14 ms·

Quiet Quitting

• beauHD 4y ago
  There is also a 'slowdown'[0] or a go-slow-strike which doesn't have to be overt, i.e alerting employers that you're going to work slowly. You can quietly not put in the effort required of you. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slowdown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slowdown
• neogodless 4y ago
  It irks me that some people use this term to mean "doing your job, as expected." I would imagine it to mean "doing the absolute smallest amount you can get away with without getting noticed and subsequently fired." Fulfilling my duties but not doing overtime seems like "doing your job" rather than "quiet quitting."
  • peteradio 4y ago
    Exactly. I don't know who created this term, but its a real bastard when the meaning is "doing your job".
    • mojzu 4y ago
      It's a way for some people to try and reinforce the hustle culture status quo that doing unpaid labour for your employer, even to the detriment of your own physical or mental health is a moral or worthy goal that will definitely (maybe) be rewarded. Label/name it in a way that seems derogatory and many people will make the implicit assumption that it's derogatory for a good reason
  • thrwy_918 4y ago
    I agree that your definition would be more intuitive, but I think that ship has sailed. It seems to be almost universally used to mean "performing the required duties of your role, and no more" I think it's an indication of a totally dysfunctional work culture that "not doing extra" can be synonymous with "not working at all" The fact that the author claims to have given "200% of [their] energy" to their job "throughout their career" is, to me, depressing rather than admirable
    • cedilla 4y ago
      It also reeks of the typical productivity theatre I see in my parents generation. Highly visible self-sacrifice, everything for work. But putting in 80 hours a week, going to work even when sick, neglecting rest and family, all these things reduce overall work output, often sharply. Especially when it's just performative, but even when it's honest.
    • sixstringtheory 4y ago
      I find it very similar to the mentality induced by rating systems, where 5 stars is 5 stars and 4 stars is 1 star. I remember a discussion about that some time ago here but haven’t been able to find it again.
  • ehnto 4y ago
    A term getting around at the moment is "Acting your Wage" which I like a lot better. Employers shouldn't be surprised when people do what they're paid to do.
    • vasco 4y ago
      That attitude is childish at best. If you're not happy with the wage, quit and go get it somewhere else. Employers would feel the pressure of "lack of labor" and wages would rise. Accepting a job and then deciding the wage is not enough for the duties you have to perform after the fact just slows the process down for everyone and usually puts extra work load on your colleagues. I'm assuming of course that you mean what I ususally have seen which is "i arbitrarily decide how much work to do". If you mean this is just "not go above and beyond", then sure.
      • xani_ 4y ago
        > Accepting a job and then deciding the wage is not enough for the duties you have to perform after the fact just slows the process down for everyone and usually puts extra work load on your colleagues. Uh,no. It's usually getting more and more work coz someone left/got fired and employer goes "well, productivity looks the same" (coz everyone is working that bit more) "why hire more?". Or frankly you just learned more and are more productive than you were year ago... for same wage.
        • JAlexoid 4y ago
          Big +1! This is like an employer failing to gauge the number of people needed to do a job, just tell you to do a little extra... Never ever will you get the benefit of a cut from the cost of the missing people, but your employer WILL get the benefit of delivering something more valuable to the market.
      • JAlexoid 4y ago
        Wait! You signed a contract saying A and you do A, meanwhile there's an "expectation" that you actually do A+B... That is not a healthy expectation. Imagine if you were a contractor tasked with painting a room. Mid painting the expectation changes to "you're also expected to reinstall window and door trim, and paint it" (at no extra cost and by staying at jobsite longer), but with a remote probability of increased pay later. Or... The customer fires one of your colleagues and tells you that you and one more person must now deliver the job at the same pace.... but with only two thirds of the pay.
  • traceroute66 4y ago
    Indeed, its a weird terminology to use. Quit/Quitting typically has only one well-understood meaning ! "Quiet quitting" strikes me as being more like what was traditionally called "Work To Rule" in union circles.
    • MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
      I remember work to rule well. As a kid my teachers union were going through negotiations and on the verge of striking and we got to see first hand what that's like. Turns out all those sports and extra curricular activities your kids enjoy in school aren't in the contract. Same with staying late and providing any extra help, or supporting anything like a school dance. The contract is just show up, lecture, mark homework during prep. periods, leave. Parents were frustrated to say the least. Anyways, you can't expect your employees to go above and beyond for free. Any extra responsibilities need to be spelled out in the contract. I can't imaging how that'd work for a developer. There can be an innumerable number of tasks different developers do and as they grow in a position, it can change enormously. I guess it would force contract and pay renegotiations every year? Otherwise your new team lead could just.. stop.. in the case where they were hired as just a senior developer.
      • germinalphrase 4y ago
        FWIW: I taught high school English for about ten years. In addition to my regular 40 hrs, I routinely prepped, marked up writing, etc for an additional 15-20 hours per week. I left in June and took a new job at a small tech consultancy here in Minneapolis. Teaching is a special job in many ways, but the material benefits of exiting education are stark (at least for me).
        • Am4TIfIsER0ppos 4y ago
          The students are required to work for hours more per week, why not the teachers?
          • germinalphrase 4y ago
  • beauHD 4y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_to_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_to_rule
  • vaidhy 4y ago
    "doing the absolute smallest amount you can get away with without getting noticed and subsequently fired." That is an interesting phrase. Isn't this what is required of you to do? If you are failing at the job, you will at least get noticed. So, what is quiet quitting? In my mind, it seems like not having ambition to grow in the corporate world is (negatively) called out as quiet quitting.
