Will Millennials Make The 2,500-Hour Year The New Normal?

Candid portrait of a young women working Millennials get a bum rap for being lazy, entitled jerks. But according to the results of a new survey in the Harvard Business Review, they are more likely to show “complete dedication” to their jobs and feel guilty about taking time off.

Not what you expected from an article about the work ethic of the youngsters, huh? As Vivia Chen of The Careerist reports:

From what I’ve seen, [these millennials are] not a generation of revolutionaries that’s out to change Big Law. If anything, they were bred to please.

Boy, was I right. Actually, millennials are even more pathetically conformist than I thought, reports Sarah Green Carmichael, a senior editor at Harvard Business Review.

According to a new survey, Project: Time Off and GfK, millennials are actually more likely to see themselves—proudly—as “work martyrs” than older workers and less likely to use all their vacation time.

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Of course, “work martyrs” are hardly a good thing. Pro tip: Unless there’s been an actual death, the word “martyr” is never bandied about in a complimentary way. They are less likely to take vacation, making them more likely to burn out and get stressed. And for all that effort they are, according to the Harvard Business Review, less likely to get promoted for their work.

Crappy deal for junior lawyers? Sure. But it is likely the Biglaw machines will benefit:

It might be healthier for lawyers and firms for everyone to take off the standard four weeks, but will most millennials do so? More importantly, will firms push them to take time off? HBR advocates that managers take a proactive role in steering employees to work less, take time off and smell the flowers.

Maybe some professions will tell those crazy millennials to knock off the work martyrdom, but I don’t see it in law. Before you know it, 2,500 billable hours a year will be normal.

Why would a Biglaw firm care if you are miserable as long as you’re billing 2,500? That’s cold, hard cash for the firm, and they’re banking on you leaving the firm before you’re up for partner anyway.