The Millennial Workweek
Navigating the workplace as a millennial is its own special kind of heck (cc: Rocko’s Modern Life). And despite what older generations may say, our millennial generation has our own unique challenges that we’re up against. We grew up in a world where our parents (mostly from the Baby Boomer era) were on the tail end of tasting the sweet fruit of breaking away from societal norms although some held onto the advice of those who came before them. We were given a new category of awards in the form of “participation trophies” so that everyone could feel like a winner. In most cases, we were told that we were special which bred a generation of “untouchable” coworkers who felt inclined to question everything that was deemed “against us”.
And to level set, I’m referring to the “millennial” as someone born between 1981-1996. We’re not the Tide Pod generation, although we’re often mistakenly grouped into the same generation as our younger counterparts. No, our generation grew up on Toys R Us (rest its soul), Reading Rainbow, Tamagotchis, The Simpsons, Rugrats and birthday parties at Chuck E Cheese’s or the McDondalds PlayPlace (and the end of the McDonalds buffet - which by the way, 2024 could never).
Our world views were shaped by our parent’s generation who were, in essence, still coming into their own. The average millennial likely had a working class family. Our parents weren’t content creators or influencers. I myself was split between a mother that worked for the government since her senior year of high school and a father that was an entrepreneur and hairstylist. I was (and am still) proud of my parents. Their careers couldn’t be any further polar opposites! Not to mention, their careers reversed gender norms - which I loved.
Despite being an admirer of their career paths, their complete opposite journeys in professional growth sometimes left me in more confusion than resolution as I navigated my own career path. On one side, I was told I job hopped too much. On the other side, I was exposed to the normalcy of consistently working long hours (even on weekends - ew!). I never had a perfect answer to my own career woes.
And then there was the advent of technology. That did a number on our millennial generation! We didn’t have to apply for corporate jobs in person anymore (omg, remember that?). We had instant access to the latest in news across our respective industries and found the Internet to be our soapbox if mistreated in the workplace. We shared our salaries in public massive spreadsheets with the goal of providing salary transparency. We worked from home like pros because being online was our domain. We weren’t new to this, we were TRUE to this!
Well, we’re now at a point in our careers where we’re what I like to consider “mid-career”. Not quite new to the workplace, but not quite senior enough to sit in most c-suites or have board membership in long established companies.
Essentially, this is us depicted in a comic:
Artist: Asher Perlman
As I scour the internet for career advice, there’s slim pickings for someone at our career stage - especially for those of us playing workplace minority Olympics. So, I did what anyone else with the internet would do and decided to write about it.
Welcome to the inaugural post of “The Millennial Workweek”! Each week, I’ll be posting an article about the nuances of navigating a career in the tech industry as a millennial Black woman. I had to throw all my adjectives in there for you to get a sense of where I’m coming from with my words. However, this isn’t a series of articles expressing the woes of this journey - there’s enough content that exists on the Internet for that and I’ve done my fair share of podcasts and speaking engagements on that topic. Instead, this is a series of articles that provide advice for those who are mid-career seeking guidance on answering the big career question: What’s next?
Even if you’re not a millennial, I still encourage you to follow along and engage with my posts. It’s nice to gain different perspectives on a topic! And hopefully you’ll learn something that you can take with you back to the workplace or to share with the mid-career millennials in your life.
I’m not saying that I have all the answers. If I did, I’d be rich and would’ve wrote a book on it by now. But I can at least say that you’re hearing advice from someone with firsthand experience.
Because my generation loves the concept of “owning our content”, I’ll be cross-posting my articles on both LinkedIn and my personal website. You’re welcome to consume my articles on either platform. I just happen to know that most folks who know of me are used to going to my website. But there’s a world of you on LinkedIn that I can’t wait to meet!
Chat soon!
P.S. If you stumbled across this post and thought to yourself “Who’s this April girl?”, check out my bio to get to know me!
