Gen Z

Legitimately curious, are you your own boss or do you work for someone else? Because you're voicing some very dicey opinions here. :p

Sheather said:
I am using it to paint the majority of employers as malicious, which is exactly what I believe they are. They want you to think that they can't pay a $20+ minimum wage (with current inflation this is still too low to be honest), "so here work for $7-$12 an hour, part time, no benefits, while rent is several thousand dollars per month. What, you don't think this is enough? Well everyone else does - you are the problem." It is gaslighting, but on a societal level
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Some yeah, they are. But a lot are not. Many of them legitimately cannot pay $20 an hour - there are a large number of chains in real trouble right now. Mom and pops have been hit equally hard. Cost of everything is going up. Everyone recognizes inflation is a serious problem - but that gets into politics which is not allowed on here. I do think you're being overly aggressive here.

Sheather said:
If gen z isn't interested in this sort of work, then that isn't their fault, for they have no obligations to take it.
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They don't, no. But if they do take a job then they do have obligations, which frequently are fulfilled poorly or not at all.

Sheather said:
They must be finding some better way to get by
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Yeah, living at home playing video games on Twitch and trying to be Tik-tok or Instagram famous instead of actually setting foot in the world. :p

Sheather said:
If you have a skill - and it does not need to be a strictly practical one - you can, with some work, pursue an entirely independent career and be your own boss - and I do recommend it, younger people.
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This actually is a valid statement - very difficult to achieve but definitely one to go for if you can.

Sheather said:
It is also an unfortunate fact that in the world we live in right now, zoo and biology themed careers are not likely to make you rich or well-off.
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Maybe because many of them are offered by non-profits who have tight budgets? :rolleyes:
 
I am self employed - I am sorry though for the posts coming across hostile, I don't intend it.

A lot of people make a living as an influencer. I am not one, but I know of a lot of people who make a very comfortable living doing tiktok videos and other things like that. It's not a "job" every person can do but there is that niche now in our society for some people to take. I even know someone who makes a living playing and streaming video games online, through ad revenue. More power to them if they can make it work!

I don't blame zoos for their budgets but that is why it isn't a viable career for a lot of people. I wanted to go into biology, but it wouldn't have been conducive to financial security - I know someone who has a degree in it and still just makes just over entry level wages because there are a lot of graduates with the same credentials and not enough jobs. This is true for many degrees though currently - lots of debt and not a lot of options. A lot of college educated people end up in fields of work not related to their degrees at all.
 
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Sheather said:
and a greater sense of both personal responsibility and pinning blame on the huge corporations that cause a hugely disproportionate share of pollution and environmental degradation.
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Okay - however I don't see very many people boycotting Amazon or Coca Cola. We can blame the companies all we want, but if we still buy the product are they going to change?

Sheather said:
A lot of people make a living as an influencer. I am not one, but I know of a lot of people who make a very comfortable living doing tiktok videos and other things like that. It's not a "job" every person can do but there is that niche now in our society for some people to take. I even know someone who makes a living playing and streaming video games online, through ad revenue. More power to them if they can make it work!
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It is basically a job now, indeed. Remarkable how a YouTube channel run by a kid influencer can make over a million a year... Personally I find a lot of influencers annoying for tending to be rather out of touch with reality.

Sheather said:
I don't blame zoos for their budgets but that is why it isn't a viable career for a lot of people. I wanted to go into biology, but it wouldn't have been conducive to financial security - I know someone who has a degree in it and still just makes just over entry level wages because there are a lot of graduates with the same credentials and not enough jobs.
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It's often said that a zookeeper does the job they do because they love the animals, not for the wages. It's a tough career but a lot of people love it and wouldn't have it any other way.
 
Great Argus said:
Okay - however I don't see very many people boycotting Amazon or Coca Cola. We can blame the companies all we want, but if we still buy the product are they going to change?
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Well - I can't say the last time I drank coca cola! I have bought from Amazon every so often but very rarely. As these businesses grow and take over the industry it gets hard to avoid them in all cases. Buy local if you can, but also remember that for some people who can only buy by price that they may not have other options available to them for some products than to support these companies. Amazon uses that as a business model.


Great Argus said:
It's often said that a zookeeper does the job they do because they love the animals, not for the wages. It's a tough career but a lot of people love it and wouldn't have it any other way.
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I think it's a great career. I will always love and support zoos in the small way I can with memberships and donations etc. But I can also scoop poop by keeping animals of my own on a private level and fulfill that passion for animals that way... of course, keeping the animals in question to the smallest sorts of exotics. It will be a while before I can accommodate a giraffe in my home!

