Uh oh, Michelle Obama has been advising gen Z on navigating work. “One thing that’s important is to learn how to do something you don’t like to do and be good at it,” she told the audience at a podcast recording in London. “Every experience – the bad boss, the boring assistant job, the job you thought that you weren’t appreciated, the one that didn’t give you the assignment you wanted when you wanted it – all of that is learning to be resilient.”
The podcast is called IMO, and she is entitled to her opinion, and it’s true that awful bosses, crap jobs and professional setbacks are inevitable, unpleasant learning experiences. Plus, Obama has navigated exceptionally tricky circumstances and put up with endless unjustified flak – she has plenty to teach everyone about grace under pressure. But there’s an implicit criticism of gen Z workers in her words. You see that a lot (they’re undisciplined! They won’t use the phone! They want mental health days!) and it feels unfair and unhelpful.
