The book's title was kind of a brain storm between my agent, the book's editor and me. Originally it was pitched as having the title hash tag pest life to kind of dismantle the social mediotrope of the one sized fitzall best life that we're all supposed to aspire to. But ordinariness, we're all ordinary. We all experience that every day. It shapes our everyday lives, whether we realize it or not. And so many of the transitions that happen in young adulthood between work or panic are profoundly ordinary feelings.
The workforce is changing. Millennials are turning into elder millennials and Zoomers are turning into employed adults, thus shifting the makeup of the modern working population—and its values. Long gone are any romantic or bootstrappy notions of “paying your dues,” which, in many work environments, is just shorthand for dealing with toxicity and subpar pay; there are fewer people receiving chintzy gifts for 35-year anniversaries at the same company.
In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans speak with journalist Rainesford Stauffer, author of the new book "An Ordinary Age," about the exceptionalism bubble; how work crises have ballooned into identity crises; the mythology of the “dream job”; and how young adults are already shaping—and challenging—the future of work.
Learn more about Rainesford's work and buy her book here: https://rainesford.medium.com/
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