THE QUOTE RACK

The new 'work ethic,' Gen Z style

Gen Z people are treating employers like bad dates: 93% ghost interviews and 87%have not even shown up for their first day of work.

Ghosting isn’t just for dating anymore. Now Gen Z folks are treating their would-be employers like bad dates and not showing up for job interviews or their first day on the job without as much as a phone call.

Employment website Indeed surveyed 1,500 businesses and 1,500working people in the U.K. and found that job ghosting is rife, with 75%of workers saying they’ve ignored a prospective employer in the past year.

But the youngest generation of workers are by far the worst offenders.

A whopping 93% of Gen Zers told the global recruitment platform that they’ve flaked out of an interview.

Worse still, a staggering 87% managed to charm their way through interviews, secure the job, and sign the contract, only to leave their new boss stranded on the very first day.

Their reason for doing so? According to the survey, it makes them “feel in charge of their career."

But it’s having the opposite effect on businesses left high and dry :More than half of businesses surveyed have said that ghosting has made hiring more difficult.

Businesses and millennials are at it too

Although Gen Z are the biggest culprits, baby boomers, Gen X, andmillennials aren't off the hook: Indeed’s data found that everyone isguilty of ghosting occasionally.

Almost half of those surveyed said they plan on pulling a disappearing act again, with a third deeming it acceptable to do so before an interview.

However, unlike Gen Z who feel emboldened by blanking bosses, older workers say they instantly regret it.

Millennials, for example, are most likely to feel anxious after ghosting and worried that ghosting will negatively impact future opportunities.

What’s more, while more than half of Gen Zers are repeat offenders, the researchers found that a candidate’s likelihood to ghost again decreases with age.

Even businesses are joining in: One in five workers complained that a prospective employer has failed to show up for a phone interview, while 23% have been provided with a verbal offer only to be left hanging.

It’s why workers today think that ghosting is fair game: More than half agree that since employers ghost job seekers, it’s okay to do it back.

And, perhaps surprisingly, over a third of companies agree that this sentiment is reasonable.

The data confirms suspicions—and offers a solution.

For many employers, Indeed’s data will finally confirm their suspicions that Gen Z has commitment issues.

Towards the end of last year, an MIT interviewer and finance CEO was so fed up with young candidates not showing up for their interviews that she ranted about it on X—and the now-deleted post went viral.“

"One no-showed after picking the time on my calendar, Christina Qi, CEO of the financial services firm Databento and an MIT board member wrote. “Look, I know college isn’t for everyone, but this one meeting could affect where you go for these next four years of your life.”

Like MIT, Britain’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) similarly found that Gen Z is hard to pin down.

The government body was forced to scrap key employment data because young people didn’t bother responding to its telephone surveys.

If employers want to get a hold of Gen Z, Indeed’s data says they should sweeten the deal: When suggesting ways employers could prevent being ghosted, workers ranked higher pay first, followed by better benefits.

Indeed found that the cost-of-living crisis has exuberated ghosting, with around 40% of those surveyed admitting that they're more likely to ghost if they find a job offering better pay or a cheaper commute.

Ultimately, it’s not just about getting the job. For young workers, it’s also about being able to afford to accept the offer.

Gen Zers are being forced to turn down the roles because they can't foot the bill for the expenses associated with starting a new job, like buying work-appropriate attire and a monthly train ticket.

“It’s clear that the financial offer is the biggest carrot for employers trying to attract talent, with pay, benefits and other factors that support the rise in cost-of-living likely to prevent a jobseeker from ghosting," concluded Indeed’s U.K. head of talent intelligence, Danny Stacy.

“Of course, not all businesses will be in the position to increase their offer, but being transparent about the financial package from the outset is likely to prevent jobseekers from ghosting further along the hiring process.”

--Orianna Rosa Royle, Fortune.com

No cash accepted’ signs are bad news for millions 

How many people don’t have a bank account? And just how difficult has it become to live without one? 

These questions are becoming increasingly important as more businesses refuse to take cash in cities across the U.S. People without bank accounts are shut out from stores and restaurants that refuse to accept cash. 

