If you haven’t seen the movie Office Space from the creator of Beavis and Butthead, it’s a must see.  It pokes fun at life of software company workers in the 90s.  The modern-day version of that seems to be playing out for bored office workers in the time of Covid, according to a recent piece in the NYT.
 
The YOLO economy
Originally popularized by Drake, YOLO means 'you only live once'.  For those people lucky enough to have in-demand skills and bank accounts fattened from over a year of stay-at-home work, the pandemic has increased the professional courage of seeking something better than the status quo of the 9-5 routine.
 
And now with the prospect of returning to the office looming, many are choosing to get out of the career rat race altogether and pursue passion projects instead.  Per the NYT article, a Microsoft survey found that more than 40% of workers globally were considering leaving their jobs this year.
 
Employers have taken notice and want to stem the flow:

• LinkedIn – paid week off for most of its employees doled out recently
• Twitter –#DayofRest instituted which gives employees an extra day off per month to recharge
• Credit Suisse – $20,000 “lifestyle allowances” for junior bankers
• Houlihan Lokey – many employees given all-expenses-paid vacations

The traditional career path is under pressure as many now have the courage to finally pursue the entrepreneurial ventures they may have been considering.  On the flip side, these workers also have significant leverage to ask for what they want from their employers.
 
“Employees have a totally unprecedented ability to negotiate in the next 18 to 48 months,” per Johnathan Nightingale, an author and a co-founder of Raw Signal Group, a management training firm, cited in the NYT article. “If I, as an individual, am dissatisfied with the current state of my employment, I have so many more options than I used to have.”

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