Navigating the New Work Era: Boundaries, Burnout, and the Gen Z Perspective

Welcome back to the Ally from Corporate Podcast. If you're interested in learning more about career development, job searching and growing as the badass professional I know you are, you've come to the right place. So sit back and relax. Let's get into it. What's up? What's up listeners? And if you're on YouTube watchers, it's the Alli from Corporate podcast and it's the Ally with Rico podcast today. So today we're talking about a viral TikTok video where corporate Natalie, a tiktoker made a video about a new hire who's a Gen Z employee not showing up for an 8am meeting because they're going to workout class. Do you want to see the clip?

Let's see it. Or let's hear it.

When asked to come in for an 8am meeting, my Gen Z new hire said, ugh, sorry, I can't make it. I have a workout class. Should this be allowed?

My visceral. Interesting.

So tell me what you think about that.

I think the new hire tricky. Was that meaning put on last minute overnight? Do you. Do we or you know more about this than just those two sec. Ten seconds?

No. No. But we can talk about a couple different scenarios where this would be okay for the employee to do this and for this to be inappropriate for the employee to do this. Where could you see this being okay that the employee blew off the meeting to go to their workout class? Why is it okay, I would say.

If it was put on at 7am the meeting. Your computer. Yeah. If you checked your computer on Friday morning, 7am Nothing. You have a workout class scheduled at 8, you're out of the house and then all of a sudden it's like, you should have been here.

That's not fair.

Not fair at all.

No. I could see it not being okay if the employee had just joined and maybe this was one of their first meetings. Probably not a great thing for you to do, blow off one of your first meetings. Remember that viral video I did about come early, stay late?

Yeah.

And people just hated it. I made a TikTok video saying if you're in the first five years of your career, you should come a few minutes early to work and leave a few minutes late or leave a few minutes late. People crapped the bed with that one. They were like, no way. Like I'm going to prioritize myself first that. I feel like that's what's going on with this video also.

You know, I can see that. But it's like there's not enough information to make an informed decision. There might have been back and forth about this that we do not know. It's a 10 second clip. We don't know more. If you guys online know more about this DM us and let us know.

I'm. But let's just talk about it with the information. We know they were new, they were 26 years old or less so beginning of their career.

Yeah.

The meeting was at 8am Their workout class was as late as 8am I personally prefer 6am, 7am workout classes. 8am I feel like is a little too late. But maybe it was their personal trainer, maybe it was their favorite class. You're right, we don't know.

But then again, don't they work from nine to five? Soon you'll work. They start at nine.

No. Maybe they're on the west coast and they work for an east coast company.

Yeah, yeah, we have no. It's so much speculation. You know, you can speculate so much about this and it just opens up a broader net of conversation if this is an okay thing to do and not. And I feel like there's two sectors of yes and no and then there's like the huge gray area in the middle.

Yeah. And I'm glad this went viral. Not no shade to the creator. Like I love corporate Natalie. I think her TikToks are a great place for good discussions to be born and this is a perfect example. And I think that a lot of people follow her that maybe feel a little bit confused about the workplace or conflicted. And she makes videos that really give a voice to that frustrated, frustrated employee and the frustrated manager in this sense. So in, in her TikTok video she's saying no, totally inappropriate. I wouldn't, I wouldn't tolerate this. They're brand new at the company. 8am is a little late for workout because get this, the workout gets done at 9. Maybe you're showered and at work by 10. Yeah, that's kind of late.

But what if you were working the other night before two, three hours extra and left office at 11 o' clock at night and you're like, I'm done for today. Tomorrow I'm going to have to, you know, take a little time for myself because I worked so late yesterday, had no time at all. So it's, it's so much unspokenness that, you know, that's not in these discussions that we just don't know about, you.

Know, But I don't think that's an issue because every, every manager can have this conversation with their employee as it relates to their situation. So like, if I were a manager, I would have appreciated if the employee had let me know, like, hey, by the way, I see your meeting at 8am tomorrow. That's actually my, my workout class that I, you know, go to religiously. Can you pre record the meeting so I can watch it later? Or like, is there anything I can do? Is there anything I can give you right now that you can contribute to the meeting on my behalf? I really want to go to this class.

Could have been. But you know, if it's put on at 6, 7am the morning of and you're, and you go to bed like, yep, I have no meetings in the morning. And then you don't respond and you all of a sudden get a phone call from your boss and it kind of seems like that, like, hey, where are you at? Like I'm at my workout class. What are you even talking about? And it's like you're supposed to be here on a meeting. It's like, well, it wasn't there yesterday at five o', clock. So I get that side of it, you know. But then again, who knows?