As it happens, a lot of people are still “unbanked”: roughly 6 million in the U.S., the latest data shows, which is about the population of Wisconsin. And outside of the U.S., more than a billion people don’t have a bank account. I am a business school professor who researches society’s transition from cash to electronic payments. I recently visited Seattle and was amazed by the mixed signals I saw in many storefronts. Numerous shops had one sign proudly proclaiming how welcoming and inclusive they were--next to another sign saying “No cash accepted.” This tells people without bank accounts that they aren’t welcome. 

Why would someone want to avoid using banks? Every two years, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation surveys households about their connections to the banking system and asks people without bank accounts why they don’t have one. People can respond with multiple answers. In 2021, the top reason--with over 40 percent of respondents choosing it--was that they didn’t have enough money to meet the minimum balance. 

This is consistent with data showing that poorer households are less likely to have bank accounts. About one-quarter of those earning less than $15,000 a year are unbanked, the FDIC found. Among those earning more than $75,000 a year, almost every person surveyed had some type of bank account. The second- and third-most common answers show that some people are skeptical of banks. Roughly one-third of survey respondents agreed that “Avoiding a bank gives more privacy,” while another one-third said they simply “don’t trust banks.” 

Rounding out the top five reasons were costs of dealing with a bank. More than one-quarter of respondents felt bank account fees were too high, and about the same proportion felt fees were too unpredictable. While many middle-class and wealthy people don’t pay directly for their bank accounts, fees can be costly for those who can’t maintain a minimum balance. A recent Bankrate survey shows basic monthly service fees range between $5 and $15. Beyond these steady fees, banks earn $4 to $5 each time people withdraw cash from an ATM or need services like getting cashier’s checks. Unexpected bills can result in overdraft fees of about $25 each time an account is overdrawn. 

The FDIC calls people without a bank account “the unbanked.” The latest FDIC data shows almost 6 million unbanked and 19 million underbanked U.S. households. Given that 2.5 people live in the average household, this means there are over 15 million people living in a home with no connection to banks, and 48 million more in homes with only a tenuous connection to banks. Combining the two figures means roughly one out of every five people in the U.S. has little or no connection to banks or other financial institutions. That can leave them shut out from stores, restaurants, transportation and medical providers that don’t take cash. 

The true number of unbanked people is likely higher than the FDIC estimates. The questions on being banked or unbanked are supplemental questions added to a survey given to people at their homes. This means it misses homeless people, transients without a permanent address and undocumented immigrants. These people are likely unbanked because you need a verified address and a government-issued tax-identification number to get a bank account. Given roughly 2.5 million migrants crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in 2023 alone, there are millions more people in the cash-only economy than the FDIC estimates.

While the U.S. has relatively high rates of people with bank accounts, the picture is different in other parts of the world. The World Bank has created a database that shows the percentage of each country’s population that has access to financial services. The World Bank’s definition of being banked is broader than the FDIC’s, since it includes anyone who uses a cellphone to send and receive money as having a bank account. Overall, the World Bank estimates about one-quarter of the world’s adults don’t have access to a bank or mobile-phone account. 

But that varies dramatically by region. In countries that use the Euro, almost everyone has a bank account, while in the Middle East and North Africa, only about half the population does. A more inclusive economy Many of us swipe our credit cards, tap our phones or insert a debit card to pay without thinking. However, there are at least 6 million people in the U.S. and almost 1.5 billion worldwide who are unbanked. When businesses stop accepting cash, the unbanked are forced to use payment methods like prepaid debit cards. 

However, these prepaid cards are costly. For example, Walmart, one of the largest U.S. retailers, offers a reloadable basic debit card. The card costs $1 to buy and charges $6 per month in fees, in addition to $3 each time someone wants to load the card with cash at Walmart’s registers. Paying a minimum of $10 just to set up a debit card for a few purchases is a steep price. The next time you see a sign in a shop or restaurant window stating “No cash accepted,” you’re really looking at a business excluding many unbanked and underbanked people. Insisting that all businesses accept cash is a simple way to ensure everyone is financially included in the modern economy. 

