To think that quiet quitting without looking for something better is just an attitude problem?

Quiet quitting is doing the bare minimum you can get away with. You would not volunteer ideas, time, or anything really you are not mandated to do. It would impact on colleagues, especially at busy times or when the company needs to find creative ways to solve problems or develop new products or services.

So, "quiet quitting" is ... not quitting? If it's doing what's in your contract or job description and no more, I can see how that's a problem in some positions because the job description doesn't spell out everything and a lot of initiative and leadership and flexibility really are implied and expected parts of the job. But for a lot of lower-level individual contributors, who do have exact job descriptions or contracts, that IS the job and quitting is a weird and confusing way to describe staying on and working to a satisfactory standard.

And I don't think it's necessarily self-sabotage that someone who once expended a lot of extra effort in a role has decided to stop doing extra; they may have been extending the extra effort in the hope of a reward or benefit that they've now concluded will never come. They don't owe the corporation extra work beyond what's contracted if there's no benefit for them beyond the stated salary and benefits. Whether or not they leave, and when, has to be up to them.

Sometimes you just don’t have another option. I’ve looked and I haven’t found anything of a similar pay yet. I’ve had 3 meetings in total that went nowhere.

So I’ve stopped taking on tasks A, B, C and D when my job is actually only A and B and my coworkers barely scraps task A and is told he’s doing great and only needs “more confidence”.

After decades of going above and beyond, I’ve realised this 👆is correct. It suits people to have very able dogsbodies.

It is a hard habit to break though…

I’m as cynical as they come about the workplace (and now happily self employed) but I’m not sure.

In most industries/orgs there will be busier times and quieter ones, and to my mind a healthy team / organisation is one where during the busier times those who can say the equivalent of, “There’s something that needs doing here, and we need to do it even though it’s beyond our contractual hours or remit.” The flip side of that is “There’s nothing to do this afternoon, so I’ll head off early” (knowing that no one will blink an eye).

If the org is healthy/supportive and flexible but you have one or two people working to rule, of course it can bring everyone else down and breed resentment.

Obviously if the org is dysfunctional and Joanne is the only one making a stand against crap management or underresourcing, that is a different matter.

This.

Too many companies cut jobs and then expect already full time workers to pick up the shortfall. Unrealistic targets. It's unsustainable. The employer has a duty to employ enough people, not run existing workers into the ground.

If this is what it is then I hate the phrase. How misleading and judgemental it is to imply a worker fulfilling her contractual duties is quitting. We used to call it 'working to rule' which is a much fairer description.

The workplace has become unreasonable, expecting a level of energy that is exhausting and detrimental to work/life balance.

If work is exhausting and you can’t recover and have quality of life round the edges, then employees become less healthy and burn out.

We should be able to work full time, manage a house and exercise/cook with a little left over for socialising or hobbies.

When you are working so intensely you miss drinks/wee breaks and feel like a zombie at home, that’s not good.

Quiet quitting is working as a sustainable level instead of trying to please and impress. Not getting upset of the work isn’t finished in time. Working to live- pay the bills.

It used to be a choice- work to impress or work to live.

I know what you mean, but I am kind of doing this because a) my Manager is a horrible person who doesn’t deserve me trying extra hard and b) I would love to get a new job but she keeps threatening a restructure all the time so I would rather leave with a redundancy payout than with nothing. I have applied for the odd really tempting role elsewhere but I will step this up once she finally decides to get rid of someone in the team. I am naturally very conscientious so am not doing sloppy work, am just not finding extra things to do in quiet patches or worrying if am not working every minute of my hours.

Exactly, if you go into a job with proper boundaries then people don’t take the piss. That’s quiet quitting not letting people take advantage.

How is someone doing their job bringing the whole team down? You are effectively saying I’m pissed off as Joanne isn’t jumping up like a needy dog any more saying me me give me more work, I’ll stay later for no extra money and volunteer for everything so we can run on less staff than we need. That’s quite quitting, it’s not doing less than you are contracted to, or not doing your job.

