Thoughts on QUIET QUITTING

YES HERE wrote:

Peter Gibbons wrote:

This is exactly the situation that I don't want to be in if I can help it. Everyone's situation is different (the tradeoffs may be worth it), but I would be actively looking for different opportunities. The pay would have to be very high to accept an "always available" type work situation. Some industries are just like that. For me, I'd find a different industry.

I'll tell you how that happens. It's called getting your "dream job" as your first job out of college. Desperate to make a good impression, people please, and ultimately worry about your future prospects if you botch your first job. And because it's your dream job, you are naturally going to grind yourself into the floor because you've told yourself for a decade that you needed to be there in that role.

The biggest issue becomes...."now what?" Passion becomes just another task that you need to do. Abuse of power through leadership makes you question if your true passion is really truly run by inept, insecure man-babies who talk down to you the minute you start encroaching on their position. I got out OK, but I can see how demoralizing it can be for some people who are so dependent one particular goal for self worth.

Raddison wrote:

Retired person here.

It is interesting how the definition of Quiet Quitting quickly changed from being a hard working employee who finally decides that enough is enough and decided to give just a solid days work for a solid days pay, to: slackers, time wasters, retired on the job, unambitious etc.

It's as if the initial concept was too difficult to face, hard working employees who are burnt out. Making it slackers etc. makes it far easier to blame the victim.

I can give you an example of a Quiet Quitter and the exact moment he decided he had had enough. This manager had a long and successful career with the company and had done all the usual 'beyond the call of duty' stuff: stayed late, worked weekends all without overtime pay, travelled at short notice, missed birthdays anniversaries, graduations etc. because of company work. He was highly respected and a mentor to many junior employees.

The breaking point came one Christmas. The company had promised a new pre-production prototype would be delivered to the customer by the end of the year. Christmas came and, as usual, the company was late. This guy was asked to work from Boxing Day to New Year to get the prototype out of the door. He worked with eight hourly employees working 15 or 16 hour days. The hourly guys (unionised) had a choice of how they were paid: triple overtime or double overtime plus time off in lieu. This guy was paid nothing - his time was considered to be 'donated time'.

They got the prototype onto the truck at about 11:00pm News Year Eve. He estimates that he was at the plant for about 100 hours those days plus he had put in about another 50 hours unpaid overtime in the weeks before Christmas pushing things along. The Vice-President decided his devotion merited a special award: The company gave him a $500 bonus - equivalent to just over $3 an hour.

From that point on he stopped working unpaid overtime, taking work home, etc. He was no longer available to travel at short notice. He still did an excellent job at work, only now it stopped at 5:00pm.

Precious Roy wrote:

When I was a kid in the 70s, my dad was an engineer at Raytheon. I remember very vividly how he would come home everyday at 5:30 almost on the dot. He had family health insurance, life insurance, a pension plan and got 4 weeks paid vacation. He actually considered going to work for the government when he was applying for a job with Raytheon because they pay was better. We had enough money to have a 2000 sq ft house in the burbs, two cars and my mom stayed home with the kids. We were not rich. My mom was an expert penny pincher and coupon clipper. My dad never called a repair man and painted the house by himself. But back then, even with all the turmoil in the economy, a college education translated into solid employment with excellent benefits and plenty of vacation time even when unemployment surged.

In the 80s, my father got promoted into management. Everything changed. New hires got switched out of the pension plan into 401ks, only got 2 weeks paid vacation and the health plan started requiring out of pocket contributions. My father went from working 9-5 to basically working all day and at least half the weekend. My parents were divorced by that time and when I would visit my dad on vacation, he still had to do work. He at least had the carrot of a potential EVP position which never materialized. But the biggest change was that everyone in the company was constantly being told to cut the fat, downsize and push everyone to work harder. For all overtime exempt white collar employees, the 40 hour work week became extinct.

When I first started practicing law in the early 2000s, 60-70 hour work weeks for new associates was considered standard. I worked an entire year and a half without a vacation when I started. Then, for the next 10 years or so, I would take a week off over Xmas and a week off over the summer. I was never on a partner track and got raises and bonuses that were right at the median for the market.

I am all for quiet quitting. The only reason people are expected to be on the clock from sun up to sun down is because it is just a way for the capitalists to get a larger share of the excess business income from the worker's labor. Businesses got away with this for the past few decades because people feared downsizing and unemployment and would do anything just to keep their jobs. But after 1 mil died during COVID and another 500k can't work due to COVID complications/concerns and lots of boomers have cashed out, the shoe is on the other foot. It is time to return reasonable limits to the workplace. 40 hours a week is enough for any job.

Mikeh33 wrote:

Precious Roy wrote:

When I was a kid in the 70s, my dad was an engineer at Raytheon. I remember very vividly how he would come home everyday at 5:30 almost on the dot. He had family health insurance, life insurance, a pension plan and got 4 weeks paid vacation. He actually considered going to work for the government when he was applying for a job with Raytheon because they pay was better. We had enough money to have a 2000 sq ft house in the burbs, two cars and my mom stayed home with the kids. We were not rich. My mom was an expert penny pincher and coupon clipper. My dad never called a repair man and painted the house by himself. But back then, even with all the turmoil in the economy, a college education translated into solid employment with excellent benefits and plenty of vacation time even when unemployment surged.

