Brane Space: Gen Z'er Cries On Tik Tok About No Free Time After Work

Gen Z'er at wit's end over so little time after work

Tik Tok videos are grabbing lots of clicks (mainly away from blogs like mine!) and one which recently caught my attention has gone viral. It’s from a young woman - location unknown - who poses a "question of the day" (qotd): In a 9-5 job how do you have time for your life? Well, uh, newsflash, you don't. See that's the trade off made in the typical American job, your time exchanged for money - like to pay your rent, your groceries, your car, whatever. Including school loans.

In the case of this poor kid, she wails because she has to get a 7:30 train to work each morning and doesn't get back until 6:15 p.m. Whereupon she finds out she has barely enough energy to get a shower and go to bed but not enough to even cook or work out. So what's a Gen Z person to do? Well, spend less time on Tik Tok for one!

Seriously, in my first job (at 20) - at an oil company in New Orleans - I had to be at work at 7:45 a.m. and usually didn't get back to my apartment uptown until 5:30 pm. And that was assuming I got the next St. Charles Avenue street car when I left. Most days I didn't so it was 6:00 p.m. when I got back. What did I do then? Well I popped a Swanson TV dinner in the oven and gobbled it down with a coke, while watching some TV - usually 'Laugh In'. Did I have time to go on Tik Tok and moan and groan? No, because thankfully it didn't exist then.

She also complains she "lacks the energy" to work out, but I always found just enough energy to lift weights (I had purchased a set at Sears) and always in the evening before having dinner. I usually lifted for a half hour, using various weights into small dumbbells, and large ones in squats as well as assorted lifts, presses etc. I maintain if I could find the time, she can too.

She does have a point regarding the American work scene being unforgiving in terms of allotting ample time for quality of life. The general template of the "8 hour day" in fact has barely changed since the 1930s New Deal. It only slightly relented - with a few exceptions - during the pandemic. As for remote work, yes it did allow more flexibility - as during the pandemic - but the bosses want workers back in the cubicles now. So yes, it's a drag. But with few exceptions (tenured professors, successful writers, techie whizzes) it has always been thus.

But what is also true is that the majority of American work is "drone level" with little self-satisfaction. And we know when work is enjoyed "it doesn't feel like work." Alas, for the bulk of working age Americans the opposite is true: every minute feels like drudgery and clock watching is the main pastime to get to the end of the day. Is it good that so many are buried in drone-life? No!

The Utilitarian economist Jeremy Bentham once noted that the happiness of a given society is maximized when its utilities are maximized. That means ALL of its people, not just a few at the top, able to exercise their talents to their maximum potential. In the words of Bentham:

"The more nearly the actual proportion approaches to equality, the greater will be the mass of happiness"

Because resources, i.e. money, ensure one's talents can acquire the choices to be used in the most able ways then, Bentham argued, the greatest happiness is assured when the distribution of the resources to support the development of talents are nearly equal. If 10 million men or women wish to become fulfilled artists or poets, then they can, or if they wish to be writers, or builders. But... the resources must be provided to them.

We have drone jobs basically because in the U.S. we have winner take all markets. These markets - according to the authors of the book, The Winner Take All Society - sustain distorted processes for participation that allow only a few real winners in the best jobs, with the best incomes. The others who participate (the majority) do so to enrich the spoils for the few winners, while they (majority drones - like Tik Tok girl) come away with scraps.

The classic case is the newly- minted fiction author. In the 1990s, early 2000s this was an abiding aspiration especially for many of those (mainly men, age 50 and older) who had been downsized from corporate jobs. Alas, their need for an income- earning novel, despite many works being of decent quality- fell victim to two forces: 1) the massive mergers of many small, independent book publishers into a few huge entities, e.g. the mega growth of Bertelsmann AG, and 2) the smashing success of the 'Harry Potter' books, which essentially "ate up" all the disposable income available to purchase other novels. The result? Winner take all, namely Potter author J.K. Rowling:

Becoming a billionaire while the tens of thousands of would-be novelists ended up getting the dregs, or maybe not even that. The cruelest aspect is that many critics agreed Ms. Rowling's writing wasn't even that good ("I've seen fourth grade students who write better!" was one comment I often seen, like in Quora) but the hype was enough to drive sales to the top. The first movie deal then ensured the success of the rest of her books, no matter what. Meanwhile, other fiction authors - many excellent - languished, because all the dollars were chasing Rowling's books.

This brings us to the "seasonal" Amazon worker Heike Geissler, whose book (Seasonal Associate) - - relating her inside experience of one fulfillment center (in Leipzig, Germany)- ought to be required reading. By all rights, given her writing ability, Geissler shouldn't have had to labor away at an Amazon fulfillment center anywhere. In a world based on rewarding actual quality and merit, rather than winner -take -all victors who benefit from similar processes and markets, she should have been sitting pretty with a least a million euro in the bank.

Instead we learned that after years of living hand-to-mouth on freelancer checks and translator assignments, and with two kids to raise, she was forced to take the Amazon job because she needed the money. As she relates the situation: (p. 5)

"You do get child benefits for the two boys, you can pay your bills, but unfortunately they don't get paid on time...you have to take the first job that comes up and get money in the bank."

She had the option of applying for welfare, of course, but like here in the U.S. there were way too many hoops to jump through and besides - as a proud German- she had her pride. So it was Amazon or bust. In the Afterword to Ms. Geissler's eye-opening book, Kenneth Vennemann writes:

"Heike plays with these insidious euphemisms, the barefaced lies of 'flat hierarchies' and 'special handling'. Hence the ugly title, SEASONAL ASSOCIATE, the word associate here so far removed from the idea of partnership and sharing that it makes me snort with cynical laughter."

Well, it made me snort in the same way when I read Heike's book, i.e. of having to earn money from being an Amazon tote drone. Of course, there are hundreds of variations on the theme of 'working for Amazon' which anyone can find by Googling. Sob stories galore, and many of which do elicit sympathy for the those who found themselves in this behemoth's grip. Much as many might have sympathy for the Tik Tok Gen Z girl. But I suspect though Gen Z girl has shed tears for her drab, all-consuming (to her) work life, they can't compare to Heike's being pushed to the limit.

Indeed, reading Heike's account you are right there with her as she has to work at the receiving end, unpacking boxes and entering products into the system. Also, consuming half of her lunch break time just getting to and from the company cafeteria. Sounds like a piece of cake? Well it wasn't. It was sheer numbing hell for the weeks she spent during one holiday season. As she describes one particularly harsh day of drudgery (p. 100):

"You replace the Band Aids on your hands. Your thumbs, forefingers, middle fingers on both hands now have long hangnails from all the reaching into totes and boxes and from cutting and folding cardboard. Harmless irritations but they make every movement harder."

Reading the book one has the takeaway that Heike is no dummy but college- educated and an accomplished writer to boot. In some ways, Geissler is an atypical Amazon warehouse worker, at least culturally. And yet, in the most important way, she appears exactly like every other Amazon warehouse worker: How many others in the Amazon maze ought to actually be in much better jobs, say if there were no winner take all markets?

We don't know but we do know most are in the same position as our Tik Tok girl, pining for time to enjoy life outside of work but not getting it. What are the options to change this state of affairs? Part time work? Or maybe a job nearer to her apartment so less commuting is involved.

These are decisions she will have to make, and then act on what she decides. The choice then is to remain with the status quo and be miserable, or opt to change directions for success.

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