https://www.indy100.com/tv/whoopi-goldberg-millennials-the-view
Whoopie's gonna get yelled at by a bunch of entitled kids now, but also... she's right.
And yet we're currently seeing this constant drumbeat of criticism against work ethic on one end of the spectrum, and moronic "grind" culture on the other.
Look to gen-Xer classics like Office Space to see the repulsion of pointless office tedium on display when millennials were kids and Zs were glints in Xers eyes.
It's just that this generation is more trapped in that context than any before it.
Additionally they tasted the freedom of WFH in the pandemic and the corporate wheels didn't come off, and are now being herded back into offices for... reasons. On top of which the grand intergenerational bargain is weaker than ever.
"Suffer pointless indignities and you'll get your turn" is fine when the promised reward is forthcoming. But with costs through the roof, houses impossible to afford, etc., it's not hard to see why people start questioning why they should bother.
I'd add the grind mindset is the product of the same circumstances, it's just for the really ambitious who look at the seemingly impossible and double down, rather than shrugging.