The Generation That Refuses to Play Along

Hello!

It’s Thursday, 20^th November 2025. Welcome back to Bold Efforts. Every week we explore how work and life are being redesigned while most people are too busy to notice. This time, the spotlight is on a shift unfolding quietly inside companies everywhere. It shows up in Zoom calls, team chats, one-on-ones, and resignation emails. A new generation has arrived, and they’re rewriting the social rules of work.

People often reduce this to a generation gap. They shrug and say it’s normal for younger employees to see the world differently. But this is not the usual cycle of the old complaining about the young. Something deeper is happening.

Gen Z is the first generation to enter the workforce with full visibility into how modern work actually functions. They watched entire industries freeze, collapse, and restart. They saw layoffs delivered by automated emails. They noticed how many meetings were unnecessary, how many policies were arbitrary, and how much of professional life depended on theatre rather than real output. They stepped into the workplace with the curtain already lifted.

So they refuse to play pretend.

When a rule doesn’t make sense, they ask why. When a process wastes time, they question it. When culture feels performative, they disengage. Not because they lack commitment, but because they don’t want to spend their lives maintaining rituals that produce nothing.

It looks defiant from the outside. But it’s actually clarity. They know what matters. They know their time is finite. They know their skills have value. And they know they don’t owe loyalty to a system that can drop them in a spreadsheet.

This is not rebellion. This is rational behaviour.

Older generations were conditioned to endure. They grew up in a world where stability came from holding on. Work hard, keep quiet, stay late, wait your turn. That deal made sense when organizations offered long-term certainty in return. Today, that certainty no longer exists, yet the rituals remained. Gen Z simply declined the outdated contract.

What makes this shift fascinating is how closely it aligns with high-quality work. Good systems remove waste. Good teams question defaults. Good operators cut unnecessary friction. Gen Z behaves like this instinctively. If something is broken, they don’t double down. They stop, inspect, and reset.

They don’t measure value in hours. They measure it in output. They don’t pretend busyness is productivity. They don’t chase approval from people who lead by authority instead of competence. And they don’t care about impressing the room. They care about doing real work.

Some people mistake this as impatience. But impatience is wanting rewards without effort. What Gen Z demands is different: clarity, fairness, autonomy, and systems that actually work. These are not luxuries. These are the foundations of a functional workplace.

And there is discipline in how they operate. Setting boundaries is discipline. Knowing your worth is discipline. Refusing to waste time is discipline. These habits compound. Energy compounds. Clarity compounds. When you build a career this way, everything compounds.

It’s easy to label these behaviours as entitlement. It’s harder to admit that many old habits were never good habits. They persisted because nobody questioned them. Now someone finally is.

The companies that adapt will win. Not because they cater to a trend, but because they build workplaces fit for the world we actually live in. A world where attention is scarce, transparency is high, information moves instantly, and people know they have options. A world where respect is not a perk but a baseline.

So this is not a story about generations fighting. It’s a story about clarity forcing an upgrade. A story about people who won’t pretend that bad work is normal. A story about a quiet cultural correction driven by the simplest question of all.

Why?

Every meaningful shift begins with that question. And right now, an entire generation is asking it with remarkable consistency.

Work needed this. It needed a reset. It needed people who refuse to participate in rituals that waste human potential. People who don’t just want to work better, but want work itself to make sense.

Call it whatever you want. But the workplace is changing. And this generation is not breaking it. They are helping it grow up. I am extremely bullish on gen Z and their attitude in the workplace. Thank you for reading!

Best,
Kartik

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Who am I?
I’m Kartik, founder of Polynomial Studio, a holding company and product studio building AI-driven businesses for the future of work. The way we work and live is being rewritten. AI, remote work, and shifting economic forces are reshaping careers, businesses, and entire industries. The big question is where it’s all heading.

For the past eight years, I’ve been at the forefront of these shifts, working across real estate, technology, startups, and corporate strategy. I’ve helped businesses navigate change and stay ahead of what’s next, always focused on understanding the forces shaping our future and how we can use them to build something better. Click here to know more about me.

Why Bold Efforts?
I started Bold Efforts because I believe work should fit into life, not the other way around. Too many people are stuck in outdated systems that don’t serve them. This newsletter is about challenging the status quo and making the effort to design work around life. It brings together bold ideas and actionable insights to help you build a healthier, more balanced relationship with work, leading to greater purpose and fulfillment. If you’re looking for fresh perspectives on how to work and live better, you’re in the right place.

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