Is anyone else finding works changed and no one does anything anymore?

[JKDcot]

I am a hard worker. I really care about what I do and try to deliver for my team. I work in an office job but WFH since the pandemic, I don’t think it’s due to being remote. I’ve noticed people just don’t care as much? They don’t reply? I get a lot of “I’m busy sorry I can’t help”. It’s so frustrating and I can’t figure out why everyone seems to have lost their care factor? Anyone else?

More and more people are ‘quietly quitting’. I’m sick of logging on early, working through lunch, staying on late etc etc, with very little (actually nothing), to show for the extra 20 plus hours a month I work.
I’m now doing exactly what is needed, no more, no less.

Employers have brought this on themselves with their awful attitude towards staff.
If you have a decent boss you will go that extra mile, unfortunately many of us have to suffer a lazy selfish boss who shows no appreciation of respect towards staff and rules them by fear, as in comply or you lose your job, simple as that.

In many public sector roles we have seen our wages cut year after year for over 10yrs now, earning less and less but taking on more and more following constant 'restructures' (redundancies) its hard to stay really motivated and keep going 'above and beyond' in these conditions which is now compounded by prices going up so we earn less, are responsible for more but can't afford anything. There is absolutely no chance that we can 'improve our shit wages' in public sector except by leaving and making it worse for everyone else.

It's a management problem.

People are being promoted to managers without having the appropriate training. I cannot remember the last time I saw a really good manager who was good with people and good at managing. In fact, I think i've only ever met one. The rest of them were really just bullies.

Also, they are given the responsibility but they don't have any power. Give them the power to sack the idle ones and promote the good ones and those problems will ease.

I think quite often it’s not even about money, but a lack of recognition. You can go above and beyond and it just goes unnoticed or without thanks, or worse taken advantage of.

Especially if you are someone who works hard but isn’t outgoing or loud. Then you just start to think what’s the point, no one recognises my effort, so I’ll just do what I’m told. The work still gets done but the enthusiasm is lost.

Not true for all, I've worked for many companies - all with vastly different attitudes.
Can't generalise quite that broadly!

@Pufflebow I think a lot of people have that experience, or similar eg after my sister was made redundant, she said she would never have the same loyalty to an employer again

It’s a two way street. Employers must value their employees and vice versa. When one fails in that, there is going to be disharmony to say the least.

Oh yes, being made redundant definitely made me question why on earth I had been loyal to a company and put my health at risk.

It was a good life lesson. Don't for a second think that you are not expendable.

My personal experience has been the larger the company, the better in benefits, but the smaller the company, felt valued, appreciated, part of the team, raises were tangible acknowledgements of my contributions.

Much happier at small company. Are you part of a large firm, Op?

Nobody lies on their deathbed and wishes they’d spent more time at the office.

Are you a shareholder?

I think it has a lot to do with WFH. A substantial amount of what happens in my workplace is like "wife-work" in that it is sort of invisible, and if you try to describe it to a management consultant (I have tried many times) it looks like padding but...it is shit that comes up and needs to be resolved by whoever is there to deal with it. It is why WFH looks so productive and feels easier - you dodge the invisible communal workload and only do your own visible workload.

I dislike WFH but I sometimes do it in self defense to avoid being the one who gets stuck sorting live stuff out, helping people, being there when someone from another department comes in for advice. In other workplaces they've closed their offices, everyone works from home, and people give up on the invisible work, which might actually look like a result in paper, but as a human being and responsible employee it feels shoddy.

I'm not paid minimum wage, nor does my organisation have shareholders.

But fuck me, if I did, fuck those guys. Minimum wage is not enough, and you're a piece of shit if you make money off a company that pays staff the minimum wage.

@willWillSmithsmith You couldn’t be further off the truth. Self-employed and paying myself a pittance, still give 100% for my clients though. What is the point of being a lazy fucker at work ? Surely the day is long and boring.

No, makes no difference, I work hard and I am paid the same as people who turn up and do half what I do. If you are paid per hour you get no extra for bothering.

I've spent over 30 years going above and beyond, sometimes rewarded, mostly not. The reality is my mental health has suffered and I've exhausted my mental and emotional energy to the point where I'd rather devote what little 'extra' I have to my home life. Therefore works gets the minimum I can to fulfill my job description, and home life gets my maximum. I feel no guilt for that.

Work is shite. People have always thought so, but covid helped show it up for the crock of bullshit it is – furlough showed how many jobs were just made-up busywork; key workers showed which jobs were necessary Vs the nonsense lots of us do because we have to. Homeworking, if you were able to, was a revelation: why are we all engaging in stupidly long commutes to spend most of our waking lives doing this shite? And now you’ve got the energy crisis for individual bill payers… yet mad profits for the energy companies; insane cost of living rises; mortgage crisis; climate crisis… we’re all working too hard to pay for stuff that shouldn’t cost this much and half the time fucks the planet. Basically we’ve all realised simultaneously what a con the working world is.

(Not usually a tin foil hat mad person, but honestly. Forty-hour weeks with remote stand-up meetings so a boss can show you a pie chart of growth and that we simply must all make more widgets else the doofrey won’t hit its target in Q3 and the morale-boosting summer picnic (to be taken over your unpaid lunch break) will be cancelled. Please make sure to attend this week’s mandatory Lunch and Learn on managing your mental health at work so we can tick the HR box; feel free to stay late to finish work to accommodate this.)

I think it very much depends on what your job is and who you work for. You can still give a hundred percent on what you do and take pride in your work but don’t do any more than that if you don’t Feel valued.

I’ve definitely learned over the years that loyalty in the work place does not go both ways.

It’s a mid size corporation I work for so thousands of people but I only interact with 40-50 or so.
I get the quiet quitting trend and I can see how WFH and Covid made people re evaluate. But the thing that’s hard to take, we’re all humans just trying to be kind, get by and get on with things. It’s so frustrating when I ask nicely for an update or things to be completed and it’s now acceptable or totally normal to be ignored. Sometimes for weeks or months ? I want to be polite and recognise people have lots of demands. But it’s just got out of control?!

NC. I have stopped going above like I used to
One of my colleagues is spending half her day not working
The rest are doing 2 tasks a day to my 50

I'm not slacking, I'm just refusing to do everyone else's work. And now surprisingly everyone is "whyyy is there so much work to do?! We never have this much!"

No shit, it's because I clear up everyone's crap and get paid the same so now I do my amount and stop

I fell for the lie that you just need to keep climbing the career ladder to find the proverbial pot of gold.

But just as with a rainbow, the pot of gold is never there.

My career ambition now is to be in a job where I earn the most money with the least effort.

@EthicalNonMahogany Your post about stagnation could be written about me. Before I used to be industrious, interested and motivated. Now I coast, slack, argue, procrastinate. It's weird. I have just given up, don't give a shit. I think mid life crisis/lockdown/now wfh mainly has created a shit employee. I know it's up to me to get myself out of it but I just can't motivate myself to revert back to my normal can do self.

@AzureBlue99 I understand and feel the same. But it makes me so sad and bored? I liked to work hard and feel like things were working!