I definitely agree with you that last minute meetings shouldn't have to be, you know, an emergency for somebody else because of lack of planning on yours. I think you said that a couple hours ago, right?

Yeah.

So what do you think is the shortest amount of time that's okay to schedule a meeting in advance?

Probably if the meeting's not there on the next day at 3 o' clock the day before, because then you still have two hours to look at it and plan accordingly. So and if you're still in the office or you're still at home and you're still online and you get a meeting put on and you're still active. Yes. But after 5, 6 o', clock, when you put on a meeting at 8 o' clock a.m. there needs to be discussions about what's going to be talked about. Do I need to present, do I need to have something ready? And that's just blindsiding me with a meeting that I don't know what I'm going to do. When was this plan, who's going to be in it? And it's the first meeting of the day. Great. You know, it's like there's going to be just a day where it's just all in the dumpster.

Yeah. Speaking of all in the dumpster, I've heard the job market is really bad right now for people looking for jobs. Have you heard that too, yeah.

Really bad.

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And then we, yeah, yeah, we'll get you that 25% off. All right, so back to setting boundaries at work. So have you ever gone to a workout class before you've started your day like an early morning workout class?

Yeah. And they have cancellation fees, so if you're not going to show up, they'll charge you. My gym charges me 35 to $40 for not showing up.

That's a lot. I think my gym charges me 20 and it's a nice one.

So if I sign up and I don't go, it's 20 to, yeah, 40 bucks. So yeah, you really need to be. And personally I feel like if I would have been in that shoes and I didn't see no meanings, and then they want me to cancel my gym membership and if I have a personal coach session with that, with that next day and that's even more expensive, I'd be like, yo boss, you're going to have to reimburse me because it's not my fault that you put this meeting on at this time. And yeah, I won't read you really say that. I would say that because it's, it's, it's. If I started, if I start my workday at 9, and even if it was only a 30 minute session, if I start my workday at 9, whatever I do up till 9 is completely up to me.

True.

And then they can't just put on a meeting with some heavy ass client and says you gotta be there. It's like, no, you can schedule the meeting for an hour later or you could have informed me beforehand and now your emergency meeting is costing me even more money. So. No.

I hear you, but what's got me worried about saying no to your manager right now is all these layoffs and I'm wondering if that would make, that would make it or break it for you. If you were on the chopping block for getting laid off and they were like, well, does she go to the meetings? No, not really. She like goes to her workout class. You know, I, I want people to be, if you're like unemployed in job searching, be aggressive. But if you are at a place like at a company where you can stay for a while, now is not a great time to leave for something better. Unless your, your current thing is so bad that you got to go, you know, like play it safe a little bit.

Yeah. And I gotta also say if you guys like this podcast and stick around for so long, please subscribe DM us if you want to see a special guest that you think would be a great fit. And if you have a topic or some questions that you want answers, just DM us and yeah.

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Yeah. So can I say one more thought about the 8:00am Meeting thing?

Yeah.

So I love working out in the mornings. You know that I feel the rest of the day I have energy, I feel proud of myself, I feel accomplished, I feel healthy. I notice my skin glows more when I like sweat a little bit in the morning. So I'm all for employees taking care of their bodies and their minds like that. But also there can exist a balance between work and life. And this is exactly what my TEDx talk was about. If you guys haven't watched that, it's called Beyond Quiet Quitting Motivating the New workforce. It's on YouTube, but it was about people prioritizing their life because, you know, let's be honest, life is short, but also respecting work at the same time and communicating with your manager about what works and what doesn't.

Yeah, that was a good talk. They should definitely go see it or listen to it. Yeah, it just brings up, you know, for us to give an opinion about a 10 second tick tock is really, is really what ifs. You know, it's all about the what if. And maybe that was. So it's, it's really hard to think about it when we don't have the facts.

Yeah, yeah. But still interesting and I'm glad that this has gone viral on so many different platforms, including LinkedIn, because managers are posting about it, employees are posting about it, executives are posting about it, and people can interpret it whatever the way they want, but it's just interesting to see the discussions that are going on and this is a much needed topic to be discussed amongst professionals. So I think it was a good thing overall.

I think so too. I think more discussions about healthy work, life balance and avoiding burnout is a good conversation and we'll see where that leads. You know, it's going to be very, very interesting to what came out of it. If the workplace is a better place not because of it or not.

Yeah, absolutely right. All right, well again, if you are a stem early career professional and you're job searching and you need assistance, reach out to us. And also if you have any request in terms of guests or topics for the next podcast, DM us and let us know.

I appreciate it. And I'll see you in the next one.

All right, bye.