    • neogodless 4y ago
      This is going to depend on how much you are monitored, if you have key performance indicators, if management really has a useful gauge of your productivity to use. If it's a 3-tier scale, the middle "doing your job" means you use your 8 hours / day to get work done (mostly). You don't push off as many duties as possible while "waiting" for more information. You don't go fishing while logging hours. You continue to see what you can get done throughout the day, and you do it, even if you're not being watched and monitored. On that bottom tier, unless something is specifically measurable, unless there's a solid grasp of accountability that management can use to ensure the work you're doing is meaningfully productive from their point of view, you don't have to do much of anything. You could be in sales but not selling anything. You could show up for required meetings, but make up reasons why you didn't get anything done. You could spend 7 of your 8 hours watching Netflix. Basically, you quietly (as in, without being noticed) quit (as in, stopped doing your job.)
    • itronitron 4y ago
      >> "doing the absolute smallest amount you can get away with without getting noticed and subsequently fired." So many people do this already while spending all their time disrupting others and working long hours.
  • Udo 4y ago
    > "doing the absolute smallest amount you can get away with without getting noticed and subsequently fired." The delta between that and "normal work as required" depends hugely on the job type and company culture. If you're flipping burgers, that difference may well be zero - if you're working as a programmer, it may be huge. Personally I suspect Quiet Quitting is a quasi-immune response to an employer's expectation that your job should be your life's main activity. Again, how well justified that expectation is comes in a huge spectrum. In a recession, this response is (reasonably) heightened by an inability to enjoy the economic or personal benefits that an employee expects to come with "giving 110%" for the company.
  • paradox242 4y ago
    I too found this definition perplexing, and I can only attribute it their knowing that "the minimum to not get fired, often including deceptions about the quality and quantity of work" sounds a lot worse, even if the reasons behind both attitudes are for generally the same reasons. I am somehow a millennial despite being born in the early 80s and so I straddle the divide here somewhat. I share their cynicism and distrust of corporations and capitalism. Your employer is trying to minimize the amount they are paying you and maximize the amount of work you produce, so it only seems fair for a worker to have the inverse incentive. At the same time, I can't really bring myself to do bad work or generally shirk my responsibilities. Part of this is due to the relationships with my bosses and coworkers, knowing that they are largely trapped in the same circumstances and that they will likely have to pick up the slack, and part of it is just a personal value on doing a thing as well as I can.
    • ThalesX 4y ago
      > At the same time, I can't really bring myself to do bad work or generally shirk my responsibilities. Part of this is due to the relationships with my bosses and coworkers, knowing that they are largely trapped in the same circumstances and that they will likely have to pick up the slack, and part of it is just a personal value on doing a thing as well as I can. Sort of in the same position as you im terms of late millenial. I have always gotten kicked in the ass for doing this. I put a high personal value on the work that I do and go (what I consider) above and beyond. But at all my employments there was a time when I needed help (medical emergency, life emergency, burn-out, family issues etc.) and have always found that I didn't get the support I expected and needed; even from the bosses that I appreciated. Ultimately, that always drives me to keep a more open eye on new offers.
  • unity1001 4y ago
    > Fulfilling my duties but not doing overtime seems like "doing your job" rather than "quiet quitting." Yeah, but the employers see 'just doing your job' as you not working enough. They want you to go 'above and beyond' and 'dedicate yourself to the mission' with 'passion'. Hence, quiet quitting.
  • drbwaa 4y ago
    I've never heard young people use this term the way the author claims - that's the definition used by people of the author's generation. Young people, by and large, seem to call it "doing your job", as you say. In my experience, young people saying "quiet quitting" are referring explicitly to the judgmental attitude around work-life balance that's held by some older members of the workforce.
  • shadowgovt 4y ago
    It's pretty well-understood that a company does not function if everyone performs only the duties written on paper. There's even a counterproductive strategy that uses that as the hallmark: "malicious compliance." People aren't robots (if they were, they'd have been automated by now so owners could keep all the wealth by owning all the capital) and the challenges businesses face are too dynamic to survive a script-only approach to meeting people's needs. I think the most important question to ask is "If the company dies, why don't the employees care?" And unpacking that box can answer all sorts of unasked questions about power imbalance in the modern (mostly service, non-union) economy.
    • JAlexoid 4y ago
      What the... No. If your company has to rely on people working extra hours and doing extra work, to actually function... then screw that company. Imagine if you demanded your carpenter do your plumbing as well, because "as house can't operate without proper plumbing".
      • shadowgovt 4y ago
        We don't demand that. But (for a small one-off home installation job) we do expect carpenters to finish with a broom-clean workspace, even if that's not explicitly in the contract. It's a basic professional standard and "common sense." That's the sort of thing I'm talking about.
        • JAlexoid 4y ago
          Except for some reason once people become employees, that "broom-clean workspace" turns into "spotless deep house clean" expectation. Hence why you get "quitely quitting" as just doing the job you were hired to do.
          • shadowgovt 4y ago
            This is an excellent point and goes to the unasked questions I was referring to. Among the reasons this can happen is a variant of race-to-the-bottom cost / value creep due to competition. If some other carpenter is offering complementary deep-clean, then everyone else in the space has to offer it too (or risk losing work). Now, they should of course ideally pay their staff to do the thing that has become the new norm. But it's easy for a frog-boil to cause something to creep into the new norm without corresponding compensation increasing (especially if the guy offering the deep-cleans originally has some kind of economic advantage the competition doesn't that allows him to offer it for free... Maybe his partner is co-owner and does the deep cleans, or they have kids who work for them for free). There's a lot of power imbalances that I think become obvious if one asks the question "Why would the employees not care if this company went belly-up tomorrow?" The kids / partner circumstance, for example, involves employees working for below-market rate but they do care if the company goes belly-up tomorrow.
