'I'm so upset': This Gen Z worker went absolutely viral for slamming the 9-to-5 work day - Complains it leaves no time for friends, dating, working out. But does she have a point?

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Sabina Wex
Thu, October 26, 2023 at 5:00 PM EDT

Gen Z have officially entered the working world — and they aren’t too excited about it.
New grad Brielle posted a viral TikTok last week that has divided the internet. She explained through tears that her first 9-to-5 role leaves her no time to do anything but eat, sleep and shower. Brielle has to leave the house at 7:30 each morning to commute into New York for her in-office marketing job and doesn’t arrive back until at least 6:15 p.m.

“I’m so upset,” she says in the video, explaining that it’s not her job, just the 9-to-5 schedule itself. “How do you have time for friends? How do you have time to meet a guy?”
Her video blew up online, drawing some sharp responses initially. But many other replies were sympathetic, recalling the difficult first days of settling into a new lifestyle: “I had a crisis when I got my first 9-to-5 job. Literally I couldn’t believe this was life.”
So is Brielle complaining? Or is the 9-to-5 lifestyle really that bad?

40-hour work week​

In a follow-up to her viral video, Brielle explains how she feels about work: “That’s the whole 9-to-5 system: pushing the same rock up the hill.”
Brielle’s not wrong: the 40-hour work week was designed to be Sisyphean. It began in the Industrial Revolution to create schedules for assembly line workers, but in the late 1800s, 70 hours would have been common, says Benjamin Hunnicutt, a historian who studies the history of leisure and work, told NPR.
That was slowly whittled down until the 40-hour week became the norm during the Great Depression until it was enshrined in law in the 1940s. Economists and analysts expected the week would continue to shrink — John Maynard Keynes actually predicted that technological advances could see the workweek shrink to just 15 hours by 2030.
But that never happened. In fact, now, all workers are expected to fit into this assembly line mold — even if they’re working in marketing office jobs, like Brielle.
There has been a push for the four-day work week, which advocates like 4 Day Week Global argue increases worker efficiency. It hasn’t quite caught on in the U.S., but the recent “summer of strikes” has shown that workers of all ages do want to see drastic changes from their employers.

Poor equity​

In another follow-up video, Brielle explains that she wants to see a structural change to the 9-to-5 work schedule because it imposes inflexibility on workers that don’t always make it up the chain of command.
“It’s not fair that the only people that are benefiting [from 9-to-5] are the people that either run the corporations and can make their own schedules, so they just pile on the work to people that are less fortunate,” she says.
And while many would argue those workers are fairly compensated for their time, growing wages simply haven’t kept up with inflation. If you look at the minimum wage, you can see this is true: 1980’s minimum hourly wage was $3.10; today, it’s $7.25. This may sound like a big jump, but inflation means that a dollar in the 1980 is worth $3.68 in today’s purchasing power. If minimum wage accurately reflected inflation and cost of living, it would now be $11.40.
We’ve already seen trends responding to this, including Gen Z’s penchant for what they call “lazy girl jobs,” which require minimal effort while taking in a decent salary. When their paychecks aren’t covering both rent and groceries, it’s not hard to understand why employees are resisting the system.

Work-life balance​

Considering work and her commute take up nearly 11 hours of her day, Brielle has a point when she says she has limited time — and energy — for a social life after work. She adds that it’s even worse if you have kids or any other dependents.
But this lack of life is starting to see pushback from people like Brielle. A recent ResumeLab survey discovered that 73% of Gen Z will pick a job with a better work-life balance over a higher salary.
Brielle’s TikTok sums up the general feelings toward work culture right now. And it appears it’s not just Gen Z who feels this way, with many older workers agreeing with her in their comments. And perhaps these older workers would have said something earlier, but they didn’t have TikTok to share their message far and wide.

 

[MirrorNoir]

Bitch, you have the whole weekend to yourself to socialize/work-out/screw around. I know, sure as hell, you aren't going to Church on Sunday, so what's your excuse for having "no me-time at all"?

One of the things I did when I entered the work force was to basically get jobs working afternoon/evening shifts. Going in at 12/1 PM untl 8/9 PM or work 4-12 PM.

That way I could sleep in and have mornings free to do errands and other stuff before work.

That's the big thing people normally have as far as hating the 9-5 shift. You basically are fucked if you need to go to a bank or post office or DMV or anything that closes early in the afternoon. Especially if you work a job where you don't get a guaranteed lunch break off the clock, so you can rush out and do those things during said lunch break.

I also made sure that scheduling-wise, I get at least one weekday off. Even if it meant giving up a weekend and having to work then.

This women probably took the first job she got offered and didn't bother asking about flexibility in scheduling and what hours were offered.

