I work in the world of marketing and ecommerce. My job is to understand the demographics and preferences of all prospective buyers. I, then, convince them to purchase my company’s products and services. However, buyer preferences differ from person to person. It’s like the snowflake conundrum, where everyone is different and you have to target messaging precisely to each consumers’ preferences. My job as a marketer and business person has never been more challenging.
Think about it. 20 years ago, you went to Kohl’s to buy jeans. On the shelves, the stores organized the Levi jeans by waste size and length. Then, you find your size and checkout. Done. Today, you need to find the “perfect” pair of jeans. Boot cut, straight leg, skinny, mid-rise, slim, relaxed, loose. Just to name a few. This is the world we, Generation Y (the Millennials), grew up in and Generation Z will grow into. Don’t settle for anything less than perfect. And it’s demanding change in the world, for better or for worse.
But one thing remains constant for Millennials with all previous generations, we have to grow up and learn how to assimilate ourselves to the world that exists today. We go to school to better ourselves. Buy or rent our homes. Pay our bills. We find ways to live our lives. In a way, we can change the world, but the world also changes us. It’s a two-way street and we have to understand that. We, the Millennials, have to learn to fit into this world, which is why this blog exists: to share our stories and help us learn how to live in this world.
Why Call it Working Class?
People pressured us to go to college and get a piece of paper that tells the world we are competent. Professional trades will die because of this and, in turn, reshaping the working class as it is defined today. The reality is that piece of paper is not necessarily improving our lives from the lives of our parents when they were our age. In many cases, they had less debt and the same or better pay 20-30 years ago.
Most Millennials will make decent money only to be offset by outrageous student debt to get a meaningless degree, pay for ever-growing expensive weddings, and other challenges, all without inflationary increases of pay. In the existing parameters of social stratification, Millennials may be middle class in terms overall pay but are merely working class when it comes to discretionary income. We have new and unforeseen challenges previous generations have never encountered.
What is this blog?
Working Class Millennial is not meant to be a specialized blog targeted at Millennials, but a lifestyle blog full of life stories and lessons that myself and other contributors learn along our journeys to help ease some of these challenges our generation faces. From managing finances and a house, to entertaining others, to health, we will cover everything we learn along the way. We are not experts in any of these areas but simply things we pick up along the way that we want to share with others who are going through these same challenges. We may be working class Millennials but this blog is meant for all who will enjoy our talks about life’s journey.
