What Are ‘Lazy Girl’ Jobs — and What Do They Mean for Your Career?
Written by
Nicole Spector
Edited by
Amber Barkley
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Over the past couple months the term “lazy girl jobs” has gone viral. Like so many new catchphrases this day and age, it began on TikTok as a hashtag, coined by Gabrielle Judge, a 26-year-old influencer, last May.
What exactly is a “lazy girl job” and what might one mean for your career?
For starters, the term “lazy girl job” is a bit deceptive. Having a lazy girl job doesn’t mean you’re lazy; it means you value work-life balance, have a laidback boss who appreciates you and a job that doesn’t go past the standard 40 hours a week. It’s actually a positive notion and one that could be better embraced in a culture that puts an unhealthy emphasis on working to the point of exhaustion or burnout — an all-too-common phenomenon.
There’s Nothing Lazy About Lazy Girl Jobs
“If the past few years have taught us anything, it is that work should be a component, but not the only thing in our lives,” said Barbara Palmer, CEO and founder at Your 4th Trimester/Broad Perspective Consulting. “While I am not in favor of the phrase ‘lazy girl’ jobs (both because work is not lazy and women are referred to as girls), it is a quippy way to designate work that is not overly taxing or challenging.”
The trending nature of lazy girl jobs suggests that young employees of all genders (not just women) are electing a different workstyle than has been encouraged by previous generations, including boomers and millennials — opting for good jobs over good careers.
“It should not insinuate that they are lazy or don’t want to work,” Palmer said. “Work plays a role in their day, but they are valuing other attributes of life as well. Instead, ‘working to live instead of living to work’ may be better phrasing.”
The End of Hustle Culture?
Choosing a so-called lazy girl job shouldn’t elicit automatic judgment or dismissal. These people may be working just as efficiently as the rest of us.
“There is a certain arrogance to speaking down to any work,” Palmer said, adding that those seeking or holding lazy girl jobs are still contributing to society and earning a living.
“If a worker seeks a role that can be done by ‘phoning it in’ it may be because they don’t want the work to bleed into the rest of their day,” Palmer said. “They work, maintain boundaries and leave work behind at the end of the day. No hustle culture; they maintain mental health and well-being and find the right work-life integration.”
The Repercussions of Lazy Girl Jobs on Your Career
There’s a reason they’re called lazy girl jobs and not lazy girl careers. People who fill these roles may be more interested in collecting a paycheck for the time being than they are in investing in a career. As such, there can be some negative impacts if you actually do want to move up a ladder of some sort.
“There may be an impact on your career if you forgo promotions and do what is required of the job but do not seek to do more,” Palmer said. “When you establish your brand as doing the low end of what is required, the organization sees you in that light. They may not bring you opportunities that require more drive or ambition. You may also be overlooked to work on the ‘best’ projects or not recruited for the most sought-after assignments.”
If you have a lazy girl job, or, for that matter, a lazy girl attitude, upper management may see you as needing some improvement.
“When evaluating employees through a performance management system, you may meet expectations or be seen as needing improvement in comparison to your peers,” Palmer said.
Still, this doesn’t have to be a bad thing.
“All of that is fine if that is your choice, and you understand the long-term impact on your career and your upward mobility,” Palmer said.
”I challenge the notion that administrative or marketing roles require ‘very little effort’ to do well,” said Kim Rohrer, principal people partner at Oyster HR. “Working from home does not mean not working hard. And underestimating the labor of administrative or support work is a systemic issue that goes back decades. It’s work traditionally done by women, which means it’s work that is traditionally devalued and disrespected.”
The Risks of the Buzzword Mentality
Embracing the lazy girl job movement is a perfectly acceptable move, but we should be a little careful with this phrase, as by using it we “risk halting the very real progress we’ve made in the last several years,” said Rohrer.
Rather than calling them lazy girl jobs, we may want to call them something that better aligns with what they actually are: decent and respecting jobs that give people — particularly women, who make up the majority of caregiving roles — what they need to succeed.
“Our ways of working are built on models that are over a century old,” Rohrer said. “It’s time to rethink our assumptions about how and where and by whom work is done. For young women, caregivers and others who have historically been marginalized and excluded from the workforce, the future of work must include flexibility. It’s cute to celebrate ‘lazy girl jobs,’ but are we reclaiming the word, or just being, well, lazy?”
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