Recently this data went viral in Vietnam 🇻🇳 (my home country) about how long is each generation (X, Y, Z) staying in a company. Topping off the chart, we see Gen X on average, commits to an organization for around 4 years, while Gen Z barely marks up half of the time.

My first reaction was, “yea, I see it, especially in Vietnam and South East Asian countries”. An example: My high school friend who is a Blockchain - Crypto - Web 3 Writer, worked at 5 companies in the span of 3 years.

When I asked him “Why do you jump companies so often?”, a couple of familiar reasons came up:

That’s crazy for me to think about. Because here in Japan, most people are still fixated on “life-time employment” and “all-for-one” working philosophy.

Aug 5th was my 3-year anniversary at my current company, a giant e-commerce / tech company in Japan. I joined as the first UXUI Design Intern in the department, and went on to be the first UXUI New Grad hire here.

Japan in all ways possible, pushes me to cast my net wide and try on multiple hats. But to move up and move forward long-term, Japan truly wears me out. Let me walk you through a three-year recap:

Probably the best year of my corporate life so far.

I was still drunk in the dreamy dreams of getting a job others would moan over.

I challenged myself to many things and exploring different virtues of myself.

In my first year, I

(I will go into details about all these experiences in my upcoming posts 😉)

Some failed through, many worked out. I wouldn’t do anything to change it.

Starting off my first year into my job strong, my 2nd year greatly followed.

We briefly launched our first global product the previous year, and was then working on bringing the MVP into a user-friendly scalable multi-platform product. I was very much on a roll, getting hands on with the technical sides of work. I did all the tickets assigned, learned Design System, and kept close communications with product managers, developers and test engineers. I also started noticing the way we work, and took notes of what was not in place - research and testing methodologies.

All the workshops and articles and newsletters finally came in handy. I took everything I accumulated in my first year, reassessed with my team’s current working methods, and formulated a research and testing protocol, outlining step-by-step from planning to recruiting to executing to reporting a user research or usability test. Because I kept all stakeholders close, it was smooth to onboard them with the project and make them involved.

This was my great professional achievement, because now, whenever we do a test or research or exploration workshop, people would come to me for advice, or have me on the project at early stage.

I passed the 2.2 years benchmark. WooHoo 🎉 🥳 Am I happy about this? Uhm. Not sure.

Since last year, many things have been on my mind.

To be vulnerably frank — i’m hitting a work slump. It is harder to get out of bed, to commute to work, to hit the gym.

Back to the topic of “Gen Z are arrogant, egoistic, selfish and hard to work with, never commits to anything for too long” etc., To what extent is this true?

As a Gen Z myself, I see the reason behind this assumption. Yet I also need to speak up on behalf of my peers, that we are equally gifted and privileged.

Focusing on a 9-to-5 can ensure financial stability, but appreciating your 5-to-9 is equally important: finding community, prioritizing mental health, and living in the moment.

Thus, when my 9-to-5 took an unpleasant downfall, I immediately seeked ways to climb-up: designing workshops and learning programs via CREABA.

In these 6 months alone, I witnessed 8 colleagues leaving the company, and the question everyone is silently asking: when will it be Annie?

Although I am witnessing slow progression at work, my progression in life is moving me forward. So I am still weighing my options. And I will share with you my next move, soon.

To recap,