 

[Nitro!]

I'm sure this thread's going to be swarmed with variations of "suck it up zoomie zoom, I worked 25 hours a day when I was your age!", but she's kind of got a point. When the 40-hour workweek was conceived, it was assumed you would have a wife to take care of the home, with possibly older kids pitching in. Now if you have a spouse at all they have to work too to keep their heads above water, and good luck putting your kids to work without getting CPS and OSHA so far up your ass you'll end up with papercuts on the back of your throat. It's no wonder so many couples are getting divorced these days, the men feel like they're getting a raw deal when they have to go to some shit job and still have to pitch in for at least 50% of the housework, the women feel like they're getting burned because they have to somehow juggle childcare, housework, and having a career. But I somehow doubt any journalist is going to open that particular can of worms.

I fully acknowledge all points in your post while reserving the right to say that marketers aren't people.

 

[The Last Stand]

You're whining about one of the most standard shifts in the West? Try swing shifts. Try nights. For fuck's sake, try 10 or 12 hour shifts.

PL: I work ten hour shifts, which CAN transform into night shifts. That can be exhausting; the trade off is more days off.

Hate to say, but the 9-5 shift IS standard, but would not be enough to get by. That varies from job to job AND the cost of living in America. Hell, I know people that work early mornings based on commute alone.

I made a point about how neither the left or right in America properly understand work culture for their employees' sake. This editorial proves my frustrated point.

There has been a push for the four-day work week, which advocates like 4 Day Week Global argue increases worker efficiency. It hasn’t quite caught on in the U.S., but the recent “summer of strikes” has shown that workers of all ages do want to see drastic changes from their employers.

If you'd want a four-day work week, you'd have to compensate for more working hours or a higher hourly pay.

 

[Overly Serious]

White woman has a cry because life has become so comfortable for her that she needs to create things to cry about. Cunt.

Why does it matter that she's White? Would she not be complaining if she were Black?

Me thinks the social programming is working well on you.

 

[Overly Serious]

You know that's the point of school, right?

Well it's the point of the schools we were sent to.

if anything the switch needs to be longer hours and a permanent switch to hourly pay from salary. tasks need a hard deadline, and a vitality curve to fire everyone who cant hack it.

If you want tasks to have a hard deadline then you need experienced people who have done the job themselves in order to accurately say what the deadline should be. Is that the case anywhere you've worked because it's been a rarity for me. Deadlines are usually set from above before people even have clear requirements! And you want these people setting hard deadlines and firing people who don't meet them? Are you stupid?

True but even with the massive benefit of technology she saw fit to output nothing for almost half a year. Nobody wants an employee that they'll need to assign other (higher paid) employees to babysit to make sure the job is getting done.

It's pretty normal in my industry (and I'm sure others) that new starters pretty much have to have a more experienced, higher paid employee supervising them for at least a couple of months. Even experienced and skilled people can be working somewhere for a few months before they're actually producing meaningful output. Some projects are just that complex.

Unless I were to rent out my current house and then pay rent from that on a lease.

Even there, that's dependent on the situation of actually owning your own house rather than having a mortgage on it. A situation rare for young people. (TBC, I'm not saying you said otherwise. I'm just following on).

EDIT: Blast - double post! Sorry, could have sworn someone else had just posted.

 

[BelUwUga]

It's pretty normal in my industry (and I'm sure others) that new starters pretty much have to have a more experienced, higher paid employee supervising them for at least a couple of months. Even experienced and skilled people can be working somewhere for a few months before they're actually producing meaningful output. Some projects are just that complex.

I probably could have done better delineating supervising and babysitting. Obviously you can't expect someone to do something technical/sophisticated that they simply don't know. Depending on complexity it might really be something that requires 1:1 supervision where the supervisor really is doing nothing else. Far more common is a 1:many supervision situation or the supervisor has additional workload. Especially for entry level positions that don't require experience. Generally speaking tasks will be assigned in ways where even if the trainee hits a roadblock they have something else they can readily switch to until they get the needed clarification. Supervision becomes babysitting when someone in the latter situation chooses to behave like it is the former. They should have confidence that you don't need direct eyes on your every action for you to be on-task.

While getting a job directly related to her major should be a priority, sitting around and waiting on it to happen is signalling they might be the kind of one-track mind that will need babysitting. It shouldn't be 100% effort put into applications and simply waiting to hear back. Something like 70% into those applications, 15% into follow-ups, and 15% into making something happen is a more practical way to split the effort. Like dating, there isn't much that's less attractive than desperation. You can make your intentions/desires clear but its simply bad marketing to signal something is your only option. Best case FOMO hits and lights a fire under their ass. In any case they know you're unlikely to be strung along.

