Is Gen Z Really Lazy at Work, or Just Done with Burnout Culture?

Well-dressed businesswoman walking on the street of Manhattan, New York and talking on the phone while heading to work during one autumn day.

I was sitting across from a 25-year-old accounts manager who had just been described by her boss as ‘not committed enough.’ She had left work at 5pm to get to her favourite gym class.

When I asked what it was like hearing that, she said something I hadn’t expected. That she was tired. Not physically. Tired of performing commitment in a way that had nothing to do with the quality of her work, and tired of the unspoken rule that staying late meant caring more. She’d watched women fifteen years older than her run themselves into the ground and call it ambition.