- The discussion around whether the 9-to-5 work schedule is outdated is going viral on social media.
- People are saying they're exhausted and that they have no time or energy to do anything after work.
- Some workers are pushing back and asking for four-day work weeks and more flexibility.
The longstanding custom of working 9-to-5 is facing a reckoning on social media, with some users saying they feel like they're wasting their youth on what they perceive as meaningless work.
The 40-hour work week first came into effect in the US in the 20th century and was considered a win for workers at the time, because manufacturing employees a century earlier had been clocking up to 100 hours of work every week.
However, as the COVID pandemic shifted working patterns towards greater flexibility of both where and when people work, the 9-to-5 is drawing increasing questions about its continued relevance.
Now, some workers are taking to social media platforms to share the woes of their 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. schedules, including the hours they spend commuting and the little time they have left for themselves at the end of the day.
In October, a TikToker named Brielle posted a video — which now has 2.7 million views — saying she had no energy or time to cook, clean, or have a personal life after work.
"I'm so tired of getting told I'm entitled when nobody knows me or how I've worked since I was 15," Brielle told Insider in an email.
"The discussion should be open to reforming the work schedule since it's impossible for one head of household to make enough money to support a stay-at-home spouse like it was when the standard workweek policy was first introduced hundreds of years ago."
Similarly, 25-year-old Andra Berghoff from Minnesota posted a TikTok video — with four million views and almost half a million likes now — in August about quitting her first corporate job after eight months because it was "soul-crushing" and she felt like a "corporate drone."
Another TikToker @hubs.life went viral on social media earlier this year after he posted a video of his regular routine working a 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. shift.
The video was then shared on Twitter in a post which now has over 100 million views. "This video was so depressing that I started tearing up watching it," it was captioned.
These videos have been making the rounds on social media and have sparked a discussion around whether the 40-hour work week is outdated.
Suzy Welch, a professor at New York University's Stern School of Business, told Insider that people's disenchantment with corporate life stems from a lack of purpose or meaning, especially Gen Z, who "are not satisfied just to put in the hours and not feel like they're helping the world," she said.
"Pretty early in your corporate career it can be very, very hard to feel that your work has purpose or meaning because in those early days, you're a bit of a cog, you're doing low level analysis, you're just doing work that you're not seeing the forest for the trees," Welch said.
"And they're [Gen Z] immediately frustrated and they're saying 'wait I am putting in the hours but I'm not feeling any meaning and I'm not feeling any purpose and this is not the life I want to lead. This feels like a lot of postponement of satisfaction and joy."
Additionally people are starting to realize that there's little reward in being loyal to companies and overworking. The events of the past few years such as the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 made them realize how much of their lives they had given to corporations.
As a result, some workers are pushing back on hustle culture and corporate life and seeking alternatives like four-day work weeks and greater work-life balance.
Welch added that the discussion isn't unique to Gen Z but is instead part of a "larger world conversation about how we conduct our lives," she said.
"People of every age are saying 'look, if there's one thing the pandemic taught me and dire world news teaches me is that life is short and fleeting and I want to make the most of it and I don't want to wait to feel good about myself or good about what I'm doing in the world.'"