E.G. I had two interviews for an ideal position out of college. I was following up and while it seemed promising, they weren't in any hurry to make a decision. Meanwhile another decent optportunity came up that was less ideal but more than adequate. Downside is I was gone immediately and would only have communications access about once a week. I was honest with the first place, I didn't pressure them, and I made it clear while they were my preference I couldn't give up the bird in my hand for two that might be in the bush. Guess who came back with an offer ASAP?

 

[oh no its pipkun]

PL: I work ten hour shifts, which CAN transform into night shifts. That can be exhausting; the trade off is more days off.

Hate to say, but the 9-5 shift IS standard, but would not be enough to get by. That varies from job to job AND the cost of living in America. Hell, I know people that work early mornings based on commute alone.

I made a point about how neither the left or right in America properly understand work culture for their employees' sake. This editorial proves my frustrated point.

If you'd want a four-day work week, you'd have to compensate for more working hours or a higher hourly pay.

cali has an 8hr daily overtime law. as expected, no one makes enough money at 1 job and has to work 2 or more to make ends meet. this shit wont ever pan out because every shitty worker thinks theyre employee of

If you want tasks to have a hard deadline then you need experienced people who have done the job themselves in order to accurately say what the deadline should be. Is that the case anywhere you've worked because it's been a rarity for me. Deadlines are usually set from above before people even have clear requirements! And you want these people setting hard deadlines and firing people who don't meet them? Are you stupid?

It's pretty normal in my industry (and I'm sure others) that new starters pretty much have to have a more experienced, higher paid employee supervising them for at least a couple of months. Even experienced and skilled people can be working somewhere for a few months before they're actually producing meaningful output. Some projects are just that complex.

look at past performance and make estimates. reasonable or not, you do it that way or get replaced. 1 company doing it would be suicide but if everyone did it, tough cookie.

 

[Chuck McGill]

I used to work with this guy who was pretty much the definition of that shit. The shift at that place was supposed to be 8-4:30 with possible overtime if all the jobs weren't finished. That dude worked 8-6 Monday to Saturday every week all because he hated going home to his wife and kid. He was pretty much in love with the receptionist and would get all flirty and shit with her all the time but if his wife called or the few times his wife and kid showed up at work he'd get so miserable. It's not like she was unattractive or anything and the few times I met her she seemed nice. But he just did not want to go home he fucking hated it.

We literally were forced to give up WFH because boomers realized that no one would willingly be in a room with them unless they're being paid for it.

 

[Quijibo69]

One of the things I did when I entered the work force was to basically get jobs working afternoon/evening shifts. Going in at 12/1 PM untl 8/9 PM or work 4-12 PM.

I love the Afternoon shifts! Morning shifts make me feel like all I am doing is sleeping and working.

 

[Jason Wynn]

Used to do clerical work for an office that tested construction equipment. Aside from the usual expected duties like answering/transferring phone calls, booking appointments, servicing printers/fax machines etc my main duties consisted of archiving and collating the handwritten daily test logs from the employees testing the equipment. Extremely easy job that took maybe two hours to do if I worked slowly. Boss lady was astonished I finished my tasks so early that I would get paid to sit out the rest of my shift reading and listening to music while answering the occasional phone call. Apparently my predecessors would take the entire shift, sometimes more to finish a task that could be accomplished in a quarter of that time.

I get this chick’s issue, pointless busy time in a work setting could be better spent elsewhere. I’m also an older millennial though raised by boomer parents and I have that “if you can earn money in any way possible don’t squander the opportunity” mentality ingrained into me. I’d rather get paid to read a novel after my work is done than spend that free time trying to chat up some drunk loser in a nightclub trying to get laid. I still had/have plenty of time for friends and family on my days off working a 9-5 as well. I get her point, but it also sounds like she needs to learn how to manage her time better as well.

 

[Miriam Margoyles]

And no need to gues she might hate that vlog from Black Conservative Perspective.

I mean, maybe this is just me, but I genuinely couldn't give less of a fuck about this dude's worthless opinion.

There's something that really sticks in my craw about one of these YouTube grifters who make money with ragebait titles and thumbnails with 'FEMINIST REALITY CHECK' in big red letters, accompanied by them making a smug face, lecturing others about what is and isn't a real job.

 

[VargReallyDidNothingWrong]

All the ones that speak English.

Which first world countries other than America speak English?

 

[Iron Jaguar]

Which first world countries other than America speak English?

That's a trick question - Americans don't speak English.

 

[VargReallyDidNothingWrong]

That's a trick question - Americans don't speak English.

Are you going to answer the question or just slither around like an eel?

 

[Skeletonized Cow]

Which first world countries other than America speak English?

Ireland.