  • cjohnson318 4y ago
    On top of that, using the term "millennial" to refer to "kids these days". A lot of millennials are pushing forty, own houses, and have multiple kids now.
    • tappdarden 4y ago
      To add on: some millennials have kids who are adults. finishing college and starting families of their own.
      • cjohnson318 4y ago
        We're reaching a point where "boomer" and "millennial" lose all meaning and are just catch-all terms for "the olds" and "these kids".
  • some_random 4y ago
    It's absolutely being used loosely, people arguing against it are usually talking about doing the absolute bare minimum and people arguing for it are usually talking about working as expected without going above and beyond. It's very frustrating to watch and a pattern that occurs quite frequently
  • commandlinefan 4y ago
    > Fulfilling my duties but not doing overtime If I were a conspiracy theorist, I might even suspect that the term "quiet quitting" was actually coined by people who were cynically looking for a way to goad people to work more unpaid overtime.
  • Insanity 4y ago
    I had a conversation with my wife about this just about a week ago. We have a different background (America vs Europe, me being Europe). When she explained “Quiet quitting” to me, my reaction was the same as yours. Quiet Quitting is just doing the job which you are paid for. Which to me is perfectly reasonable. Culture probably plays a role here. Like that joke about an American making calls / texting for work while in the hospital, and a European taking 4 weeks vacation for the summer, just dropping everything work related.
  • jacobsenscott 4y ago
    In the programming world, there is no clear definition of just "doing your job". Two programmers can both work 8 hour days, doing their best work, and one can literally provide 10x or more value than the other. It seems like in programming the only definition of "doing your job" is "do your best". With such a range of skills and loose definitions, it it is almost impossible to tell who is doing their job and who isn't.
    • JAlexoid 4y ago
      In creative fields - it's hard to define, but engineering is not exactly an open ended profession. We as programmers have a clear objective to get to. The ways of getting there are different, but it's akin to asking a portrait painter to paint a portrait - the result isn't a novel impressionist painting.
  • JAlexoid 4y ago
    It was never about "doing the smallest", it's a result of corporate culture demanding that you work extra as part of your job. Which results in people saying that "quietly quitting" is "doing the smallest", when it's actually just sticking strictly to your contract obligations.
  • sheepybloke 4y ago
    I think the issue is that articles are trying to tie something that is a mentality to something physical. My analogy for quiet quitting is the lame duck time after you've put in your two weeks but extending that to full time. It's doing your duties, but not being engaged; going to meetings, but not participating; doing your job per say, but reducing your role to absolute minimal possible. You have mentally checked out from the job and your team, more so than normal or what is expected at a position.
• throwaway743 4y ago
  ... is not a thing. To employers bitching, you get what you pay for. Put up or shut up.
• tenebrisalietum 4y ago
  > Loss of purpose, lack of fair recognition and the need to preserve work–life balance seem to be the main motives of the younger generations for quiet quitting. It's because the cost of everything keeps increasing but pay doesn't, especially housing costs. Why work my ass off if I'm never going to be able to buy a house? The economy can cool down, but it won't matter - if rent is $2000/mo., no one is going to take your $11/hr jobs unless you're very flexible, because people will need multiple such jobs to survive if that's all they can get.
• ehnto 4y ago
  Not mentioned at all is most people's salaries cannot buy you the same life that it was able to afford baby-boomers. The work-life balance re-assessment is partially based on a recognition that they are getting less benefit per hour spent at work, and for many the tradeoff is no longer worth it. If the best that people with degrees, trade qualifications or good ol' fashioned hard work can look forward to is just scraping by, forever on the rent treadmill, then what was all the hustle for? They may as well scrape by and enjoy their life. No-one is under any illusion that just by making it to the next tier in their company they'll suddenly be bonafide middle-class Americans either. They can tell their management is in the exact same boat. I won't bother mentioning dollar figures, because that really doesn't translate well across the conversation. People are looking for a good life in their chosen community, whatever that costs is what is fair for a hard worker. If I were to mention a salary amount it would mean a different level of living for everyone who read it, depending on where they live.
  • blueflow 4y ago
    I do this by only working 20hrs a week while enjoying the legal worker benefits of my country. It works out financially without generating too much money. If i need savings, i'm better off working for it in 10 years than doing three times the work now for the same money number.
  • treespace8 4y ago
    I could not agree more. You can't compare raw salary numbers. You need to compare total lifestyle / purchasing power. It's a totally different game now. Job security is gone in both directions. Oh and the world in general is a much more chaotic place. The younger generations are just trying to come to terms with it.
  • silksowed 4y ago
    us baby boomers own one of the largest asset classes in the world. so much wealth tied up in ~70 million people. i wonder if any of the children of this class are stepping off the gas knowing the windfall that eventually is passed on to them.
• ianbicking 4y ago
  One of the quotes from younger people is "I realise the things I’m doing are above my pay grade" – "above my pay grade" is definitely not a term invented by the youth. Nothing being attributed to young people here is new. If the author can't see that, and thinks this attitude wasn't present in the Boomer generation, then they themselves aren't putting in the necessary reflective work.
  • aosmith 4y ago
    Feel free to correct me if you think I'm wrong but I always interpreted "above my pay grade" as lacking the authority to make certain decisions.
