To think that the “quiet quitting” trend is just an excuse for people who are too lazy to do their jobs?

[DandyLeader]

If you’re “quitting” without quitting, maybe you should just leave instead of draining the life out of the workplace.

Doing contracted hours and just doing the job isn't "doing the bare minimum".

I think it's a fair reaction to a toxic work culture. Especially in light of a cost of living crisis.

I do my job because I absolutely love it and I'm passionate about it but I'm under no illusion and know I'm under paid for my qualification level and how hard I work and how demanding it is. If I was working for a company who otherwise supported me less or demanded even more or in work I didn't really enjoy then I can totally see why quiet quitting would be an attractive option. People have a right to have boundaries with their work and I LOVE that younger people Especially are owning that and challenging the notion that an employer owns you. I work in a sector that's emotionally demanding and people's lives do depend on it. And yet work life balance is promoted so strongly which is why we retain our staff. It blows my mind how friends in more corporate roles are expected to work 12 hr days and berated over paperwork and told that using annual leave will look bad at promotion time. I have one life and I intend to enjoy it.

I remember being a grafter at work and kept getting offered a promotion to Manager - which I kept declining.
The main reason I could do my job so well was because the managers took all the shit from the boss, who was awful. It really wasn’t worth the £2-3k pay rise, the extra 10 hours or more a week and less time with my family and a meaningless title!

So I started to work a little less hard so they’d stop asking me to become a manager 🤣🤣

Quiet quitters have been around for yonks!
The last one I worked with arrived at 9, started shutting down her machine at 4.45 and would take loads of personal calls at her desk in between and her work was the minimum. To be fair, she did end up quitting before pushed.

Quiet quitting is a derogatory term a bit like work to rule, used by bullies to get their staff who work more, free overtime.

I think many of us have discovered that actually, hard work isn't rewarded.
Stagnant wages, cost of living rising, inability to get on the property ladder, unlikely to ever retire.......what's the point?
Offer people less.....they will put in less effort. More carrot is needed and less stick.

Absolutely this. I was brought up with a mantra that you always go over and above and the rewards will come. I did that for 20 years at a firm. I made so many regrettable sacrifices in favour of work over a young family, and granted, I got to the top, but I had to beg and crawl there, every promotion felt like some kind of gracious or benevolent accommodation because I had asked so many times, not an acknowledgement of the good work I did (which won national industry awards I might add)... then I got very sick, and guess what... my job was being made redundant. Just like that.... Once again I had to hustle and fight to get a decent settlement... and guess what... my role was replaced exactly the same days after I left! (Settlement agreement meant I had no recourse). I work for myself now. Any hustle is just for me, and I tell my adult kids that if they haven't been promoted or payrised within two years at a firm (for doing good solid work) it's time to move on, and to not compromise their families for work because too often work won't compromise for the employee.

Loyalty is dead and it's a real shame.

I think it’s just a strategy to manage the competing demands of modern life. Times ARE hard financially, politics is crazy, climate action is faltering… people are wondering what sort of future they can have, and needing to cope with all of that in the present.

It is actually. The basic requirement of economic behaviour - let’s try that phrase, see if it helps - is to create the materials needed in order to live. Humans create economy, not the other way around. It’s also how the economy used to work for the baby boomers. Those going above and beyond got training and promotions and higher wages, having earned it. Even the basic wage paid the cost of living.

Breaking that social contract, which took the best part of 2 centuries to build up after the Industrial Revolution, has broken the economy and resulted in not being able to live off the work you do. The technical phrase for what we are in now is an economic collapse, when no one can afford to live off their work.

All the gaslighting in the world will not keep this machine going for much longer.

I Identify with this! Went over and beyond so often which was not meaningfully recognised even while the bare minimum brigade were rampant.
Eventually I started to view my job very transactionally. While I still would work hard I stopped prioritising work over other areas of my life and no longer felt any sense of loyalty to the businesses.
I’d happily move on after a couple of years just to secure a salary increase.
Like you tell your kids, I tell young colleagues to actively manage their careers and not allow pay stagnation as employers rely on people getting comfortable.

‘contracted hours and just doing the job isn't "doing the bare minimum".’

exactky! I work with a lot of Americans and they’re always trying to to show how they’re working early or late or answering calls on weekends or emails on vacation… they aren’t more productive ( we’re measured in revenue generated) and they certainly aren’t more happy.

We’ve just fired a very senior person who was at the top, went to every meeting, every conference, travelled everywhere, sacrificed a lot for the company and to become VP by 45 etc.
Now he’s spewing out a load of ‘wellness’ and mental health stuff and bitterness about how you can give your all and you’re just ditched etc. how he missed out on his kids childhood ( at one point worked for 5 years on a different continent to them) blah blah blah

and ‘reaching out’ to us all to recommend him for opportunities. He made the choices, he took the money, he enjoyed the power so I really don’t feel that sorry for him…

Why don't you feel sorry for him? Was he horrible to you or something? He sounds like someone who gave a lot to work and then got shafted.

