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Exploiting millennials! #wageNwar (3)

I live in a society that preaches the honors of “paying your dues” to climb the ‘ladder of success’ — a society that tells me my generation wants way more than we deserve ; and we’re willing to work for. Let me call this the first load of ‘crap’.

Ja'dan Johnson
3 min readOct 22, 2017

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We’re not lazy. We efficient. We recognize that you can jump from A to C.

The world around us is changing and Jamaican millennials have realized that. We too want to be apart of the change but the older generation keeps telling us to pay our dues, work hard — why? Because they did. It’s pretty unfair if you ask me but I decided not to settle for the mediocrity they’ve expected from me.

My internship experience was super rewarding, I was apart of the Marketing team for a local telecom company and had a chance to make meaningful contributions to the team. I worked on major projects and had a voice at the table. My experience was strikingly different from my friend, she spent her days licking postage stamps at the office.

I left my role as an intern to become the Senior Marketing Officer at a next local corporate firm.

The reality —
I’ just love it when we use our platforms to share our voice. It’s time we call out the inadequacies in the systems.

Internships were meant to be meaningful and career building experiences for individuals. Senior team members shouldn’t try to manage interns, but instead ‘mentor’ them and immerse them into the true world of work.

The sad reality is ‘jobs are still asking for 5 years of experiences’ and while many of my peers could perform just as well (or even better) as someone with even 10 years, we still have to fill those gaps on our resume’s so we can become true contributors to society.

“What success without a little sacrifice?” —Keznamdi

As young entrepreneur I was exploited by many ‘clients’ who insisted I offered my services cheaper or pro-bono to build my portfolio and after four years I realized that as long as I was young, this would always be the story. I’ve stopped and I’m spotting the BS from miles away.

I’m never against people and experiences that meaningfully contributes to your personal and professional development. But until this is no longer seen as a means of having young people pay their ‘dues’ — millenials and future generations will feel ‘exploited’.

And when you think we are truly contributing to your goals, pay us! We can’t live from ‘you’re doing a great job!’ and ‘I’d love to hire you in the future, but not right now’.

We shouldn’t be forced to settle for mediocrity. Help us to shine in your organizations, help us learn skills we can take to run our own companies, teach us how to use our skills to mobilize ourselves.

My advice to millennials —
“What success without a little sacrifice?” — Keznamdi

Show up and do your best — be your best. Don’t live the substandard expectations placed on us, by those before us. Make the moves that will help you to get where you want to be, even if its not all shiny now. You’ve got to keep moving and being your best. This time, you’re doing it for you.

I’m willing to pay my dues. But only when it helps to propel me further, not satisfy the selfish needs of my ‘elders’ or ‘managers’.

And to those who disagree, I understand….
This is a very generalized piece. I know that not everyone is like the people described above ; and not everyone will agree — but this is my 0.02c on the situation.

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Ja'dan Johnson
Ja'dan Johnson

Written by Ja'dan Johnson

Founder of Miami Hack Week | Sharing lessons, stories and articles from my journey. Avid techie & connector of people.

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