    • ianbicking 4y ago
      Yes, I also interpret it similarly, but also see it used when a task involves engaging with company politics or strategy that is organizationally above where the person is or where it feels inaccessible. Like if you are asked to do something and it requires help from some other group, and they say no, you might say that resolving the issue is above your pay grade... even though you _could_ hassle those other people to get the work done. In that sense saying "that's above my pay grade" can indicate you aren't prepared to hustle within the corporate structure.
• LunarCamper 4y ago
  If you feel the urge to quiet quit, you're either at the wrong company, or worse, in the wrong profession.
  • JackFr 4y ago
    You are not your job. If, in addition to a living, your job provides you with meaning, identity and self-worth, bully for you, but you’re the rare one. There is no shame in treating a job, well, like a job.
• gk1 4y ago
  I wonder how quiet quitters and the overemployed[1] fare in the mass layoffs. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/overemployed/ https://www.reddit.com/r/overemployed/
  • mellosouls 4y ago
    Quiet Quitters are very different from the Overemployed, best not to get them mixed up. The former (badly named, see other posts) cohort is doing their job diligently (and more intelligently than burn-out headed peers) so should be fine in decent companies with competent management, and will presumably be later in line for the chop in those contexts.
• mathgladiator 4y ago
  I consider myself fortunate to love these damned infernal machines such that my passion and the-good-work aligns. Early in my career at AWS, after a bit of ego alignment, I realized the tremendous opportunity to just grind and get things done. Going above and beyond was learning more and more. I read years of COE reports learning why and how massive distributed systems fail which made me a better team mate, better code reviewer, and help me help managers. Sure, I had a job to do, but the going above and beyond should be self interested.
• jenny91 4y ago
  There has been an erosion and change in the nature of the employee-employer relationship. Back in the day that the author initially started working, the nature of the relationship was probably much more balanced: the employee got a decent wage, was trusted to fulfil their duties with reasonable concessions and freedom (sometimes possibly doing overtime if necessary, but also being able to leave early on days when they had to take care of their kid), and they probably had much better implicit labor protections: in the event of economic downturns, the company was much more accommodating and tried its best to take care of the employee. In other words, the employer was trusted and the employee was trusted to "take care of each other". The job was "for life", after all. Fast forward to these days: companies have stripped away a lot of the care they took for employees; in the event of economic issues, big corps will fire people basically at random. Most employees are monitored to the minute, and leeway from the employer is unheard of in most situations. All of this "taking care of your employees when things go awry" is expensive (like insurance) and employers have tightened their belts. It's not surprising then that the employer also starts looking for ways of not doing more than they are contractually obliged to do. It is mostly about the erosion of trust both ways.
  • shadowgovt 4y ago
    In general, the relationship between employer and employee has never been balanced. One thing that induced balance in the middle of the 20th century was the power of unions in the middle of high-demand industries; after World War II, manufacturing and transportation were massively valuable to rebuild tracts of the world bombed to bedrock, and this put bargaining power in the hands of labor because labor in e.g. heavy manufacturing and rail had already organized; bosses were incentivized to work within those power structures because there was so much money to be made hitting quotas that it was in nobody's interest to slow process. Your company was your extended family because the union had made it so (it's not like bosses would be offering those pensions out of the goodness of their hearts). That balance began to unravel as the world rebuilt, manufacturing moved out of its traditional bases, and labor shifted from industry to service without a corresponding shift of service to unionized workplaces. The Boomers' attitude towards work is shaped by experiencing the benefits of the closest the US came to strong labor representation and national-level socialism, if not outright communism.
• masterof0 4y ago
  Boomers look surprised, and I think they fail to see the reality of current times. Decades ago, an university teacher, could afford to buy a home for his family , not too far from where he/she/* worked. Nowadays, even with FAANG salaries you can't buy a decent size home for your family even in a "30 minutes drive" radio from where your offices are. Imagine other professions who are not paid as much. People see through the "hustle mentality" grindset, usually only the ones telling you to hustle and grind are the ones making the big bucks. I understand there are outliers , people who did hustle and became very wealthy, but the problem I see is, the older generation fails to see the evident changes in the social and economical landscape that push their people towards this type of attitude towards work.
  • gsibble 4y ago
    Exactly. This is why we don't want to break our backs working and they are clueless.
  • treis 4y ago
    A lot of this is, IHMO, looking back at the past with rose colored glasses: People look back at home prices but don't account for interest rates. So yes, homes were cheaper for the boomers in the 70s and 80s but they were paying 10%+ interest on those homes. The actual monthly cost isn't much different. Cities were much cheaper but they were also much more violent. So those people that bought in Harlem for a song in the 70s and have a million+ home today went through some shit. Even today you can get a home basically for free if you're willing to have a crappy home in a shit neighborhood if you want the Boomer experience. Also, people had to move. Most of those boomers in California that made a bunch on their home moved from somewhere else because homes were cheap in California. People today can repeat that experience. Probably not the "greatest real estate appreciation ever" part but definitely the "cheap home with decent job prospects" part. Similarly with cost of living. Outside of a couple notable exceptions things like appliances, cars, clothing, etc. are cheaper and (at least arguably) better today than what it was back then. The big differences are health care and education. But even these are a mixed bag.
  • DesiLurker 4y ago
    Exactly, here in silicon valley the housing is so expensive that even if you can afford a house with FAANG salary you'd have to keep doing it for next 30 years to be able to actually own the damn thing. I don't know how any of this is sustainable without having some kind of familial or mental breakdown.
