Gen Z and zillenial workers are so stressed by their jobs that some are slipping out of the office in search of fitting rooms, train stations, or other secluded places where they can take a nap or have a cry during their lunch break.

Ben Sanderson spent $15 on a movie ticket he never intended to use for the film. Instead, he settled into a New York theater’s recliner, pulled his beanie over his eyes, and fell asleep. Ninety minutes later, he walked out feeling refreshed and headed straight back to his desk.

“I had one of the best naps of my life,” Sanderson said. He described movie theaters as the “perfect place to nap in NYC” for commuters who live too far from home to return for a break from the office.

When he posted about the experience on TikTok, more than a million people watched, and users began sharing their own favorite places to escape for a reset.

Another user went a step further and posted a list of the best places in New York to leave the desk and cry it out, including various subway stations, the Williamsburg Bridge, and even Zara Soho’s fitting rooms. “You can feel safe losing it there,” @posh_vip added.

The video was light-hearted, but the underlying sentiment is widespread: nearly half of Gen Z office workers say they have been reduced to tears by workplace stress, according to research.

Gen Z has been calling nine-to-five jobs “soul-sucking” since 2023

The conversation may sound familiar to anyone who remembers a 2023 TikTok video of a young woman crying over her “crazy” nine-to-five schedule, described as “Gen Z girl finds out what a real job is like.” The clip drew millions of views and plenty of ridicule, but the broader reaction was more serious: most Gen Zers say traditional nine-to-five jobs are “soul-sucking.”

Instead of only venting on lunch breaks, many are choosing other paths altogether. Some are building multiple income streams that fit around their schedules. Others are quitting to become their own boss or to work as full-time content creators. A growing number are heading into the trades, a path that has regained popularity among a generation that watched millennials burn out at desks.

The largest 2025 survey of young new hires in the U.K. found that about 40% seriously considered quitting within their first year in a corporate job.

For those still working at desks, the issue is not simply that Gen Z cannot handle work. It is that the modern office has become harder to endure, especially when long commutes, limited privacy, and little time away from a desk make even a brief reset feel out of reach.

Burned-out Gen Z desk workers are looking for ways to escape toxic workplaces

Return-to-office mandates have brought back more than commutes. Increased in-person time has also brought back backstabbing, finger-pointing, credit-stealing, and calculated sabotage, according to the article.

One report concluded that workplace incivility is out of control, with more than 208 million instances of office hostility occurring in American workplaces every day in the first quarter of 2025.

The problem is not limited to junior staff. Research from Resume Now found that 61% of employees have been thrown under the bus at work, with nearly one-third saying they see it happen weekly. One in four workers said their manager has set them up to fail.

At the same time, Gen Z workers are frequently told they are the hardest generation to work with, that they do not know how to act or dress appropriately for an office, and that they will soon be replaced by AI anyway.

The pressure is showing up in broader measures of well-being as well. Gen Z is so unhappy that it is changing Harvard’s long-running Flourishing Measure. For the first time, instead of happiness peaking when people are young and then falling until mid-life, the measure is now flat until about age 50.

Despite the burnout, most younger workers cannot simply quit. Living costs continue to squeeze paychecks, AI is already affecting entry-level roles, and the job market remains one of the toughest in years. Against that backdrop, it is not surprising that some of the youngest workers are looking for an escape, even if that means a fitting room at Zara or using medical leave to protect their mental health and job hunt.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com