Words and illustrations by Mira Downie
After five hours of “Hi, what can I get for you today?”, all I’m looking forward to is my night out with friends. I had an afternoon shift, my time spent surrounded by the brain-rotting noises of alarms going off for who knows what machine, and orders of large meals with “Coke, but NO ICE,” and “FRESH FRIES ONLY!”
I always find myself saying, ‘Today is the day I am going to quit,’ but I never do, because I don’t really know what else there is to do.
Customers will ask me, “No school today?” But actually, I graduated high school two years ago and I’m just trying to earn some money while I’m 16k in student debt and counting. Another favourite customer line is “smile because it’s free,” often coming from older people who also complain about the “incompetence” of my generation. Their condescending tone aggravates me, but I just nod in silence, and they walk off looking so pleased with themselves. ‘Minimum wage minimum effort.’ is my motto. Is this a bad mindset to have?
My shift ends and I race home, running what is usually a 20-minute walk back to my house so I can jump in the shower, wash off all the fry grease and negativity of customers asking me “Is this slow food or fast food?”
I’m looking forward to bar hopping and spending my day’s wage in just one night.
“Gen Z is a doomed,” is what I hear over and over again. “You’ll be lucky if you can ever afford to buy a house.” One of my favourite pastimes in high school was sitting in class and looking at RealEstate.com. My friends and I would whisper at the back of the classroom, choosing houses by the beach, and near the city, adding them to our favourites list. Each generation has had its own version of ‘expectation versus reality’ when it comes to their future. Previous generations expected to buy homes in their 20s or 30s, but for Gen Z, the path to independence is slower.
I’m lucky that I’m still able to live at home with my family while I study at uni. I don’t have to work full-time hours just to pay for rent and groceries. But a big part of me wants to become more independent, and experience living on my own so I can feel like a ‘real adult’. Even if I wanted to move out right now, how could I afford at least $500 a week in rent? The world expects us to act like adults, but many of us struggle to earn enough money to achieve the so-called ‘adult’ lifestyle of renting or homeownership.
Many of my uni friends are living in student accommodation or renting small apartments around the CBD. The number of times I’ve heard them say they have nothing to eat at home because they ran out of money for groceries really concerns me. Everyone has heard about the insane price gouging from supermarket chains Coles and Woolworths. Woolworths has been accused of increasing the prices temporarily of at least 266 different products before they were put on the Prices Dropped campaign, and Coles with at least 245 products.
When I worked as a waitress at a local café, my manager told me he understood what it’s like to be a uni student. Yet, as an 18-year-old, I was earning just 15 dollars an hour. When my coworkers asked for higher pay, his response was “If you don’t like the pay then you can leave.”
There’s this romanticisation of minimum wage jobs when you’re young, the idea that ‘This is where I got started in life.’ It’s painted as a rite of passage—a time to learn hard work, resilience, and what it takes to earn a living. But while these jobs can be formative for our ‘character development’, they also involve long hours, for low pay, and very little support. The reality for many of us is less about personal growth and more about making ends meet (or not!) and navigating the daily challenges of undervalued work.
Most of our late teens and 20s are spent dreaming of a life to be. One slow day while working at that café, the barista asked me, “Do you ever just want to run away from life?” She told me her life plans, and how she’s excited for the day she will be able to buy a house, and a car, and see all of Europe. I quit that job a week later and didn’t get to say goodbye, so I hope she’s been able to do some of the things.
Maybe Gen Z is doomed, but what if we start by redefining what these ‘adult milestones’ are and accept that the traditional milestones of buying a house and having a steady job don’t reflect our current reality? Adulthood should be something less about material milestones, and more about learning to thrive within limitations. Maybe it’s not the romanticised adulthood we envisioned in high school, but it’s less about ‘having it all together’, and more about how resilient and adaptable we can be.
