Generation Z wants to get off work early. And that's progress too

It is said that young people no longer want to work hard.

Rafael Nadal's uncle has explained the success of his nephew in this way: the tennis players who came later disdained the effort, he has come to say.

Others complain about his attitude: "They arrive on the first day of work asking for the departure time."

They see a sign of civilizing decline in Gen Z wanting to leave the office early.

Isn't this reaction absurd?

I am the first perfectionist, and I enjoy my work, but let's not be crazy.

Wanting a life without your employer is logical and healthy.

It is not a symptom of any setback, but the opposite: a sign of progress.

As Marta García Aller recently wrote, perhaps the losers are those bosses who work 60 hours.

I put this case as an illustration of a paradoxical pattern.

Where some see a regression, signs that we are heading towards the end, often there are advances.

I put other examples.

• Suicides have become the leading cause of external death, but not so much because they are increasing —its registration has risen 15% in two decades— but because in that period traffic accidents have been reduced to a quarter.

• We look askance at artificial intelligence for fear that it will make certain jobs unnecessary, but isn't it an old dream to end the job?

  If this technology is transformative, there will be losers that it is fair to protect and riches that it is fair to distribute.

  However, it is also evident that automating tasks brought well-being and leisure in the past.

  People play more with their children since the clothes wash themselves.

• Mental health worries us more than ever, but the increasing rates of anxiety —for example— are also a reflection of a greater awareness: something is changing —for the better— so that we give equal status to mental and physical health.

• Do you see a setback in having vegetarians because you feel that they go against your tradition?

  Actually, they are proof that more people think about animal welfare.

• We think about the risks of artificial intelligence, but what about its potential?

  The above example was suggested to me by ChatGPT and I made it my own.

  As well as the next two: he thought of them before me, facilitating my work and improving this text.

• We see digital as a source of distractions, forgetting that (many times) being distracted is a virtue.

  You ride the subway talking to friends instead of wasting time.

• In affluent societies consumption has skyrocketed;

  plastic bags pollute the seas and city lights pollute the skies.

  Many of us should own less things.

  But a part of all that consumption is a consequence of having improved the lives of millions of people.

• The day of having children has been delayed, and among the reasons there are some forced ones: it is expensive, you have no one to leave them with and it will penalize your working life.

  But in the surveys we also repeat another reason for choice: many twenty-somethings do not want to have children yet.

  We live longer lives.

• Other times we are pushed by inertia.

  Today many couples come from looking for each other on the internet, choosing each other and then dating;

  and perhaps you have the drive to feel that this is worse than meeting at work or in a bar.

  If so, think coldly: Why?

I don't expect you to agree with all these examples.

Some are personal judgments, perhaps wrong.

But I think there is something useful in this exercise.

When you see someone signal a setback, or when you yourself feel that you are in front of one, try to open your eyes: sometimes you will see a positive current passing very close.

other stories

🤖 1. ChatGPT is just the beginning.

As I told you about in last week's newsletter, on Sunday we published an in-depth story on how artificial intelligence is launching to reorganize the world.

💶 2. Bizum triumphs in Spain.

The instant payments consortium is already used by 36% of Spaniards, as much as payment by transfer (37%) and more than from the mobile (19%) or with PayPal (16%).

Everyone uses cash and still 16% do not use credit cards.

It's Ipsos data I saw on Mixx.io.

💬 3. Mario Vargas Llosa: "I don't regret anything".

I was interested in Manuel Jabois's interview with the Spanish-Peruvian writer: “I suffered a lot writing and, at the same time, I wanted to improve.

My style was very primitive.

I needed to improve it.

In the newspaper that was impossible, because the papers had to be delivered immediately.

I have suffered a lot with style.

And, furthermore, whenever I sat down to write, he told me: you have to suppress the adjectives.

That is the important thing: that there are no adjectives”.

🦠 4. A homophobic attack against the

The HBO series based on the video game of the same name is being very well received by critics and viewers.

This Monday the third chapter was broadcast, which deviates from the protagonists to make an almost costumbrist portrait, in a post-apocalyptic world, of a happy homosexual couple.

The chapter is brilliant, it resonates and is consistent with the game, but somewhere on the internet a small group has decided to attack the chapter and bombard it with bad scores.

My advice is that you see it.

🎙️ 5. More talks

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I was on the

Joan Tubau

It's two hours of talk —warning—, but I had a really good time.

We talk about biases, books, how to make decisions and why so many friends —the special ones— are made before they turn 30.

You help me?

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