Opinions on "Quiet Quitting?"

Minestrone101

I think this is a new term: meaning to do the bare minimum at work, while looking for another job.

I'm not a fan of quiet quitting...especially since it dumps work on the next person and as a child of a Chinese immigrant family I was always taught about the importance of work and education. Mind you, it doesn't mean I won't be proactive or direct.

Apparently, there's quiet firing (avoid pay raises and promotions until workers quit) and quiet dumping too. I wonder what the advantages and disadvantages there are compared to straight ghosting, quitting, or firing.

https://fortune.com/2022/08/28/what-is-quiet-quitting-firing-dumping-passive-aggression-trend-hurting-careers-relationships/

zerocantaloupe

When it was an organized labor tactic, it was called Work-To-Rule [1].

This is the rich people trying to recuperate [2] the idea into a "lol employees are lazy" meme.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work-to-rule
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recuperation_(politics)

Jubal

Many years ago (early 1990's) I worked at a 7-11. When the manager there wanted to get rid of an employee, she would cut the person back to one day a week. This was in a state where hours were not guaranteed. Of course, the employee would quit and find a job elsewhere.

When I asked her why she did this, she said it was corporate policy to reduce the number of unemployment claims against the company.

I thought (and still feel) that it was an underhanded and dishonest way to deal with people.

Minestrone101

@zerocantaloupe Work to rule sounds more legitimate as it's organized and has a set goal. Quiet quitting by individuals seems less focused if it's not used on a united front.

@jubal. Yeah it's all a Catch 22 it seems.

MxSmith

I think companies have for far too long preyed on people pleasers and have actually built their business models and organized their management structure around the idea that people will give far more than they are being compensated for if you provide a context that makes them feel like they SHOULD. I really like seeing employees saying "NO MORE SHOULDS". I've worked in restaurants where I had to come in sick because there was nobody else to do my job. I've brought legal assistant work home with me because I realized that if I didn't finish it would likely be hurting my disabled client because nobody else would do my job. People tend to feel bad for and compensate for what amounts to bad management and corporate greed. I appreciate people in mass stepping back and saying NOPE, you can reap some consequences and change your structure.
Re: quiet firing. I mean I've seen my bosses demote people and wait for them to quit out of frustration. I think my landlord is quiet trying to kick me out by not repairing my heat. I think the people in power have for a very long time been passively getting their way. I think it’s a new thing to see many people refuse to fill the gap of bad management.

Minestrone101

@MxSmith Thanks for the perspective. I do think parts of it is a mixed bag. I'll write more soon. Thanks.

JohnR1972

@cylee1180 - I am familiar with the concept but I had not heard the term before. Thank you for the link to the article.

I found it ironic that some employers are complaining about potential employees ghosting them after the company makes them an offer when I have heard from so many young adults about companies ROUTINELY ghosting applicants by never responding after they spend 30-60 minutes completing online job application and sometimes even after going through an interview.

RhapsodyBlue

Agreed @MxSmith. I'm a people pleaser and a workaholic because of my need for routine. I kept working even when I had serious health difficulties and needed a wheelchair for months. My thought was that my employer would recognize the amount of commitment I had. Instead, they offered me a "promotion" at a lower rate than everyone else they offered it to thinking I wouldn't notice. Companies very rarely deserve our best work and full effort.

robroo

I think it levels the playing field when it comes to employees leaving a job.

Cinephile77

There seems to be a sentiment among many workers in large companies that their employers have begun to place unreasonable demands upon them. Wage growth is stagnant yet the corporation is reporting substantial growth. Supervisors are calling upon workers to do more with little support. The personal time of workers is infringed upon because boundaries are not respected. They are expected to respond to work calls or email during off hours. The reasons can vary - perhaps it's because they are salaried workers, and not hourly; they're issued corporate phones, laptops, etc.

Voicing open opposition to a never-ending increasing workload has consequences. Employers can cite it as insubordination. And it might lead to increased scrutiny of an employee by the human resources group who might look for cause to terminate an employee. While HR might seem like it's there to assist employees, make no mistake - they are an arm of the corporation that looks after the interests of the company first and foremost - including hiring and firing employees. If you were to characterize employees wanting boundaries to be respected as pushback? Or as quiet quitting? It's just a symptom of something that has been festering in American corporate culture for decades.

JohnR1972

@Cinephile77 - when I first began my corporate career (late 1980s) most companies had a “Personnel” department that was more of a neutral mediator between employees and management.