• dm319 4y ago
  There have been generational changes which may explain the different attitudes. I am an older millenial, and was brought up on the idea of putting in extra to learn and develop my career. I followed the leads of my boomer seniors. But I don't get the benefits they did. For my line of work (not IT), I work harder, I am paid less, I pay more on my mortgage, I live in smaller, less salubrious places than they do, I will get a smaller pension, I need my wife to continue working to pay for everything. My children will have less opportunities, their university education won't be funded. I think my specific generation were the suckers, and I can't, hand-on-heart, tell the Gen Z juniors that if they just work their arses off, they will be given some career with these kind of rewards. Yet another aspect is that the boomers were largely male, with wives and kids who hardly saw them. This is far less tolerable these days. For every keen junior who committed 200%, there was an unhappy partner doing all the housework and bringing up the kids.
• wyldfire 4y ago
  > I also shared with them my view that going “above and beyond your work” was the only way to continue learning and developing in the workplace and that it would pay off eventually … but I realised that I did not convince them at all. I totally love my job. But sometimes I wonder if I would love something else even more. I make tons of money but unfortunately I spend tons of money. If I did like those FIRE folks do, maybe I could take years off of work and try something totally new and different - thru-hike the AT or PCT or take a crazy long boat trip or just code on fun projects at home. Keynes said we'd be working 15-hour work weeks [1]. Sounds like some of this younger generation might just embrace it? I'm too chicken to try the stuff I list above. [1] http://www.econ.yale.edu/smith/econ116a/keynes1.pdf http://www.econ.yale.edu/smith/econ116a/keynes1.pdf
• gautamdivgi 4y ago
  >>> Loss of purpose, lack of fair recognition and the need to preserve work–life balance seem to be the main motives of the younger generations for quiet quitting. Work-life balance and over-and-beyond are opposites. You can get one or the other. Lack of fair recognition for going over and beyond is a thing. I would say recognition should have a significant monetary component to compensate for loss of work-life balance. Loss of purpose is dual edged. A lot of times there is a part where you have to experiment and throw away certain implementations. People go “above-and-beyond” in some of these situations and end up with nothing to show for their effort. It can get very demoralizing. In that, maybe failed experiments need to be recognized as well as successful ones if sincere effort has been put in. Either way a successful upward trending career and work-life balance are at odds with one another. It’s for individuals to make the choice. Not giving 200% isn’t quiet quitting. Not giving 100% is.
• matmatmatmat 4y ago
  It's interesting to see this from CERN, which is essentially an institution that enables young people to work unlimited hours for next to no pay and virtually no chance of ever attaining significant recognition of their work. In my brief time there, it was not uncommon to hear stories of people who had moved there and not even unpacked all of their belongings after a year or more. On the plus side, if you love particle physics and/or the surrounding context, it's one of the best places to be. On the minus side, you'll have to give up everything else and be quite smart in addition to move ahead.
  • workerthrow632 4y ago
    > not even unpacked all of their belongings after a year or more. I stopped having any personal effects at work. Purely mercenary. It makes it easier when I get walked out when the C-Suite decides they need higher bonuses.
    • mxuribe 4y ago
      My current as well as last two jobs, the only thing i brought in was a single coffee mug, and no other personal effects. (The mug was because i'm doing my little bit to help the environment by re-using my cup...I know, I know, its a very small bit, but still.) I have long seen myself as merely a mercenary. But, my latest job - started only 8 months ago - was supoosed to be the company where i retire from. That is, where i stop being the merc. But in just those 8 months, i already have seen the awful apporoach senior leadership takes towards its employees. So, i guess i stay as a merc. (and slowly plan my pivot towards being my own boss...charging these senior leaders exorbitant consultant rates. ;-)
    • matmatmatmat 4y ago
      Maybe I should've been clearer, but I didn't mean personal effects at work. The people I knew had not even unpacked their things in the apartments they were renting because they were too busy working, particularly professors. And this applied to both tenured and untenured professors. Don't want to name names but one of the high up profs I chatted with there worked roughly 60 hours a week, 6 10-hour days. I mean, he loved it, and he had a lot of responsibility, but I think it's fair to say it's pretty much all he did. His wife mostly traveled and his daughter was already in undergrad by then. It is genuinely unclear to me how a new prof could hope to compete with that or make a meaningful contribution when even the "old guard" have given up everything to just work.
• einpoklum 4y ago
  > I tried to explain that, when I started to work, and throughout my career, I gave 200% of my energy to my job and it would never have occurred to me to question this. It did not occur to the author that values above 100% of something may be excessive? Somehow, I don't find that convincing. > I also shared with them my view that going “above and beyond your work” was the only way to continue learning and developing That's a strong argument against investing effort and enthusiasm, right there. It's saying that even doing your job properly and well means no development and no "learning". > it would pay off eventually 1. It.... probably wouldn't. 2. Today's labor market is much more precarious; chances of a person staying at the same workplace for more than several years are mediocre-to-low. So by the time "eventually" comes around, the employee will need to be someplace else, doing something else, i.e. no payoff. 3. Even if the employee stayed put - they will live in poor material conditions while waiting for that eventuality to materialize.
  • adament 4y ago
    I had the same thought about the 200% thing. Actually I think it is either empty boasting or a difference of terminology. I understand giving 100% to mean: I give as much as I possible can. Giving 200%(or anything above 100%) sustainably for all your career sounds impossible by definition to me. As an aside(since you used him for the author) I found it interesting that the author (according to her LinkedIn profile) is a woman. My initial prejudice was that giving so much more than everything to your work sounded like something that is only possible if you have a partner taking care of everything at home. And I immediately assumed this must be due to traditional family roles.
  • masterof0 4y ago
    And people usually make more morning switching jobs every couple of years than staying in the same place. I have been hired several times, with better compensation than people more senior than me who have "been around" for a long time.