Also, I hate this woman. She works in some fucking marketing job where she can probably spend 2/3rds of her time on her phone, if not more, in an air-conditioned office that allows her to sit on her ass the whole time. I worked 10 hour days, 6 days a week in sub-zero conditions (less than -18 for all you centigrade cucks) when I first started working. All on my feet, and all hauling around 30, 40, 50 pounds of equipment and material the entire shift except for our 10 minute breaks. And I still made things work, even as a single man living alone with the hour/way commute I was stuck with at the time.

I get that this might be a little bit of sour grapes seething, but this fucking tiktok thot has an enormously easy job compared to what I was doing at her age. Like, there as never this kvetching of my fellows beyond the usual "God, I fucking hate this place" that would be said near the beginning of every shift. It's terribly hard to have sympathy for her when I've seen the first glimmers of what it means to be in a truly shitty situation, and she's far and away in an outrageously easy place in life.

Not to mention how much of her situation is self-inflicted by moving to New Jersey and no doubt refusing to settle for "anything other than the best that she as a strong, independent, girlboss deserved!"

 

[Big Brown Schlub]

I'll be brutally honest, my only 9-5 job was probably the second easiest job I had but I fucking hated the hours. I actually preferred the times when I worked at a warehouse in the early morning shift (6-2) or the afternoon shift at my car lot job during uni (1-9). It always somehow felt like I had more free time to do shit and the 9-5 shift discouraged me to do anything in the morning because I'm supposed to prepare for work and when I came home at half past 5 I felt like i didn't have enough time to relax. Even now that I'm self-employed I usually start work as soon as I wake up around 7 or if I have a bunch of errands to run I postpone it until 2pm and then work the entire afternoon.

 

[Mordecai "3 Finger" Brown]

The 12 hour shifts in the hospital really are fucking murder. I'm often amazed more patients don't die on a regular basis just due to fatigue of the staff.

I used to work with surgeons who would have full slate surgery schedules beginning after a 24-hour overnight call shift.

These were scheduled surgeries, not emergent ones.

And I'm talking "I haven't slept in 26 hours and I now have my hands in your abdominal cavity" surgeries.

Just another example that informed consent is absolute BS IRL.

 

[gorgoroth7134]

I can understand the frustration, but crying about it online and demand the world change for you is demented. Hope her company sees it and lets her go.

 

[Mr. Zed da Robot Poon Fed]

Feels like a lot of the jobs I had didn't need to be eight hours long, they could pay double for half as much time and get the same labor. Four twelve hour shifts might have worked in some cases too. Takes vision and courage to break paradigms.

It does seem like there’s a ton of padtime in people’s work to be working eight hours a day.

I would honestly recommend to women that the trad wife route is the way to go for women who are that susceptible to stress and mental anguish. The problem is that this economy, along with the current social norms, doesn’t allow it.

At the same time, men need to not be simps and subscribing to OnlyFans and being stepfathers to children in order to have women think twice about who they lay with and who they have children with/marry.

 

[Otterly]

She’s fairly annoying but she does have a few points. Yes our work structure is soul destroying.

It's genuinely one of the biggest problems I have with boomers: they live as if the world today was the exact same as the world when they were young adults and are intent on not changing anything until it's too late or affects them negatively.

The boomers I know are a mix. My parents are boomers and I know they’re always saying to me ‘I don’t know how you do it with job and kids, and all the email and 24/7 being reachable - it was so different in our day.’ They’re very aware of the differences. And some of those are positive and some negative - they certainly worked hard, and they didn’t have much money. Very few consumer luxuries, no holidays past a week in a caravan at the coast. But they had a house and a car, and we were fed and clothed. There was no competition past the local unless you moved down to London. When you clocked off for the day you were off. A wage could support a wife at home.
Maybe it’s different in America but they grew up with rationing still, and a lot of places bombed out, and parents injured in the war. The post war boom took a while to get going and it was mainly London - the northern cities were still just ‘right, back down the pit with you! Oh wait no we will close them, no jobs now…’

This why women graduate college and go strait to marrying a man with a good career and become "stay at home moms" .

Very few do these days. Very few jobs in the uk allow you to support a wife and kids in one wage.

Elderly voting blocs defend social security and medicaid that they didn't earn, don't deserve and which is unsustainable. We have to cut the parasites off before the host is killed. As soon as the elderly are outvoted we're ending their benefits and instituting mandatory euthanasia. They can bootstrap themselves out of the grave since it works so well.

We will be old too one day. The social contract is that you work when you’re young and you pay in, then when you’re old we look after you. In the uk that generation has paid in - national insurances and taxes, and they deserve their pensions. They rebuilt the country after the war. I am ok with them having what they have. I think here is very different to America in that sense