Around 1990 nearly all employers changed from a “Personnel Department” (a name which denotes seeing employees as people) to “Human Resources” (a name that denotes seeing employees as resources to be used then discarded / recycled).

jaswbrown

I luckily work for a decent employer in a contract environment. Going 'above and beyond' means that I am working outside the stipulations of my contract, which is monitored by a third party. My company recognizes this, and doesn't ask me to do anything outside of expectations spelled out in the contract. I actually love the product and service we provide and feel that what I do makes a difference. It also helps that I'm paid well and have good benefits.

Past jobs, however... I had an employer offer me a 5% pay increase to train new-hires on-the-job. He had four new employees that I had trained in a month, in half the expected time. At the end of the month, I was 'let go', as the 'trainer position' was no longer needed.

I had another employer that assumed every employee was as concerned for his business as he was. He was a very high-strung individual and would frequently call me up at home to talk to me about issues at work. He had once booked a catering gig for the restaurant and wanted me to call around various restaurant supply stores to find everything we needed to support it. He was offended when I reminded him that I was a cook being paid slightly more than minimum wage, and that starting up a catering business was outside the scope of what I was being paid for. Working for him was the last time I worked in a restaurant. He would also get upset when we would eat anywhere with friends or family other than his restaurant.

So yeah, the idea that American workers in general are lazy because we do the bare minimum is bull****. I've worked in other countries and have seen the difference in stress levels. The 'American work ethic' and the expectations of many employers is not healthy. My experience is that employees will work harder if they feel their employer values them (pay, benefits, bonuses, etc...) or they are genuinely motivated and invested in the company or product.

netrunner

Quiet Quitting is doing your job and only doing your job, but the bare minimum to get by. It's not taking on extra workloads which should be handled by more than 1 person or role, not working OT, and overall setting boundaries for work. The motto starting to go with it is "Act your wage". People are beginning to realize and be done with busting themselves an extra 5-20+ hours of extra work a week on top of their 40 hours or do the job of 4 people only to get "Meets expectations" on performance reviews with a 1-4% pay raise annually, if that.

So Quiet Quitting isn't quitting your job, but quitting putting in all the extra effort, do the job you were hired to do, and take care of yourself so you aren't burnt out. From 2020 a lot of companies had to downsize and those who still had a job were expected to pick up the slack. Companies saw this opportunity to try keeping the bare minimum number of staff to get all the work done while profiting... this is the employees finally having enough.

xandriarain

I pretty much “quite quit” every job I ever had hence why I don’t have traditional job and have to work for myself. If more work doesn’t automatically translate into more money there is zero motivation for me. I cannot get motivated to work extra hours and put in more effort just for a hypothetical future raise or promotion which I may never get. I even quiet quiet on myself sometimes. A lot of times I’m just too burnt out to put the extra effort in to reach out to clients or take a professional development course or make a new videos for social media etc. I just show up to sessions do my consultations and get ready for the session some weeks. I obviously do see negative consequences in my income when I get to this point but it’s just not realistic to go above and beyond all the time.

ggiaquin

I’ve experienced all the above. I think “quiet quitting” is nothing new in action but maybe a new term to explain the action.

I had a new manager take over a store I worked at in college and basically gave all the existing employees less and less hours until they were forced to quit so they can bring in their own staff.

I have had girlfriends basically give no effort to the point it's not worth you giving any effort so you break up.

Mostly the advantages are usually rooted somewhere between fear and an attempt to be polite. In the employment sense, a manager straight up saying you are fired who otherwise has no reason to be fired is waiting for a labor lawsuit. A lover might be afraid of hurting a partner so they might think this is the best approach so that the partner decides to leave so they can justify they weren't the ones who did the breaking up.

I know the chinese culture tends to be more frank/blunt/candid in my experiences. Being honest is not always easy as many others value a paycheck, their reputation, other people's feelings. I think the vast majority of us would prefer the more candid approach but we have lives to live, chained to the coin and to the heart. The fear of being without one or the other is often more incentive to keep status quo until something else comes along than not.

JohnR1972

In 2010 I was working for a large, global company and reporting directly to a C-level officer in the company. She made a comment in a staff meeting one day that she didn’t understand why morale was so low just because the company was downsizing 10% of the workforce (and the remaining 90% were expected to “absorb” the work of the 10% being let go). She went on to say how she thought everyone should “just be happy to still have a job.”

