generation think the one that comes after it has got it better?<\/p>\n
Perhaps what unsettles older generations is\u00a0that young people are questioning workplace norms many of us accepted without complaint, choosing flexibility and\u00a0their own wellbeing over promotions and overtime. <\/p>\n
How many of us have worked while sick, exhausted or miserable because we were terrified of losing shifts or respect? <\/p>\n
Employers held all the power and young workers were expected to be endlessly grateful for the opportunity. <\/p>\n
But as more businesses struggle to find staff willing to work weekends, public holidays and peak trading days, has the pendulum swung too far the other way? <\/p>\n
There\u2019s something unsettling about walking past thriving businesses on what should be their busiest days \u2026 only to find the lights off. <\/p>\n
Somewhere between \u201cyour job comes before everything\u201d and \u201csorry, I\u2019ve got a party\u201d feels like the\u00a0balance we\u2019re still trying to find.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are few signs more capable of ruining a morning than the words: \u201cClosed due to staff shortages.\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20742,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[395,4959,19831,19836,19832,19823,19824,19825,3162,19822,19834,19829,19826,19821,19835,19833,19827,19828,19830],"class_list":["post-20741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-adelaide","tag-adelaide","tag-baby-boomers","tag-casual-staff","tag-coffee-machine","tag-election-day","tag-family-commitments","tag-graduate-applicant","tag-labelled-gen","tag-mental-health","tag-mild-disbelief","tag-missing-family-dinners","tag-offending-note","tag-peak-trading","tag-polling-booth","tag-staff-shortages","tag-staff-willing","tag-thriving-businesses","tag-workplace-norms","tag-young-workers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20741\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}