Can't Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation

by Anne Helen Petersen

Your workplace has probably already been “leaned” and you don’t even know it. Think about the person who cleans your work space. Or the people who work at the lunch counter, or handle payroll, or tend to the tasteful lawn outside, or provide customer service. Maybe you are one of those people. Chances are high that the people doing these jobs aren’t actually employed by the company that they outwardly seem to represent. It didn’t used to be this way. Companies used to employ the people who made work possible at all levels. The ramifications of this arrangement were huge: If you worked as a janitor at, say, 3M, you were entitled to the same benefits as my Granddad, who worked there as an accountant. Not the same salary—but the same pension structure, the same healthcare, the same stability. This was a massive equalizing force: You might not have the same earning potential, but you had the same protection from