I did not say anything in that meeting (I did not want to join the 10%) but the woman I reported to was an officer of the company and her salary was published in the company’s annual report. She made over $600,000 per year and this was 12 years ago. I was thinking YOU are lucky to still have a job. I have no doubt that if I were let go I would find another job within days or a maybe a couple weeks at most paying what I am currently making but I doubt you would find another $600,000+ job that quickly. She was let go about 6 months later and I left about a year after that to start my own business and that turned out to be the best career decision I ever made.

lesstress

I think at one point or another we’ve all done it to some extent. If you’re constantly putting forth the effort but are not being compensated and valued for the quality of work, I say why not!

4bearhugs

How would this concept translate to teachers? Teachers get paid for the hours they are in school (starting around $20/ hr. I have a close friend who puts in an average of 20 hours a week outside of school hours during the school year, and at least that much during the summer. If she didn't, the prep and grading would not get done.

SilenceMe

Nothing wrong with that. But once you advertise it like it’s something to be admired about, then it starts to look like you’re just lazy.

SilenceMe

@cylee1180 you look like you have a Ph.D in Chemistry. Please tell me I’m wrong lol

Minestrone101

@SilenceMe Close! A Bachelors in English, and a Masters in Education! But who's counting?

DaringSprinter

@reurbo is absolutely correct: it's a reaction against deliberate understaffing.

When I was hired to work at a 24-hour gas station, I agreed to do a certain job that consisted of certain tasks (and my employer agreed to pay me a set number of dollars per hour for it).

Then tasks were added (but my pay didn't change).

I was expected to run the entire station by myself all night long—no bathroom breaks, no meals, no coworkers—to clean and stock everything, fix food and coffee, and simultaneously stay behind the register at all times so I'd be available to customers.

Working to rule (doing exactly what you're paid to do) is essential sometimes. Even if you don't have a union behind you.

dave31415

Just about everyone who quits, quiet quits and they always have. There just wasn’t a word for it before. I guess people used to say that someone is “checked out”. However it’s not something to be proud of. You really shouldn’t talk about it especially publicly. No one is going to want to hire people who admit to doing it. Everyone wants hard workers regardless of how happy they are about the job.

MissAdventurous

Stop calling it 'quiet-quitting'—

The reason why is:

it has been and always has been 'work-to-rule.' A form of protest in which employees do exactly what is stated in the contract and nothing more in order to slow down production. It has always been a thing. 🤣🤣

john5555

I’m so confused. I came to this post thinking we would be discussing cuddling while chatting versus cuddling in silence and here we are talking about labour issues. Cuddling quietly while having a nice connection with the other person, please.

DaringSprinter

@MissAdventurous: 🤝🏻❗

OliveGreen

Acting your wage isn't a bad thing. Quietly looking for another job while you're being mentally, emotionally and usually financially drained is a great motivation to keep on looking. Employers that don't pay a livable wage then tell you to do more work that's not in your job description.. Haha! They don't deserve anything more than an employee quietly quitting. I have gone above and beyond and sacrificed myself to a job with absolutely nothing to show for it. Never again.

In terms of a work environment, we owe a company nothing more than we agreed to, and that they pay us for, that's called doing your job, if they expect us to do more than our job, the pay needs to reflect that, if it doesn't, you owe them no more either. That's what work means, you perform an agreed upon task for an agreed upon compensation. All these articles telling people doing their job is tantamount to quitting is a good indication of how toxic many employers are becoming, expecting workers to do more and more, while giving the workers no more to go along with new responsibilities, people have lives, we're not mindless corporate automatons, we're not property.

In personal relationships, good communication and integrity seem to be fading traits. It's a me me me culture, we know it's selfish to never consider how our decisions affect others, but increasingly, people don't care who gets hurt, so long as it isn't them. And, it's sad, but it's how society is shifting. It's gonna prevent genuine friendships, romantic relationships, etc, but, it is, what it is. We just have to adapt to the new normal.

DaringSprinter

@Jacob879 says,

That's what work means, you perform an agreed upon task for an agreed upon compensation. All these articles telling people doing their job is tantamount to quitting is a good indication of how toxic many employers are becoming....

100% this.

TheFunCartel

I wonder if deaf workers are offended that the hearing-normative crowd is moving in on their turf. I think Marlee Matlin would be upset if she heard about the co-opting of quiet quitting…luckily she hasn’t because of her misfortune.

And if Heath Ledger were alive, is this the way way he could quit Jake?

The idea of doing just what's in your job description and nothing more means nothing since most job descriptions include the catch-all "other duties as determined by management".