• dry_soup 4y ago
  > I read an interesting Korn Ferry article on the term that the newest entrants to the workforce have for not going “above and beyond” their specific work duties: they call it quiet quitting. No they don't. Only opinion columnists call it that.
• patatino 4y ago
  Quiet quitting is not working until you get fired. Doing your job and nothing more than that isn't quiet quitting.
• gsibble 4y ago
  I worked 200% for over 15 years in Silicon Valley. You know how many raises I got without changing jobs? Zero. You know how many promotions I got? Zero. You know how many bonuses I got? Zero. You know how much more work I got assigned? A TON. Hard work only begets hard work these days and not further compensation. The old paths to higher compensation and career growth are dead, and employers killed them. There's no reason to go above and beyond anymore unless you want to be overworked to death. You won't get compensated more for it. Times used to be you'd be recognized for your hard work and get raises, bonuses, and promotions but those days are gone. Now you have to change jobs to get ahead. So why put in any extra effort at a temporary job?
  • jarym 4y ago
    > You know how many raises I got without changing jobs? Zero. You know how many promotions I got? Zero. You know how many bonuses I got? Zero. You know how much more work I got assigned? A TON. And this is the problem - even away from SV. It was recently suggested to me that the only way to earn more in my current company is if I ended up managing a team (purpose not defined, reasoning unclear). I'm in a great company with great management by the way - or at least I think I am. I asked, what if I make a material positive impact on the company or its finances? The initial answer was - everyone else is working hard too. It didn't take long for me to find the exit, and the moment I did the tune changed. I think some managers/CEOs can also lose sight of the value of hard work especially when it can be linked to some positive gain for the company.
    • kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
      What irks me most about this no-raise mentality is that you make less effective money year over year than your starting salary due to inflation but your value to the company has increased from experience and institutional knowledge.
      • Maxburn 4y ago
        Damn, I felt that.
• workerthrow632 4y ago
  I finally 'quiet quit' when I realized being a minority in tech means I'll never break the glass ceiling past senior engineer regardless of how hard I work or how visibly I help. Even in school I was shoved into secretarial work until I finally convinced professors to let me work solo and would smoke entire groups. People for some reason think I am good enough to interview for lead or architect then seem surprised when I show up and saw "Ooo, hmm. I think you are a better fit for senior." or "Hmm. I think we'll hire you as a second or third hire instead" or when I am inside, I am told for years "you're up for a promotion". I am disregarded and mistreated, treated like a pariah. I thought if I worked hard enough, people will like me and see my value; a meritocracy! Nope. It's got nothing to do with actual skills and everything to do with who you are and who you schmooze. It's weird as fuck that they are interested and crawling over me until they talk to me as a person. I am doubtful it is my abilities. It's likely because I am autistic and a little eccentric (talk fast / ADHD & a little overwhelming to talk to if I am being honest). I am well-spoken and fairly clear to speak to, I actually give talks about my work. I just chalk it up to wanting a square when I am pretty clearly and happily a circle. I can either bury myself and personality to become a grey corporate square or I can shut my mouth and disregard the dudebros that seem to only promote fellow dudebros that ask me how to solve their problems then pretend they didn't.
  • blueflow 4y ago
    I'm in a similar situation like you are, but i haven't attributed it to being eccentric or weird. It is because im not a low-friction person, in a social sense.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • commandlinefan 4y ago
    > a minority in tech Curious how so... I've been in "tech" for 30 years and as a non-Indian U.S. citizen, I've always been in the "minority" of actual tech employees.
  • floor2 4y ago
    I think you probably have some fundamental cause & effect arrows backwards here. Specifically, every single tech recruiter and tech executive is doing everything they can to increase the diversity of their company. The fact that you're getting interviews for lead or architect but then being assessed as a better fit for senior shows that you're actually getting preferential treatment in recruiting stage and opportunities that an otherwise identical non-minority candidate wouldn't have even been interviewed for. > It's weird as fuck that they are interested and crawling over me until they talk to me as a person That's not weird at all. That's incredibly common. That's a sign that your resume looks good, but you interview poorly. Maybe you're the "talented jerk" who they fear will negatively impact other employees. Maybe you overestimate your abilities. It's possible that the whole world is just out to get you and refuses to acknowledge your greatness. But it might be more likely that if many different groups of people have all been interested in you on paper but then you didn't meet expectations, that the common element here is how you interview and/or interact with others.
• hijinks 4y ago
  I'm gen X so sort of right in the middle. I consider my generation on of the last of the american dream is attainable for the average worker. I was able to buy a home in my early 20s and climb the wealth ladder. I busted my ass working a 40hr a week job and doing side hustles to make it happen. If you are looking for a home now outside a major city and don't want a 2hr commute things are so slim even if you work your butt off why do it then? Its not that they don't want to work its why work? Its not a work issue but its a wage issue. Wages haven't kept up with inflation and cost of college. Kids have been pushed by their parents to take office jobs when they could be making 2 times what they are currently working if they went into a trade. My dad owned a sand/gravel company and sold it because he couldn't find young people that wanted to drive a truck or run a frontend loader. He was offering $25/hr in a low cost of living area and no one wanted to do it because they've heard since they were 8 years old how bad working with your hands are and they should get an office job
  • Kon-Peki 4y ago
    > no one wanted to do it because they've heard since they were 8 years old how bad working with your hands are and they should get an office job In my area, youth soccer referees are being offered $50/hr and the age requirement has been lowered to 13 for U8 matches. They still have trouble getting enough people. Every soccer club in the area sends out multiple emails to parents asking them to get their teenagers to go through the USA Soccer online training program. But you can see that 90% of the kids that end up doing so are from low-income families for which college was probably not an option anyway.
