New Attitude

Thanks to the Baby Boomers, Gen Y is blessed with more opportunities than any generation preceding us. We also have more career paths open to us.

Louise Busiia, a programmer at the University of Ballarat, says that being granted these opportunities has changed our attitudes about where we should work. "I think that past generations work because they had to," she says. "I guess our generation probably [chooses to] work in areas because they want to. We don't want to do the jobs that no one else wants to do."

Many of us also share a different attitude towards work itself. Carmichael believes that Gen Y has a more relaxed attitude towards work. "I think that we see it as work is not the be-all and end-all of a life," he says. "You aren't born to work and you don't work until you die. You go to work until you get to a point where you're happy to leave work and then you retire early and you take advantage of what you've got."

We also place a far greater importance on job satisfaction. First and foremost, we have to enjoy what we do. Kylie Jenkins, who works in a management position at the federal Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST), explains. "It's definitely important to enjoy your work because you're spending a majority of your life at work," she says.

For Andrew Curro, an analyst and programmer at DEST, job satisfaction is a major factor in the decision to keep working in a position. "Certainly I'd have to be enjoying what I'm doing," he says, "otherwise I'd be looking for something else at this stage." Carmichael feels the same way. "I think it's not worth doing a job unless you enjoy it," he says.

By this we do not mean we need to be kept constantly entertained. We just want jobs that provide challenging, rewarding tasks to fulfil. "I always need a challenge. I don't like to get sucked into the routine stuff a bit too much," says Derek Cooper, a Learning and Development consultant at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Brisbane. "If something isn't satisfying me, then I'll look around and try to move on." Sydney Airport's Parkes has actually changed the focus of her career to IT because her previous job left her lacking. "I wasn't challenged doing accounting," she says.