One of the Gen Z designers at our agency has a routine that drives our founder crazy. Every afternoon around 5:50 PM, she starts wrapping things up. She saves her files, closes her laptop, and at exactly 6:00 PM, she is out the door. Not 5:59. Not 6:01. Exactly 6:00. What makes it funnier is that she is just as precise in the morning. Her day starts at 9:30, and she is at her desk by 9:15 every single day, with her coffee already made. Our founder finally called her into his office. I was sitting nearby, pretending to edit a presentation. "If you want to move up here," he told her, "you have to stop thinking like an employee and start thinking like a partner." She tilted her head. "What does that mean?" "It means you don't watch the clock," he said. "You stay until the job is done. You care about this agency like it's your own." She nodded slowly. Then she asked, "Are you offering me a partnership?" He laughed. She didn't. "Because a partner doesn't earn a fixed salary and hope someone notices the extra hours," she said. "A partner has a stake in the profits, a vote in the decisions, and a share of what happens when the agency wins." The room went quiet. "That's not what I meant," he said. She glanced at the clock on the wall. 5:59 PM. She saved her work, shut her laptop, picked up her bag, and stood. "Where are you going?" he asked. "Home. My contract says 6." Then she walked out. The next morning, she walked in at 9:15, exactly like always. I told my husband about it that night while we were cooking dinner. He nearly dropped the wooden spoon. "The Gen Z girl said that to his face?" "In front of me." "And what did he do?" "Nothing. He just stared at the door for a full minute." For two weeks, nothing changed. She kept her hours. Our founder kept grumbling in the hallways about genz employees and their boundaries. Then one Monday morning, there was a meeting invitation on all our calendars. The subject line was simply, "Company Announcement." He stood at the front of the conference room looking like he hadn't slept. "I've been thinking about something a Gen Z employee told me," he began. He did not look at her. "I've asked a lot of you over the years to act like owners. But I've never given anyone a reason to feel like one." He clicked to the next slide. Starting the next quarter, every employee would receive a share of the agency's yearly profit, and anyone who stayed two years would earn a small piece of ownership. The projected payout for a mid-level designer was around $14,000 a year. Nobody said a word. Then she raised her hand. "Is this in writing?" "It will be by Friday," he said. She smiled for the first time all month. "Then I'm in." The following quarter, we landed the biggest client in the agency's history. The deadline was brutal. On the final night, the whole team stayed until nearly ten, ordering pizza and arguing over color palettes. I looked up from my screen at 6:03 PM and noticed something. She was still at her desk. Nobody had asked her to stay. Nobody had threatened her or made a speech about loyalty. She was just leaning toward her monitor, completely absorbed. I walked over and set a slice of pizza beside her keyboard. "I thought your contract said 6," I teased. She shrugged without looking away from the screen. "It does. But this one is mine too." That was the whole difference. Our founder spent years complaining that Gen Z doesn't care. She just reminded him that people don't give you their evenings. They give them to something they own.