By Michael Sigl
You want to know why Gen Z is walking away from college and the corporate pipeline? Because they were raised in the collapse. They didn’t just hear about the betrayal of Millennials — they *watched* it unfold on their family’s faces. They watched dreams die in real time.
They’re not rejecting tradition. They’re rejecting bullshit. They’re rejecting debt, fake meritocracy, and a cubicle life sold to them as a prize — after they saw it chew up their parents and spit them out.
You cannot sell cubicles to a generation raised on Minecraft.
Now, the media is scrambling to redirect the narrative. Articles are popping up, trying to convince young people that office admin roles are “safe” — more stable, less deadly, more secure than trades.
Let’s call this what it is: a defense mechanism. A last-ditch attempt to reframe passive obedience as wisdom. As if data entry is somehow more noble than laying brick. As if real work, with your hands and your skill, is something to be pitied.
They’re not afraid of hard work. They’re afraid of fake work.
Safety is knowing you can’t be outsourced by AI. Safety is having a skill that’s in your fingers. Safety is fixing a fuse box and feeling your own worth hum back through the wire. Not sitting in Teams meetings until your soul rots.
I’m a CPA. I’ve done the white-collar route. I followed the rules. And I would still rather wire a house or pour concrete than return to that hollow, paper-pushing performance of productivity.
Gen Z already knows this. They’ve felt it in their bones since middle school. So no amount of “admin jobs are safer” spin will work. Because they’ve already seen what’s behind the curtain — and it’s beige, fluorescent, and soul-numbing.