--Jay L. Zagorsky, Clinical Associate Professor of Markets, Public Policy and Law, Boston University 

The pain of social rejection

“I’ve been ostracized,” Ellen told me, tearing up.

A decade-long member of a small and tight knit group of friends, she suddenly found herself persona non grata. The decision to cast her out was orchestrated by Tina, the alpha female of this klatch, someone she had considered a close friend and confidant.

“To say I was shocked is a gross understatement,” she reported. “Over the years, I was there to support Tina through her divorce, then a job loss and, just last year, a health crisis. I always had her back.”

“Do you know why she turned on you?” I asked.

Ellen’s attempts to get a straight answer to that question proved futile. Tina ended their final conversation by coldly stating that the “cost benefit ratio” for maintaining their friendship was no longer sufficient, but she never provided a clear rationale, leaving Ellen to ruminate about “Why?”

Empty Talk

The other members of this social confab told Ellen they wished to remain friends, but it proved mostly empty talk. Many of her invitations to socialize were turned aside with lame excuses, and when meetings did occur, there was a decided emotional chill in the air. Ellen imagined that Tina had not only kicked her to the curb but also poisoned the well.

“I’ve been surprised by how painful this has been,” she told me.

I was not. For most of us, social rejection proves among the more intense emotional wounds one can suffer. In fact, research shows ostracism can be more distressing and wreak greater psychological damage than bullying, intimidation or harassment. More than a few suicides, many by children and teens, can be attributed to this social tar and feathering, much of it exacerbated by social media.

“Two things are at work here,” I told her. “Being rejected is one thing, and that’s bad enough, but when you aren’t given a plausible reason, that makes it far worse.”

Studies show emotional suffering, whatever the source, is exacerbated by not knowing why it is happening. One’s distress seems meaningless and unjust. If Ellen had been afforded a rational explanation for being cast out, her hurt would have been somewhat easier to bear.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever get over this,” she lamented, and rightfully so.

Move On? 

If you’ve ever had one or more of the important people in your life cast you out into the interpersonal cold while also failing to provide a cogent explanation for doing so, you realize how challenging it is to let go and move on. In her struggle to cope, Ellen ping-ponged between trying to forgive and practice compassion and feeling consumed with anger and bitterness. She recognized that resentment is a self-inflicted wound that only amplifies one’s suffering but was unable to transcend it.

As social animals, being ostracized stabs at the heart of foundational human needs, such as belonging and acceptance, and it undermines self-esteem. This causes myriad ill effects, including depression, grief, bitterness and even an inflammatory reaction in the body, and these impacts can persist for long periods of time.

“What can I do?” Ellen pondered.

“You can find someone else who has been shunned and include that person in your life,” I suggested.

And she did. Ellen befriended someone in her workplace who was excluded for her unconventional appearance, and then another from her church who was ostracized by the other congregants for what they perceived as her moral failures. In helping them salve their respective emotional trauma, she experienced some healing of her own.

Gradually, Ellen developed a mindset described by Oprah Winfrey, who said, “I don’t want anyone who doesn’t want me.” An attitude that may sound cold but one with the best odds of moving past the deep wound of social rejection.

--Philip Chard

Telling 'the youngs' how life was like

Dinner table conversations have Gen Zers asking their elders: How did you meet up with people? How did you find what you wanted to buy?

Between the lines: Even people who did grow up pre-internet find it increasingly hard to recall how things worked.By today's standards, things were more boring and inconvenient. You couldn't find the answer to whatever question popped into your head, and you couldn't reach anyone, anytime.

"Many who lived through these 'Dark Ages' will tell you how life seemed less busy, less stressful, and more enjoyable," Christopher McFadden writes on the news site Interesting Engineering. People got together in person more often since they couldn't text or Zoom.
Boredom begat creativity and useful ideas. Pop culture was a lot less fragmented since everybody had to watch shows when they aired.

--Axios PM

Why won't corporate America answer the phone?

