Alex Buscemi
Gen Z has dipped their toes in the corporate 9 to 5 lifestyle — and many of them don’t want any part of it.
Becoming a 9-to-5’er isn’t for everyone. For many, it’s a necessary evil, but for one TikToker, it’s a soul-sucking vortex she’s ready to abandon after just six months.
Meet Julia Huynh, a.k.a. @jigglyjulia on TikTok, who’s had enough of the daily grind. In a candid video, she proclaimed, “something needs to change” about this capitalist circus of spending most of your life cooped up in an office.
Julia Huynh made a TikTok complaining about work culture after working a corporate 9 to 5 for only 6 months
Sure, some might call her complaints entitled, especially those who’ve clocked in and out for decades. But let’s be real — who hasn’t felt the soul-crushing weight of a job they’re not jazzed about?
Julia’s gripe isn’t even with her actual job. She likes her work and loves her coworkers. Yet, she’s six months in and feels like she’s accomplished zilch.
Her weeks are a blur of 8 to 5, sometimes 5 to 5, leaving her “so exhausted” by Friday that she can’t enjoy her weekends.
“I’m literally six months into my first corporate job and I already want to quit,” she vented, capturing a feeling all too familiar to many.
“So how am I supposed to live?” Huynh is more upset by the time constraints of a 9 to 5 than the work itself
@julia.huynh quarter life crisis alert #corporate #job #fulltimejob
“Something has to change” in corporate “work culture,” she insists, lamenting the thought of spending 40 years working only to wake up one day realizing, “I have done literally nothing.”
She also feels trapped. Like many of us, quitting her job simply isn’t in the cards.
“I will not have any money,” Huynh says, “so how am I supposed to live? What am I supposed to do? I don’t understand!”
Julia’s disillusionment isn’t unique. Her sentiments echo the mass exodus from corporate jobs seen during the COVID-19 pandemic, dubbed “The Great Resignation.” In 2021, about 47 million Americans quit their jobs, driven by similar frustrations.
Huynh’s call for action resonated with viewers
For her fellow 20-something viewers on TikTok, Julia’s worry that she will “work all my life and forget to actually live” struck a chord.
Comments poured in: “We need 3-day weekends” as a respite from “the depressing cycle” of 9 to 5 life. One commenter even declared, “We as a generation have to change work culture.”
Huynh and her peers might be young, but their dissatisfaction is clear. Sometimes it takes finding the right fit to change your perspective, but the fear of working all your life and forgetting to live is all too real.
And as Huynh’s video shows, it’s a fear shared by many.
Read More: 45 Funny Work Memes To Keep You Laughing Through The Week (June 10, 2024)