CNA Lifestyle’s Grace Yeoh is a firm supporter of “work smarter, not harder” – but as a millennial, she also believes this Gen Z mantra has been misconstrued.
Few people would consider an unpaid internship “working smart”. For CNA Lifestyle’s correspondent Grace Yeoh (pictured), it was one of her best career decisions.
During my first university summer break, I willingly took on an unpaid, full-time internship. I knew before applying that I wouldn’t earn a cent.
The gig: Fashion editorial intern for the now-defunct Cosmopolitan Singapore magazine. For eight weeks in 2012, I was Anne Hathaway in The Devil Wears Prada – sans an evil boss and obnoxious colleagues.
One major task involved sourcing, loaning and returning clothes, shoes and accessories for photoshoots. This meant shuttling between about 10 stores daily, ensuring every item stayed pristine through rain or shine – or risk paying S$300 for a scuffed shoe.
I also spent hours scouring celebrity photos online for the magazine’s fashion pages, testing both my pop culture knowledge and patience.
Behind the glamour of the publishing industry, the work was tedious, exhausting and pressurising to a borderline comedic degree.
And I enjoyed it so much I extended my internship by another two weeks, also unpaid, halving my remaining free time before the next semester.
Correspondent Grace Yeoh (bottom, centre) took on an unpaid internship at Cosmopolitan Singapore magazine when she was younger and she has maintained her friendships with her supervisors and bosses.
WORK SMARTER, NOT HARDER?
Looking back, I’m almost embarrassed to admit that I, a progressive millennial, once happily gave away my labour for free. An unpaid internship would seem to defy today’s interpretation of “work smarter, not harder”.
In theory, this modern workforce mantra – especially popular among Gen Zers – is exactly the behavioural change that millennials like me have always wanted to see. We reject presenteeism, resist redundant tasks, and detest the culture of staying late just to appear busy.
Contrary to our “strawberry generation” label, many millennials embrace unavoidable hard work, even if the basic level of hard work required differs depending on industry. Though I believe in leaving the office when one’s tasks are done, I never mind working overtime when necessary.
But having been parented, taught and mentored by a more conservative generation of workers, we also equated career success with not rocking the boat. It’s no surprise that we’ve also been labelled the burnout generation.
“Gen Z – unapologetically vocal about their boundaries and unafraid to question the status quo”
Enter Gen Z. Having witnessed the fallout from a lack of boundaries, they rallied around “work smarter, not harder” as a call for balance.
But where many millennials took on more than we could handle at the expense of our physical and mental health, a significant portion of our younger counterparts take it to the opposite extreme.
The critique of Gen Z’s work ethic – unwillingness to work hard, entitlement to work-life balance, overly choosy with jobs and impatience for results – doesn’t seem to faze them. They are unapologetically vocal about their boundaries and unafraid to question the status quo, embodying an audacity from which millennials could learn.
I get it, workplace culture discourse can feel like Groundhog Day. Every generation has the same critique of younger folk that they received from their elders.
But in my experience, there is a difference between knowing what you want and knowing how to get it.
It can take years to figure out working smart is often about knowing how to do it, requiring flexibility in approach rather than a rigid pursuit of and single-minded focus on ideal outcomes.
