I was sitting at my desk in the office on Friday morning when my phone pinged with a voice note from two of my friends. “Oh my God, we’ve been out partying till 8am. We haven’t slept. We’ve both called in sick to work,” they screeched into the phone, laughing.
One of the friends, who works in film, had sent her boss a frank (and drunken) email that morning. It read: “I could make up a lie and pretend that my granny is seriously ill. But I’m going to be honest and level with you. I’ve not been home yet. I’m not in a state to work.” Surprisingly, her boss replied and said that she appreciated her honesty.
You could say that my two 26-year-old friends are lazy, entitled delinquents who shouldn’t be allowed in the workforce. That’s probably fair. Or instead, you could say that they were just “acting their wage”. This is a new phenomenon sweeping the internet, encouraging young employees to match how hard they work to the amount they are paid. So basically, if you’re paid a low salary you only have to do the bare minimum. You are well within your rights to refuse to go above and beyond, and should prioritise your social life.
The movement has gone viral, partly because of the 30-year-old TikTokker Sarai Soto, who makes funny videos in which she role plays acting her wage to a toxic boss. The videos, in which her sassy character slurps on Starbucks as she declines evening Zoom meetings and refuses to finish work at home, have helped her to rake in 88.4 million likes on the platform.
What does acting your wage look like in real life? Take the England v Iran World Cup clash on Monday last week. When play kicked off at 1pm ten of my friends were watching it on a pub screen. Photos and videos of them sinking pints all afternoon to celebrate our 6-2 win were plastered on their Instagram stories and BeReals. Their bosses were none the wiser, naively thinking they were working from home as usual. One of the boys brought his laptop to the pub and left Slack open so it would look as if he was online during the match.
This deception, of course, is every boss’s nightmare: that when employees claim to be working from home they are not diligently emailing but out on the piss in the middle of the day. This bunch work in creative jobs and make £25,000 to £35,000 a year. Perhaps they don’t feel that that number is large enough to warrant hard grind.
● I’m a quiet quitter — I was so bored I watched Netflix at work
My friends joined the workforce a few months before, or during the pandemic. That means many of them have not experienced working five days a week in the office, and have to go in once a week at most. For many my age and younger, this has given the office a big novelty factor.
Recently, my TikTok homepage has been inundated with videos of young workers posting the highlights of their office nine-to-fives, which pull in millions of likes. There’s the “Rate the team’s office outfits” trend, where each employee’s outfit is filmed as they walk through the doors. Swanky office tours do well — one features an ice machine, Sonos speaker, pool table and free, alcoholic bar. Even seemingly dull daily-routine videos such as “Refill our office snack drawer with me” are popular.
The funniest office-related TikTok content is about how young workers handle corporate language. In the “How my Gen-Z co-workers sign off email” trend, screenshots flash up of email sign-offs that include “please consider my mental health before replying”, “hehe bye”, “ciao bitch”, “mean regards” and “mike drop”. There are funny screenshots of Gen Z’s out-of-office responses, such as “If you need me . . . too bad!” and “On vacation, hoping to win the lottery and never return”.
So yes, the office is getting millions of likes on social media. But I don’t think that’s enough to entice my friends to quit working from home, or to turn down the pub and work an evening instead. As for me, I promise that I don’t do any of the above, or pull any fast ones. Honest, boss.