    • hijinks 4y ago
      I'm still big into competitive soccer and the Denver area is the same. Most leagues are even waiving the requirement to be certified. All you need is playing experience. My kids games are reffed by 12 year olds.
    • JAlexoid 4y ago
      That's not a full time job, you know that.... right?
• Archelaos 4y ago
  Are the author's observations really representative of a generational difference? When I was younger, my attitude would have been "work hard and party hard", which was a commitment to an active rather than relaxed work-life balance. Among my fellow students, I could observe a whole spectrum from "work hard" to "party hard". My own current anecdotal evidence with young adults from my extended family still includes examples of both. Therefore, I am not sure if the average has really shifted.
• aaaaaaaaaaab 4y ago
  Step 1: *systematically kill the middle class over a generation* Step 2: "noooooo, why are these workers not pushing themselves like they used to? are you not believing in our mission statement? but we've introduced Pride Month this year! what else do you want???" Step 3: ???
  • gsibble 4y ago
    Yep.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• blamazon 4y ago
  Humans have been doing this forever, just working hard enough to not be fired. If anything it's idealistic youth who tend to buck that trend and subscribe to hustle culture en masse. From the 1999 movie Office Space: > Peter Gibbons: The thing is, Bob, it's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care. > Bob Porter: Don't... don't care? > Peter Gibbons: It's a problem of motivation, all right? Now if I work my ass off and Initech ships a few extra units, I don't see another dime; so where's the motivation?
  • workerthrow632 4y ago
    Companies need to figure out how to convert illiquid equity into actual liquidity. I don't get how it is fair founders get to sell their shares but employees don't. It's probably why startups are majorly lacking in really senior talent: only newbies think startups will do right by them. That and focus on profitability to pay out employees with profit shares.
    • treis 4y ago
      Equity doesn't really work once companies get past the 10-20 size. At that point you're at most getting back 5-10% of the increase in profit. So not much incentive to work your ass off to get an extra 100k in profit when you're only seeing 5-10k of that. Realistically your equity is less than 1% since investors and founders will have much of the equity. So now we're working our ass off for 500-1000. IMHO bonuses are generally worse for everyone involved. They tend to quickly become expected compensation so lose their incentive value. Also can end up doing the opposite. If someone doesn't get an expected bonus their morale can go down. They might end up working less. And then there's the whole "wait to quit until my bonus pays out" problem.
• zokier 4y ago
  Incredibly tonedeaf post from an ombud org; framing this phenomenon of setting boundaries and having healthy work-life balance as only negative thing and musing about how to eliminate it. Hey, how about considering that there might be good aspects there too?
  • itronitron 4y ago
    It's almost as if the ombudsman did the least amount of work necessary in writing the post...
• Eumenes 4y ago
  Alot of young people are being influenced by stupid trends on reddit (like /r/antiwork) or this 'quiet quitting' nonsense. Alot of young people also believe that meritocracy doesn't exist in the modern workplace, which is dangerous, because we all know it 100% exists.
  • skyyler 4y ago
    Does it though? The whole trend is because people don't feel like it's there. You haven't actually respond to them, all you have done is dismiss their thoughts as "stupid" or "nonsense"
    • Eumenes 4y ago
      The whole trend is manufactured outrage from places like reddit, twitter, and the dull corporate "journalists" that for some reason act as a megaphone for these "ideas". Its anything but organic. Ending work, doing the bare minimum at your job until you get fired? Very strange to me. Its participants are chronically online, angry, and very jealous. Of course they're opposed to meritocracy.
      • skyyler 4y ago
        If you really think that this world operates on meritocracy, talk to some dishwashers at your local fancy restaurant. See if you think they don't work as hard as someone that makes 30x their wages. If you can't empathise with the exploited, perhaps is it because you are in the position to exploit?
  • bigbillheck 4y ago
    > because we all know it 100% exists. I don't know that.
    • Eumenes 4y ago
      So is all advancement based on nepotism/favoritism? No skill or talent? It 100% doesn't exist in the government/public sector, that's an absolute fact.
• steveBK123 4y ago
  I wonder if there's any interplay here with the "radically flat" organizations of our generation, especially in tech. For better or worse, when I first started out, and the first 2 companies I worked, there were something like 10-15 layers from me to the CEO. This created a hypothetical ladder of responsibilities and titles I felt I could climb, with rungs 3-5 years apart, getting wider the higher you go. In more recent roles, I have been in 3000 person organizations where even as an IC, I am known to, and speak with, people in the C-suite short of the CEO. I work for someone with 50 people in org, who works for someone with 1500 in their org, who works for the CEO. A lot of these radically flat orgs expect ICs as "senior engineers" or "staff engineers" or some other made up title to do some ad-hoc mix of IC, people management, project management, etc. In effect a lot of us get asked to do a job we don't have, and in fact, will never have, given the 50:1, 1500:1, and 3000:1 ratios from IC to each of the 3 levels on the ladder. The second dimension is that software project lifecycles have always been shorter than traditional engineering, and have become shorter. This leads to a lot of hopping between firms as your project hits peak and is on the disinvest cycle.
  • workerthrow632 4y ago
    > A lot of these radically flat orgs expect ICs as "senior engineers" or "staff engineers" or some other made up title to do some ad-hoc mix of IC, people management, project management, etc. Then they fire someone randomly and wonder why the company fell apart because that random was doing the bulk of the unappreciated 'glue' work but because their manager never recognized them for that work or bothered to promote them, no one knew besides their co-workers
  • throwaway5947 4y ago
    Related hypothesis: https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2021/10/24/redistributing-income-through-hierarchy/ https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2021/10/24/redistributin...
