Is Gen Z anti-work or simply anti-burnout? Can doing what you love pay the rent, build savings and leave room to enjoy life?
Is the 9-to-5 really dead? Study hard, land a campus placement, climb the corporate ladder and settle down. For decades, that was the script. And can passion pay the bills? ‘Not dead, just out of fashion’
Today, a generation raised on reels and mass layoffs is rewriting it.
“The 9-to-5 persists but is no longer thriving. “9-to-5 has never been my cup of tea. With massive layoffs and shrinking time off, a 9-to-5 simply costs too much mental peace in exchange for little to no certainty Snehil Verma, content creator ‘We don’t want careers that don’t make us happy’ For Snehil, the problem isn’t laziness. Ankita, 25, who has never held a desk job, says her generation has the guts to say no to a career that doesn’t make them happy. Snehil, 23, who started posting recipes on Instagram with her mother, Mamta Srivastava, during lockdown, says it now earns more than her corporate job did. The glamorous 10%: That’s what a creator life really looks like Creating content for social media takes time and effort, Ankita points out. The future will be less about choosing between a 9-to-5 and a creative career, and more about finding a combination that works for you Anaanya Muthanna, model and DJ Beating the algorithm The pressure to keep feeding the algorithm is real.
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“I wouldn’t say the 9 to 5 is dead, but I do think Gen Z is questioning the traditional idea of what a successful career should look like,” says model and DJ Anaanya Muthanna. Now, “with massive layoffs and shrinking time off, they simply cost too much mental peace in exchange for little to no certainty. ” Musician Ankita Kundu, who has pursued music since childhood, has never seen herself in a corporate job. “Hard work isn’t the issue here, it’s burnout and meaningless work,” she says. “You log in every morning, but it feels like you never really log off,” she adds. I wake up happy, I go to my workplace happy, I come back home happy,” she says. “Influencer marketing pays much more than people realise, however it does fluctuate,” she explains. “There’s a difference between doing something you love and building a sustainable business out of it,” she says. Asked whether a passion-led career can last, she says, “Long run. “If you don’t constantly put content out, people will actually forget you,” she says. Social media, Anaanya says, shows only “the glamorous 10% of the job”. Behind the scenes are “planning, pitching, networking, editing, negotiating, managing finances, late hours, sleepless nights”. Ankita says taking a break is sometimes the only way to recharge. I think that’s how we come back to our world,” she says. “If I start creating purely for views and engagement, I tend to lose the very thing that made me want to create in the first place,” says Anaanya. Snehil, meanwhile, feels “very restricted by metrics like skip rates and watch times”. Anaanya recommends using social media “as a platform, not letting it become your entire career”. Snehil’s advice is more pragmatic: “Learn how to crack it. ” A career on their own terms “The future will be less about choosing between a 9 to 5 and a creative career, and more about finding a combination that works for you,” says Anaanya.
For Snehil Verma, who creates food content with her mother, the dissatisfaction runs deeper. In the past, it was a symbol of stability. I’m quite the restless person. I wouldn’t be able to put my body in one place and sit and stare at a screen. “I want to be in a place where I’m happy. “Even if it’s stress, that healthy stress is better than the unhealthy ones. Gen Z has the guts to tell their parents, ‘This is not my thing,’ and carry on with something unusual Ankita Kundu, musician Can passion pay? Anaanya is more cautious. Her income isn’t predictable yet: “Creative careers are very project-based, and some months are better than others. Ankita is more optimistic. Absolutely, yes. And I’ll tell you why. Her reasoning draws on a line by actor Ravi Kishan: ‘Fame first, but money follows, my friend’. Freedom, she adds, “doesn’t necessarily mean less work! Snehil points to another less glamorous reality: “The hardest part is definitely the severe payment delays. The pressure to constantly hustle can also take a toll on creativity. “We have brain fog. Sometimes we just nap it through, watch a really good movie or head out for a long drive. Their advice differs. Snehil is heading to business school next year, funded by her Instagram income. “I can balance creation with business school. Passion and practicality, it seems, are no longer opposites. Perhaps that’s the real shift. Gen Z isn’t necessarily choosing passion over practicality. It’s looking for ways to make the two coexist. Download the TOI App.