“I get paid a bomb for not talking to anyone”
The boss can’t answer the phone right now…why?
Because she’s dead and the Lazy Girl Worker of Generation Z was born in her place.
The early 2000s were all about female hustle and bustle culture.
Women were ambitious, uncompromising and committed to their work at all costs.
Millennials were obsessed with titles, status, and rising to the top.
Things were so intense that a book was titled #GirlBoss by businesswoman Sophia Amoruso became a bestseller.
It was a time of uncomfortable high heels, very tight skinny jeans, and owning three phones or whatever the metaphorical equivalent was.
Bustle was the other main feature – non-stop rush until you’re burned out and begging to register for a retreat culture in Bryon Bay.
Thanks to Gen Z, the culture has changed and the lazy girl trend has emerged as an antidote to the girl boss hustle culture.
Young women don’t want to break through the glass ceiling.
They want to be happy, wear baggy jeans and do less.
Lazy is a confrontational term, but at its core, the lazy girl work trend just means that some young women have traded ambition for work-life balance.
They don’t stay behind to meet impossible deadlines, instead they go for walks for their sanity.
Gen Z women have preferred balance to career advancement.
They are not interested in doing more for their employer, but they are willing to do exactly what they were hired to do.
But they live up to expectations they do not transcend them.
Gabrielle Judge, 26, is an American woman in her own right Launch of the Lazy Girl Job trend on TikTok.
The hashtag now has over 14 million views, and Judge encourages women to find jobs that work for them.
“I started the ‘lazy girl jobs’ trend, which is just a way of describing work-life balance jobs,” she told news.com.au.
So why the word lazy? Wouldn’t the trend towards minimum workloads worry employers less?
“I added the term ‘lazy’ because ‘lazy girl jobs’ offer so much work-life balance that compared to American Hustle culture, it should almost feel like operating in a lazy state,” she explained.
This concept has caught on, with young women creating content on TikTok to brag about doing less at work.
“I was born for a lazy girl office job. I get paid a whopping salary for not talking to anyone, taking breaks whenever I want and being the office villain,” shared one YouTuber.
“This is your sign to get yourself a lazy girl job where 90 percent of it is just copying and pasting stuff,” shared a TikToker.
Another detailed the benefits of a lazy girl job and you’ll be relieved to know you don’t have to work your bones to the bone just so you can do something on LinkedIn in front of a group of people you don’t even know can specify .
“I have a lazy-girl job where I sit at my desk from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and in my free time I post bills, read or watch Netflix or TikTok, and get paid decently per hour,” she boasted.
While another young woman mentioned that her job is basically just “copy and paste” and she only has to take five calls a day and still makes a “good salary”.
Somewhere, a girl boss pioneer like Ita Buttrose rolls her eyes.
Gen Z women not only reject the girl boss culture, they protest against it.
Angelica Hunt, senior marketing director at diversity, equity and inclusion consulting firm, The dream collectiveexplained that the trend shouldn’t surprise anyone who pays attention to what young women want.
“The lazy girl trend addresses a widening disconnect between companies and individuals where non-inclusive workplace cultures are no longer accepted.”
Hunt emphasizes that Gen Z is creating a work life that “works for them” because they’ve witnessed millennial and boomer burnout.
“They learned from their parents’ generation that putting your whole life into work at the expense of everyone else might not pay off as they once thought.”
Interestingly, Hunter doesn’t think the younger generation should change their mindset and start working harder.
Instead, she said that “Generation Z” has been labeled as the generation that doesn’t want to work, “misses the opportunity to understand where they’re coming from,” and that this trend should be tackled head-on.
“If we address this, we’ll create better, more inclusive, happier workplaces that people really want to be in — isn’t that good for everyone?”