In the 80s, my father got promoted into management. Everything changed. New hires got switched out of the pension plan into 401ks, only got 2 weeks paid vacation and the health plan started requiring out of pocket contributions. My father went from working 9-5 to basically working all day and at least half the weekend. My parents were divorced by that time and when I would visit my dad on vacation, he still had to do work. He at least had the carrot of a potential EVP position which never materialized. But the biggest change was that everyone in the company was constantly being told to cut the fat, downsize and push everyone to work harder. For all overtime exempt white collar employees, the 40 hour work week became extinct.

When I first started practicing law in the early 2000s, 60-70 hour work weeks for new associates was considered standard. I worked an entire year and a half without a vacation when I started. Then, for the next 10 years or so, I would take a week off over Xmas and a week off over the summer. I was never on a partner track and got raises and bonuses that were right at the median for the market.

I am all for quiet quitting. The only reason people are expected to be on the clock from sun up to sun down is because it is just a way for the capitalists to get a larger share of the excess business income from the worker's labor. Businesses got away with this for the past few decades because people feared downsizing and unemployment and would do anything just to keep their jobs. But after 1 mil died during COVID and another 500k can't work due to COVID complications/concerns and lots of boomers have cashed out, the shoe is on the other foot. It is time to return reasonable limits to the workplace. 40 hours a week is enough for any job.

I really appreciate your account of the dramatic changes you and your father lived through concerning the way that employment is handled. I wonder how much of that change was due to greed, or if it was a rational reaction to a much more competitive market that your father’s industry underwent.

I’m afraid you lost me when you started talking about the “capitalists”, as if somehow they are a distinct collection of people. Capitalism is just an observation. People buy and sell. That’s capitalism and it’s been around since the dawn of human history. When veers into exploitation is when government has to do something.

LR Posters say the dumbest things wrote:

BhaktaDon wrote:

What are your thoughts on quiet quitting?

Please state your age as well.

Personally, I'm 42 and Generation X. My generation I believe had greater opportunity for financial success than Y or Z. I was raised to work hard. I don't think the quiet quitting way. I come more from a gen x make no excuses figure it out mindset or screw it accept it and work with it mindset.

However I am not mad at Gen Z kids who refuse to go above and beyond in a dead end job. Some of these people clearly don't feel they have a secure path to financial stability in their future. I would like to hear how these people feel.

Let's try to respect each others opinions and learn why people feel the way they do.

It's not just the workplace where these people refuse to go "above and beyond".

I'm Gen X as well and you can tell who the millennials in my neighborhood are just by looking at their yards.

The millennial on my left has $20,000 in grilling equipment on his porch but can't afford a weed wacker.

The millennial on my right bought a $4,000 tractor and also can't afford a weed wacker.

Narcissism is the problem with millennials and Gen Z not economics. Below average people who are told their special every day of their lives don't do well in the real world where they find out no one but their single mother cares if they live or die.

Raddison wrote:

Bud Fox wrote:

Read your last sentence. That’s not quiet quitting. Unless I just don’t understand the generally accepted definition of quiet quitting.

My first two paragraphs give my opinion on the term Quiet Quitting. It started as describing the hard worker who was fed up with constantly being leaned on. But it has since been used to describe the slacker.

Many of the posts in this thread lean towards one definition or the other.

Regardless of how they are referred to, the problem of good employees who are pushed too far has got to be dealt with. However, corporations have done a good job of shifting the problem. Burn out = weak willed. Quiet Quitters = slackers. If it's the employees problem then the executives can sit back and blame the employee.

In my example above my friend got shafted. The unionised employees did not. What conclusions can we draw from that? And will executives draw those conclusions before it is too late?

Bud Fox wrote:

YES HERE wrote:

I'll tell you how that happens. It's called getting your "dream job" as your first job out of college. Desperate to make a good impression, people please, and ultimately worry about your future prospects if you botch your first job. And because it's your dream job, you are naturally going to grind yourself into the floor because you've told yourself for a decade that you needed to be there in that role.

The biggest issue becomes...."now what?" Passion becomes just another task that you need to do. Abuse of power through leadership makes you question if your true passion is really truly run by inept, insecure man-babies who talk down to you the minute you start encroaching on their position. I got out OK, but I can see how demoralizing it can be for some people who are so dependent one particular goal for self worth.

You probably should go above and beyond right out of school. that’s how you get ahead, either at that company or another. when you are right out of school you are kind of worthless since you don’t know anything. As you progress in your career and are more valuable then you have more leverage. At that point it’s: Hell no I’m not working nights and weekends unless you pay me a lot more. that’s what I did. it’s worked for me. I actually straight up quit a fairly prestigious job due to ridiculous work expectations. Found something more reasonable. Only because I had and experience base. good to go

ReverseWay wrote:

LR Posters say the dumbest things wrote:

It's not just the workplace where these people refuse to go "above and beyond".

I'm Gen X as well and you can tell who the millennials in my neighborhood are just by looking at their yards.

The millennial on my left has $20,000 in grilling equipment on his porch but can't afford a weed wacker.

The millennial on my right bought a $4,000 tractor and also can't afford a weed wacker.

Narcissism is the problem with millennials and Gen Z not economics. Below average people who are told their special every day of their lives don't do well in the real world where they find out no one but their single mother cares if they live or die.

Translation: your younger neighbors choose not to waste all of their time slavishly tending to their yards. You're proud of the large amount of time you apparently waste on such endeavors?