When I recently called an MRI facility about an overcharge, a prerecorded voice told me, over and over again for 45 minutes, that call volume was “unusually high” and, by the way, the weather was compounding a labor shortage.

On another recent day, I needed to resolve a problem with a company with no listed phone number at all — which is how I found myself furiously pounding the keyboard in conversation with, yes, a chatbot at a vegan meal delivery service.

It shouldn’t be this hard to speak to a human. But, increasingly, companies large and small are making it difficult to access a real, live person when help is needed. Contact numbers are hard to find. Wait times to speak to an operator are long — one industry analyst estimated the average wait tripled from 2020 to 2022 and says he believes they still are a third worse than before the pandemic. Some phone lines are seemingly staffed entirely by robots, forcing you to go through menu after menu in quest of a live, real person. Or, increasingly, companies don’t offer a telephone option at all.

This is not simply inconvenient. It’s contemptuous. And consumers pay the price in emotional aggravation, in precious time and in literal money, as people give up on legitimate financial claims because they are unable to surmount the barriers in their way.

“It’s an absolute disaster,” says Abraham Seidmann, a professor of information systems at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business. “It’s a major abdication of corporate responsibility.”

Companies say they are reducing options for human contact by popular demand. They claim customers often prefer a virtual option — so said Frontier Airlines after it recently ceased offering customers access to live phone agents, directing them to text, chatbot or email instead. But as the Wall Street Journal noted late last year, Frontier is simultaneously telling its investors that call centers are “expensive,” while use of chatbots eliminates the customer’s ability to negotiate.

There are nods to surveys showing millennials and Gen Z’ers prefer online contact. (Little wonder, since they’re naturally phone-shy, but it’s worth noting that they have also come of age in a world of dreadful phone service.) Employers also say that in the post-pandemic world, they can’t hire enough help.

All of this is, for the most part, excuse-making. If there are humans clamoring to end customer contact, it’s the ones in the c-suite, where the suits are happy to save a few pennies on call services at your expense.

“I don’t want to put nefarious intent in people’s mouths, but I’m positive that a lot of these companies looked at it and went, ‘Hey, our service levels went down [during the pandemic], and we didn’t lose customers over it, so let’s keep them a little lower. Let’s see how hard we can make this before they start pushing back,’” says Jeff Gallino, the chief technical officer at CallMiner, an analytics firm.

A survey by OnePoll in 2021 found that more than two-thirds of respondents ranked speaking to a human representative as one of their preferred methods of interacting with a company, while 55 percent identified the ability to reach a human as the most important attribute a customer service department can possess. “When people are anxious or have problems, they really, really want to talk,” says Michelle Shell, a visiting assistant professor also at the Questrom school. “You need human contact.”

As for the claim they can’t find willing employees? Yes, turnover is traditionally high in the call center industry, and even higher in the wake of the Great Resignation. On the other hand, given that call centers are located around the globe, that’s quite the worker shortage.

What’s really going on here is a question of power. Increasingly, leverage belongs not to the customer paying the bills but to the company offering the needed service — sometimes one for which there is no competition. Foisting the work onto the consumer is a bet that the customer has no other options or won’t choose to exercise them. And often, that bet is a good one.

None of this to say is that it’s always necessary to speak to a human. It’s easy enough to make a restaurant reservation online. But we need a human touch when things go wrong. We want help, not to spend hours looking for a useful phone number for Facebook (in case you were wondering, it doesn’t exist) or navigating endless phone trees.

There are some models for better regulation. In 2018, for example, California passed legislation mandating that chatbots disclose when there isn’t a human on the other side of the conversation. But there is no pending legislation in Congress that demands companies offer a human point of contact.

The difficulty of reaching humans for customer support is an imposition on both our time and our finances, forcing us to spend what can be hours of labor — sometimes known as shadow work or a time tax — to resolve what should be simple problems. It’s one factor contributing to the sense that we as American consumers are fighting our battles alone, as so much prey for Big Business. And it’s not so unreasonable to say we deserve better than that.

--Helaine Olen, Washington Post