The whole point of quiet quitting is that you don’t care if your employer or colleague think you’re not “trying hard enough”

I started a new job earlier this year having been treated like crap by previous employer of over 20 years. I started as I meant to go on - working my hours and no more, taking my lunch break. But I do a fucking good job and they're lucky to have my wealth of experience. I wouldn't say I'm quiet quitting but according to the definition I am. I call it looking after my own welfare and setting healthy boundaries.

Quiet quitting is doing the job you are paid for
It's for people who have gone above and beyond and realise they get nothing in return.

Bizarrely all the research has shown those who go above and beyond, stay late, do extra unpaid duties , don't get respect, don't get promoted and this is because If they are good at their job they get stuck as it suits everyone to have a dogsbody.

People respect you more if you have boundaries

There are plenty of reasons not to look for another job, quiet quitting or not.

With no protection for the first 2 years and absolutely rubbish minimal requirements for redundancy pay, I would be reluctant to leave my company of 10+ years and put my family's finances at risk.

Until this change or my company decides to do something about my manager/role, I'll be doing the bare minimum. They can make me redundant in the next reorg if they want to.

Quiet quitting is just a stupid term for working to your contractual hours.which has been around fir years. It's not a new concept but the daft term is, I think some employers take the piss.

In my industry right now people are pathetically grateful to have work on the whole.

I think as unemployment rises, employment rights are further eroded, and access to benefits is even more curtailed, concepts like quiet quitting will disappear.

Here I am at 2am fretting about something I have to present tomorrow. I don't even know if I will be able to continue in this field beyond this year.

Yes, this is my understanding of ‘quiet quitting’ too. It’s doing the bare minimum / the least you can get away with without being fired or getting disciplined.

It’s not working your contracted hours, because that involves actually working.

edit: quoted wrong post

My understanding of it is working to rule.

I do this. I do my contracted job. But I'm not going above and beyond. If you want me to go above and beyond you pay me to. I've won above and beyond awards. I've not ever had an above and beyond pay rise or bonus. So im not doing it anymore.

Similarly, I would never apply for a minimum wage job that asks for experience. Why do they think they deserve me without paying me?

That said I love my current job. They respect me. I go in for meetings on my day off. But they allow me paid time off if I need it. I'll stay with clients over hours if I need to, mainly because my boss has never scheduled that, it's client led. If it's not a need, I won't do it, and if I'm not being paid extra, yes, I do trust my own judgement on that.

I think you need to define what you mean and context is also important. There's a difference between doing your job well and only doing roughly the hours you're paid for versus doing the bare minimum so other people have to pick up the slack. Everywhere I've worked the people who moan, aren't that great at their jobs, never do anything to help themselves and don't leave because they know they can't get another job. The ones who are good will leave, because they can 🤷🏻‍♀️

I may be wrong but my interpretation of “quiet quitting” is doing the bare minimum during working hours rather than just working your required hours. Working your hours without extra time etc. is fine as long as you are working at a reasonable rate but doing the smallest amount of work you can get away with (leaving colleagues to cover the rest) is just lazy. I don’t think the people who do this are going to seek other jobs.

I'm a colleague of that employee. Not their boss.

I may be reading too much into it and being over 50 I confess I don't fully understand the impetus behind this movement, but for me this trend speaks of a deeper malaise in the employer/employee relationship that may not be resolved simply by moving to a different employer.

Wages have been depressed for so long now, and employment systems so increasingly invasive and all encompassing, that the millennial management style of building team cohesion through encouraging employees to avow their "passion" for and "commitment" to jobs that barely cover rent, is just irrelevant.

Maybe it would be better for employers to scale back their expectations of employees, especially since they've massively scaled back what they pay employees, and just let them do their jobs and go home once their jobs are done, without requiring commitment or mindset or anything else.

After all, surely a worker is paid for her labour. She doesn't have to give her whole self in addition to that.

Quiet quitting is doing exactly what is in your contract. It's usually done because the company is taking the piss and expecting their employees to work for free.

The employee might stay because the hours suit their homelife, or the holidays/maternity are generous, or even because it's close home/schools. But it's nearly always a response to an unfair employer.