I hope we're good and have resolved the bit of off-topic tangent there, again I'm sorry it probably comes off too aggressive in parts and a bit off-topic... got on my soapbox a bit there.

Hopefully some more gen Z relevant discourse will follow.
 
Sheather said:
Well - I can't say the last time I drank coca cola! I have bought from Amazon every so often but very rarely. As these businesses grow and take over the industry it gets hard to avoid them in all cases. Buy local if you can, but also remember that for some people who can only buy by price that they may not have other options available to them for some products than to support these companies. Amazon uses that as a business model.
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Nor I, but someone mentioned disliking Coca Cola's pollution aspect but still drinks coke earlier in the thread which is what brought me to that one. I definitely concur buying local rather than Amazon - they have more than enough money.

Sheather said:
I hope we're good and have resolved the bit of off-topic tangent there, again I'm sorry it probably comes off too aggressive in parts and a bit off-topic... got on my soapbox a bit there.
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We're good - I still disagree with a couple parts of the soapbox, but let's leave that behind and let the thread come fully back on topic.
 
Great Argus said:
It's often said that a zookeeper does the job they do because they love the animals, not for the wages. It's a tough career but a lot of people love it and wouldn't have it any other way.
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The equine industry's similar to this, and that's what's killing it (in the UK, at least). It's not uncommon for competition grooms to be working 10h+ days, 6 days a week for minimum wage despite the high risk of the job. Those 12 hours don't include travelling to competitions, so then you're up at 3am to get the horses prepped which you don't get paid overtime for. You can love the animals all you want, but if you want a family, or even the ability to pay your electricity bills, it's not feasible except for the young. Plus, as is the case in the zoos, the people who make decisions about management are often not the ones on the ground, who know the animals best. If you're doing a job because you love the animals, having no say in decisions that end up detrimental to the animals is a killer.

Most of my zookeeper friends care deeply about the animals in their care but hate the job.

Sphenisciologist said:
probably have been in the zoological field themselves that we haven’t had access to due to our age.
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It's not hard to get into it when you're young. Zoos here offer lots of volunteering opportunities, educational opportunities if you can't commit to volunteering. Even if it's not hands on care - which you can easily get experience with, with domestic animals - it's a way to build a network. Much easier than getting into it when you're old and have unrelated qualifications and bills to pay (speaking from personal experience).
 
Terry Thomas said:
You do not seem to have a problem using English! I suggest that if you would like to say anything you should just go ahead and send it in. No matter what you have to say, there will always be someone who disagrees with you, but that's really not your problem -- it is theirs. Any comments from you are just as important as from anyone else. I am not a gen z!
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Thank you. Well lets just say, my laguage barrier stood in the way on other threads. But either way thank you. Generaly do the people on here appear empathetic to me regardless their age.

In general was the scientific community more progressive.

I myself have seen the overeager energy of gen z or generaly younger folks on here and real life, as much as some elderly member seemed a bit closed off at times, but at the very essence of this thread was the desire to connect over insights.

Even if some might provoke an argument we started to talk about the issues to begin with.


Regarding the issue of lazy generations, I have read an article that show cased how the previous generations have allways labelled the youth lazy. For sure is this more complex but it allowed me to find a bit more stability in the conversation.
 
Great Argus said:
Some yeah, they are. But a lot are not. Many of them legitimately cannot pay $20 an hour - there are a large number of chains in real trouble right now. Mom and pops have been hit equally hard. Cost of everything is going up. Everyone recognizes inflation is a serious problem - but that gets into politics which is not allowed on here. I do think you're being overly aggressive here.
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One could argue that a company that can't afford to pay its staff a living wage should be in trouble...



For the record (and the rest of this post is general, not related to the quote above), my experience is that every generation thinks the ones after them are lazy and feckless and don't know how lucky they are and just spend all their time with modern technology and all of this.

"Phones are rotting their brains", people say - like TV did before that, and films, and comics, and penny dreadfuls, and probably so on all the way back to the first bone dice distracted from the important business of mammoth spotting.

Generation labels might have a place in setting cultural reference points, and there will be changes through time - but on the whole, to me, they are just a cheap way to blame people for being shaped by the world they grew up in. That applies in both directions, but is particularly used to propagate the "young people today" attitude.

The real question is whether you are willing to keep being shaped by later worlds in later life, or whether you will become another person railing against everyone - particularly your parents' generation for not changing quickly enough, and the one two younger than you for changing too quickly. ;)
 
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Well apparently I'm considered a Gen Z, an older one but still.