It does seem hard not to feel sympathy for someone in his position, but I can also understand people thinking that it’s foolish to prioritise work over your family to such an extent. While the gains were probably substantial no one should think they’re indispensable.

Does the economy of Bangladesh provide 'a living wage' for those that do 'just enough to avoid getting fired'?

People seem to think they're entitled to a fantastic quality of life simply 'because'.

Perhaps we need to revisit/abolish the minimum wage and UC top-ups. They've resulted in all 'lower' jobs having the same financial rewards, so why would anybody value one job or employer over another?

If people could see where their job truly sat in terms of pay, they would have more incentive to strive for a better job or avoid losing a good job.

That's probably not a vote winner, though, so we'll keep plodding along towards national bankruptcy with 25% economically inactive people and millions more doing the bare minimum to qualify for their UC.

Ah, DandyLeader, I do admire your faith in the benevolence of corporate overlords, but let’s step back and take a hard look at the game being played here. You see, when a company offers the bare minimum pittance for pay, expectations with no ceiling, and respect that’s always “pending review” should it be any wonder when employees return the favor?

They call it “quiet quitting”, but what is it really? It’s workers giving exactly what they’re paid for. No unpaid overtime, no thankless sacrifices, no bending over backwards for a company that would replace them before their chair gets cold. That’s not quitting that’s capitalism in its purest form. A transaction.
If employers want employees to go the extra mile, maybejust maybe they should start paving the road.

Wtf, no that’s not good enough.

Wjatdo you want, open rebellion? Just because some countries had near slavery, or other powers in the past had near slavery, is no excuse to bring it back.

All empires collapse when the internal social conflicts become too high.

No one wants a living wage ‘just because’. They want a life from the work they do. If your world cannot provide that then it will collapse. The process has already begun, as too few have any buy-in for maintaining a rentier economy. There were many, repeated, discussions about this a decade ago, on the new social internet, in academic literature and across various social charities and think tanks: politicians were warned again and again on where their actions would lead.

To be honest , it’s not a trend , it’s a life realisation . I started in my current company 14 years ago , I escalated my position with promotions 4 times . I realised the position most wish for is not for me , it would mean 50 hours of work a week and yes double what I earn but time away form my family .
do I still do a great job ? Yes . Do I care as much as before ? No because the only position I want is filled probably for another 15 years . I have enough perks I won’t change jobs .
what that really changes ? Well a few years ago I wouldn’t dream of taking sick leave for stress . I’m currently on sick leave for stress . My oldest is severely disabled and hasn’t slept for 5 days I had a car accident last week , hubby was made redundant … I needed a few days . I’m taking them . No guilt , no worry .

And what quality of life do you think people will have when the economy collapses?

There's been plenty of examples and none of them looked good for those people that expect a 'living wage' for minimum effort.

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/venezuela-crisis

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998%E2%80%932002_Argentine_great_depression

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_government-debt_crisis

I always thought hard work would be rewarded, and always did my best in every job I had. I’ve now realised no one gives a shit and they only want colleagues they like and can have the craic with. I’m done stressing about deadlines, working quickly to try to get through my excessive workload and covering for people when it’s not even noticed. I’m now taking it day by day and just doing the most urgent stuff.

Quiet quitting just means doing the job you are paid to do. It's not unreasonable to just do the job you're paid to do, no more than employers are unreasonable for only paying you the amount it says in your contract.

Remember, "barely acceptable" is still acceptable. Employers have long paid the bare minimum and employed as few people as they think they can get away with, now some employees are just using the same logic in reverse.

If an employer gets annoyed at an employee just doing what they've been employed to do, the problem is with the employer not hiring someone to do what they really wanted done. Usually because that would have cost more.

I’m coming up for retirement soon, haven’t decided on an actual date yet but another 12-18 months or so. I still do my job well, I’m not slacking, it’s a small dept so fairly obvious if someone’s doing a life of Reilly. But I’m buggered if I’m doing all the extras that seem to have fallen my way and I’ve not been given any recognition or pay rises for the effort whilst seeing money being thrown at the supposed do-ers et all….the ones constantly reminding everyone how wonderful they are🙄🤣. So yes, I’m quiet quitting,

Same here. Do the work you’re paid for, why would you give your time and energy away for free. It’s a myth that “above and beyond” is required to progress in your career. I’ve always just done what’s expected, really well, and I have good career that’s progressed a lot.

Also bear in mind, why should workers be loyal? Especially when loyalty often isn't reciprocated. For example, poor job security and giving new workers better conditions.