A millennial-era phrase is defining the work landscape of 2026 but a hit single from 1962 may be more fitting. In the words of Neil Sedaka, “breaking up is hard to do.” Especially in the era of what Glassdoor calls “the great job situationship.”
In the modern American workplace, the romantic metaphors are getting uncomfortably literal. If you feel like your relationship with your employer is stuck in a gray area—somewhere between “committed partnership” and “just passing time”—you aren’t alone. According to new insights from Glassdoor, the labor market has entered “the great job situationship” era.
The term “situationship” is likely familiar to any millennial, the same cohort that Glassdoor previously found makes up a majority of managers in the mid 2020s workplace. It’s also a dominant theme in the relationships of Gen Z, and was even given mainstream status in Taylor Swift lyrics. It’s essentially something that happens before the “DTR” phase, shorthand for “defining the relationship,” and nobody feels great about it.
The term back to a 2017 Cosmopolitan article describing a romantic relationship, about three months in length, extraordinarily painful, with one side having more interest than the other. (As a sign of its influence Cosmopolitan has been continually updating the original post by Carina Hsieh, with Kayla Kibbe most recently on the byline). Last fall, Glassdoor economists began applying the label to the labor market to describe early-career workers who take roles simply because they need a paycheck.
