Those Darn Millennials

Guess who's back. Back again. Steiny's back. Tell a friend.

It's me. I'm who's back.

At Rock Fest, one of  my Fest friends made a surprising revelation to me. She shared with me that she had followed this blog for a while, and had actually tried looking for it when I stopped publishing it regularly. I was pretty floored. By the time I had lost patience with Purple Heels, or blogging not as a professional in general, I honestly didn't think anyone had read it outside my family. I heard a few times that people enjoyed reading my posts, but I didn't think much of it. I never expected someone who wasn't related to enjoy it enough to seek it out. She fueled my desire to pick it back up. I don't know if I'll ever have the patience to keep up with it at the caliber I once had, but I am hoping to update on a semi-regular basis.

My new-found motivation, paired with getting one of the biggest doses of inspiration I have had in quite some time, I found myself furiously scribbling notes on post-its at my desk today to make sure I didn't forget anything important before I got home from work. So here were are.

Working in social media marketing, I read about Millennials a lot. Like A. LOT. Every single day I read an article (or at least a headline) about how to market to Millennials, What Millennials are like as buyers, How to cater to Millennials in the work force, What Millennials expect in a work culture, How to join snapchat to reach the Millennial audience. It's to the point that I feel like people think, and then have team meetings about, "how do we get an article to go viral on LinkedIn? I know! Let's write about Millennials!" This is not a Marketing strategy. I repeat, this is NOT a viable strategy in your business.

I've also read ad nauseam how Millenials are the lazy and entitled generation. Each article I have read with those words has gotten more and more under my skin. I can not let this roll off my back any longer. I have decided to share my two cents. Will it make any difference? Of course not. But I cannot bite my tongue any longer.

I have a very important question to ask, and that is simply "Why?" Why are Millennials considered lazy? In fact, why are we known as the generation that embodies laziness? Because we desire a good work/life balance? Because we value our time as more than working our lives away? Perhaps I'm biased here, but Millennials are most certainly not lazy. We value education, and are career driven, and are passionate about our communities and the future of our nation and world. As a Millennial myself, I know very few of my peers who are only working a 40 hour week job. Almost everyone I know, in addition to working 40-50 hours behind a desk, is also in school, or working a second job, or running a direct sales business, or volunteering, or parenting, or a combination of several of these things. We may spend our free time Faceswapping in Snapchat, or hunting Pokemon, or binge-watching Netflix, but that is because that time is just that: our free time. These mindless activities come after all those other responsibilities.

Another buzzword that gets thrown around with Millennial is "entitlement." Honestly, that word makes me want to puke. That word has become one of the ultimate insults, and gets tossed out to describe just about anything. And while I certainly agree that we have as a society have grown significantly more entitled in the recent past, I am sick of hearing that the Millennial generation is the root of this. Because, quite frankly and bluntly, working in a call center for three years taught me that every other generation acted far more entitled. They were the ones who demanded all the time. Do you know how many grandparents called in demanding compensation, or to talk to a manager, or using the words "I deserve?" (By no means is this an insult to grandparents. I love mine immensely, and this is a simple observation). So, why are Millennials considered the entitled ones?  Because we want, and expect, to have a say in our options professionally? Because we want to take the best path for ourselves and our futures and refuse to settle? Because we won't back down when faced with adversity? Because we want, no expect, to be treated equally - in gender, sexuality, race, and age? If that's the case, then hell yes we're entitled. Entitled to the best lives we can ask for ourselves. And you know what? Our parents WANT that for us.