This piece is a bit vague on what it intends to accomplish. I am technically a Millennial, on the cusp of being a Gen X. My husband is Boomer. The work ethic between is is not very different, but the expectations of the work environment are.
A reason I do not feel we are to far apart on what we want out of work is the fact that he works in a union. He is well compensated for his time with reasonable benefits, time off, has a strictly enforced job description. This is nothing more than what I wished out of my own employer, but have found that this ‘bare minimum’ expectation is rarely met by employers. I am not union, I have often been asked to do more than what I agreed to do when I hired on. For reasons ranging from short staffing to ‘restructuring’, I have often been required to take on more work than is reasonable, missed promised brakes, had my on call day abused as a mandatory over time that I am frequently not entirely compensated for appropriately due to the law requiring compensation to only be provided after I hit the 40+ hour mark. I am used at the discretion of the company by them being able to low census me and therefore cut my pay. Even at my current job, which has been the fairest place I have ever worked, they are constantly screwing with my time. Example: We use to have a call day once a month. We are on call to our patients for questions but also if a patient with very time specific needs was coming out of the hospital we would also have to admit. An admit is easily a quarter or half a day of work...and this would be in addition to the fact that we would have already worked our 8 hour day. But we would get time and a half pay for this and we really only did these admissions if it was absolutely necessary, as our employer had incentive to NOT want us to do an after hour admit due to having to pay us time and a half. I am suppose to work 8am-4:30pm. Anything done on call after 4:30 was time and a half. Now, under the guise of lessening our work load, we only work half a day when we are on call. But instead of our day starting at 8am we are suppose to start at 12pm and thus we get paid regular pay until 8:30pm. So now we are getting less compensation and being required to work evenings (which was not the agreement I signed on for) and the employer has less incentive to make sure that these after hour admits have timed after hours needs that REQUIRE a nurse to see them in the evening. Now management feels because they “gave us” only half a day of work we should be willing to admit any patient coming home no matter if it is truly needed to be done in the evening or not.
What does my employer get out of this new arrangement? They don’t have to pay me overtime and get to admit more patients to increase their bottom line because they no longer have incentive to be concerned if the person coming out of the hospital has time specific needs or not. I will be available for the admit because I “only” had half a day scheduled. What do I get? Less compensation and an increased guarantee that I will be working very late into the evening at least once a month because my employer no longer has incentive to ensure that admits that could wait to regular operating hours are done during regular operating hours. I have no recourse as I do not work for a union. I only have a choice to leave or be agreeable to getting screwed. This is the biggest difference to me between Boomers and Millennials. Boomers had such a competitive workforce that they were willing to bend over to every employer need, and they had to if they wanted to support their family. Unions decreased and the power of the employee dwindled and Boomers still needed to bring home a paycheck no matter how bad they got screwed, and they got screwed. Most of them have no retirement, were let go a few years shy of their full retirement benefits, and were basically used up and spat out for the benefit of the top earners in the company.
So thank you Boomers for supporting us as children even though you got utterly screwed. But what Millinnals know is that the workforce is smaller. We have more power than you did, and our time is just as precious as yours was back in your prime, but we have the leverage to get what we want (what you wanted back in the day) and we will get it or we will leave.
Businesses have abused/enslaved the workforce long enough. I, just as much as a Boomer did 20 years ago, deserve to have a decent paying job with benefits and employers who do not abuse my time, the only difference between Boomers and Millinnials is that the workforce is shrinking and thus we have more power to get what we deserve than Boomers did. If I were a Boomer that would kind of irritate me too, but get over it and come over to outside. You will get paid better and have more time to be with your family if you do.