If I were to point out to one thing younger Gen Z seem to have trouble with, is accepting being wrong and letting go of unnecessary battles. The forum would be a quieter place sometimes...
We've had quite a few interesting cases over the years, up to you wether you find it annoying or entertaining, but it seems the only loser is Zoochat's reputation
 
Rayane said:
If I were to point out to one thing younger Gen Z seem to have trouble with, is accepting being wrong and letting go of unnecessary battles. The forum would be a quieter place sometimes...
We've had quite a few interesting cases over the years, up to you wether you find it annoying or entertaining, but it seems the only loser is Zoochat's reputation
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That's not being "Gen Z" though. That's being young, and the people young now happen to be Gen Z.
 
I really don't think Gen Z is that different from other generations at all, it is just that it is mostly still young so people like to blame immature things on Gen Z as a whole when really every generation is like this when young... Just my perspective as someone who is Gen Z and an adult. Every generation likes to target the one below it... I am sure in 10 years I will probably make a complaint about Gen Alpha :p but really I don't think this generation blaming is at all helpful or progressive in any way.
 
Great Argus said:
Gen Z is labeled as whiny and entitled by everybody - not just in the workforce.
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Can confirm this, am a part of the generation. We're not all horrible, though, I've got a lot of friends who are genuinely good people.

Listen, from my point of view, Gen Z is just another generation, all generations prior to us have had idiots in them. Sure, there are entitled members of this generation, but there are entitled members of other generations as well (Karens and whatnots). I can say that we're not all idiots, as many of us have turned our backs on others of our generation for various reasons. Open-mindedness is growing, but other issues are popping up. Either way, I don't think it is particularly productive to generalize people solely based on when they were born.
Sphenisciologist said:
racism, ableism, sexism, homophobia
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Unfortunately, those still exist in large numbers.
 
Sphenisciologist said:
I was saying our generation is calling it out better than previous generations have.
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The reason your generation can talk so much about these issues is because of the activism in which your predecesors were involved. It's only because of the suffragettes, Stonewall, the civil rights movement, etc that inequalities were addressed, thereby creating the cultures in which many of you were raised. The work of previous generations is why you grew up thinking these were issues were important, and wanting to solve them.

The cynic in me says that members of previous generations were the actual activists. Gen Z just 'calls it out' on social media for brownie points.
 
equidae said:
The reason your generation can talk so much about these issues is because of the activism in which your predecesors were involved. It's only because of the suffragettes, Stonewall, the civil rights movement, etc that inequalities were addressed, thereby creating the cultures in which many of you were raised. The work of previous generations is why you grew up thinking these were issues were important, and wanting to solve them.

The cynic in me says that members of previous generations were the actual activists. Gen Z just 'calls it out' on social media for brownie points.
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I do agree our generation was brought up because of these movements and performative activism is a very real thing. I have seen it with people at my school almost on the daily, with posting against racism and homophobia on their instagram stories and then the next day going to hang out with the racist and homophobic white kid who just called that gay student a slur. Very real and I can’t express how much it frustrates me over the internet.

But even with the work that the older generations have done, there’s still a lot left to do. Which I’m not going to get into to avoid political and unwanted conflict.
 
As one of the older (oldest?) members of the Forum and a zoo design professional I'd like to say that
  • There are relatively few zoo professionals here. Those that are here tend to post a lot but we are far outnumbered by zoo fans.
  • I do not come here to chat with my peers. There are better places to do that. I understand that this is fan forum and your passionate interest in zoos fascinates me. Keep doing what interests you. It doesn't have to interest me.
  • I admit I do have to speak up when anyone with no experience of zoo reality makes assertions about how zoos are run, what directors think, why an exhibit came to be what it is, etc. Speculation and opinion are one thing: claiming groundless authority or unfounded knowledge is just sad.
  • The posts that criticize any zoo as needing new exhibits simply because you want something new and fresh without regard to the real costs or whether the existing enclosure functions well seem insulting as well as ignorant. This petty narcissistic view of zoos is not unique to any generation on Zoochat. A jerk is a jerk
  • I can't dispute your experience with Boomers. You know what you know. . As one, I will say that in the 60s and 70s we, as a generation, changed culture and societies in ways that affect all people still today. We were as radical, if not more so, than today's younger generations. The real tragedy is what we morphed into with age. As an old fart, I can't help smirking "You will abuse your young employees someday and be loathed by your children. You will never be their friend." It comforts me :D
 
I can't help feeling as I read some of these posts about this Gen or that Gen how entitled and narrow the experiences are. You mean people of your age, your class, your social status, sharing your social media. Are your cohorts in Saudi Arabia, Kenya, Azerbaijan, Tibet, India so very like you? Same values?
 
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