Looking at the YOLO Economy

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Last week I posted a link to a New York Times article about the YOLO Economy. The article is worth a read. It’s full of (admittedly anecdotal) stories of the pandemic burning out people in good paying jobs with fat bank accounts due to reduced expenses and government payouts planning to quit their jobs to follow something that they love.

As an accountant, I’ve certainly been there. I’ve often joked with people that there’s a lack of accountants right now because so many teachers told us Millennials to follow our dreams, and nobody’s dream is to be an accountant.

Thanks to rising Denver home prices, I’ve even had more than one late night discussion with my wife after a particularly stressful day how fun it would be to cash out our equity and move to somewhere cheap, like Thailand (if our parents are reading this, don’t worry, we’re not doing that…at least for now).

I’ve worked in traditional fields resistant to change. I like to keep up reading  business books discussing how things need to be done to be ready for the future. Between these two items, I’m seeing the fault lines developing, and I’m wondering if this pandemic will finally crack them wide open.

Right now, the Baby Boomer generation is running things. Obviously, distilling an entire generation into a few words and characteristics is stupid, but I’ve definitely seen a penchant of the older generation to have a comparative love for objects, a mentality that a person should be thankful for the job they have, and that employees should put their head down and crank out work until one day they’ve proved themselves are and able to run the show.

Millennials and younger have more of a love of experiences, with a mentality (as mentioned above) of living your dreams and voicing your opinion no matter what position you are in.

Again, these are obviously gross generalizations, but it’s something that is written about often (typically with scorn by one generation towards the other) and I’ve certainly seen hints of it in my workplaces.

Add to that a younger generation that’s getting married older, having fewer kids, and is less attached to a local community. Layer on businesses and employees who see each other as ends to a means, rather than a source of purpose.

In that mix, of course you’re going to get this YOLO economy that the Times discussed.

The main question is how pervasive this is. Is it a large handful? Or is it enough that the whole economy will shift?

I dunno. Based on how many job postings I see for public accounting positions, I think there may be some argument for the latter, but that’s obviously just one (famously boring) industry.

If it does end up changing, it could be seismic. Because it won’t be enough to raise the hourly rate to keep employees engaged. A business will have to find something deeper. It’ll have to give employees meaning beyond a next paycheck. And 80 hour weeks to get one step up the corporate ladder may become a relic. Each of those changes would be huge.

Or this could be me pontificating on a mere blip. Either way, it’ll be fascinating to watch.

The Links

• The kids really liked The Mitchells vs The Machine, which is a movie sort of touching on the topic above. The cell shading is a bit weird at times, but I love the message of connecting with family, even if we don’t totally get them.
• Have potential Capital Gains? Here’s a fun map showing it could be taxed if Biden’s proposed changes go through (plus how much it will DECREASE tax revenue…which seems counterproductive)
• A single New Jersey deli worth $100 million. I’m sure there’s nothing weird going on there.

Service Dog Update
Some people love that with spring comes gardening. I hate it. It means more trips to Home Depot (which is, thankfully, quite close) to fix sprinklers or get more seed or whatever else needs to be done. Considering I’m barely keeping my life together as it is, it’s just one more thing to add to the pile.

But Domino Service Dogs says Home Depot is a great place to take Sherman. It’s a dog friendly place, so he gets to meet all kinds of other four legged friends. And with this last Saturday being the first real warm day of Spring, it had almost as many dogs running around as people.

He’s still an adolescent, and he wants to investigate every single dog (and almost every person, for that matter). So on our second trip that day to the HD (stupid plumber’s tape ran out), he was looking around like a kid at a candy shop.

Until the Great Dane showed it’s head.

The huge dog was walking with dignity down the main aisle, until he locked eyes with Sherman. Then that gray hound let out one deep, low bark that shook the store like those earthquakes we had growing up in California.

Suddenly, Sherman couldn’t get out of there soon enough.

Which brings another fun part of being a service dog trainer–I had to pretend like nothing was wrong, even though I was just about as terrified as the dog that that four legged Shark was about to rumble with my Jet.

Fortunately, Sherman seemed fine five seconds later. Though I guess we’ll see what happens next time we turn on Scooby Doo.