• aikiplayer 4y ago
  This was a more balanced post than I expected. I'm probably older than the median here on HN and I think it's a generational thing. My parents were of the generation when folks tended to work for a company for a majority of their career and work hard to try to stay. But they grew up influenced by their parent who lived through great depression (technically mine did too but they were young) - jobs were a lifeline. So I'm a couple of generations removed from that and, even though I'm still biased towards 'work hard, job is important' my attitudes have been shifting as well (even though I'm in tech, my wife is a schoolteacher and also works incredibly hard). I did not enter the workforce at an age where I was constantly deluged with 24 hour news and media feeds that the world is a terrible place. I've talked to multiple folks in the past 5 years or so who were just entering the workforce and they were even wondering what the point in getting married, having kids, etc. was. I have to believe that's a factor as well.
• dangus 4y ago
  This article is another one in a long line that continues to “not get it.” First off, just stop saying “quiet quitting” this way. Doing your job isn’t quiet quitting. We should be suspicious of any term like this that suddenly spreads across mass media. This is the monopoly guys of the world trying to label and shame people for having boundaries and realizing that their hamster wheel leads nowhere. Working hard for someone else’s gain just wastes the one life we were given to us. If there is a legitimate use for a term called “quiet quitting,” that would be more like pretending to work and legitimately slacking. Completing the required job generally on time isn’t quiet quitting. The article treats this introduction of healthy boundaries by the youngest generation as if it’s a problem for companies to solve, and suggests that employers start to recognize employees’ accomplishments more. If what companies want is extremely dedicated employees, I say, that recognition isn’t nearly enough. Here’s the thing: younger employees are simply following the incentives that corporations are giving them. Corporations don’t even incentivize extra hard work despite asking for it! They don’t offer commissions or profit sharing unless you’re in sales. They don’t give out bonuses for putting in extra hours or delivering work early. The equity they offer is worthless bullshit that’s filled with caveats. Corporations rarely promote from within, they hire outside managers and friends of current management, double the word “rarely” if you’re a woman or minority. Corporations don’t incentivize long tenures, they’d rather you leave or be laid off so that they can run the company like a pro sports team and optimize their labor force. If a team is misallocated, they’d rather lay off the team and hire a whole set of new employees where they’re needed. Retraining and cross-training don’t fit on their balance sheets. Finally, corporations don’t keep salary increases paced with inflation or career growth so they incentivize job changes. If you want me to dedicate my life to your company, you better be doing a whole hell of a lot better. Just because I like the work I do doesn’t mean I have better things I can do with my time that I enjoy more. I’m out of here by 4. If you don’t like it, find someone else.
• ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
  I'm not particularly happy with the term "Quiet Quitting." I think that, if someone does the job they are expected to do, at the quality level that is expected of them, for a fair compensation, then that does not count as "quitting." I think the blame for the current mess the American (and this seems to be mostly an American issue) labor force is in, rests squarely on the managers and executives of corporations. I don't know if I'm just privileged, but I've never worked with anyone that "just wants to get the day over with." I've always worked with people who are passionate about the work they do, and use that passion to "power through" the parts that don't kindle that passion. But it's pretty important to help folks to feel good about the work they do, and for the place where they spend 1/3 of their life. You want them to give more than 1/3? Make it worth it to them; and it's not just money (but money is important. It is a visceral signal that you are valued). I was a first-line manager, for a large portion of my career. I seem to have done a fairly good job of keeping my employees motivated, passionate, and engaged. It took a lot of work and humility, on my part. I was not really supported by my superiors, or the HR department. I spent a great deal of time, shielding my employees from the rapacious nature of HR. I did work for a company that was run by older, more business-oriented folks. There wasn't a ton of money to be made (we were basically specialized, and Quality-oriented), so our top-level leadership was fairly pragmatic. I am so glad that we weren't run by one of these twenty-something billionaires that can't even understand people that aren't rich, or trying to be rich. That sounds like a nightmare. As far as "work-life balance," I don't see why young people seem to think older folks value this less. You want to learn about "balance"? Get married and have kids.
• sweetheart 4y ago
  "Quiet quitting", because "healthy boundaries and balance" doesn't roll off the tongue quite as smoothly. Hustle culture is great for those with significant equity, but ultimately happiness comes from within, and work is usually just a stepping stone to finding a sense of purpose beyond making a handful of individuals rich. Here's to hoping that quiet quitting is merely the beginning.
• xrd 4y ago
  Can someone please explain to me how you work 200%? Does this mean that a person claiming this worked 16 hours days, and then in order to eat, skipped two hours of sleep time, so typically would only get 6 hours of sleep, and no other time off during the week? Or, that they decided not to see children (who need 10-12 hours of sleep a day, so that would clearly make it impossible to see them if you are not occupied by work except for 8 hours a day, presumably at night), except on the weekends? And, that they didn't write blogs back then? It takes me two or three hours of total time, and I've never had a job that paid me to write in my personal spaces, so I cannot figure out how I would have done that kind of work. Maybe the kids are optimizing by using Snapchat which takes much less time?
  • workerthrow632 4y ago
    > Can someone please explain to me how you work 200%? Come in early, skip lunch, dinner at your desk, take your computer home, work while watching Netflix, take your computer to bed, sleep with it next to you. I did this for a year.
  • xani_ 4y ago
    > Can someone please explain to me how you work 200%? Just compare yourself to most useless coworker. Same with the "10x programmer" myth, anyone can be 10x if they pick target to compare to that's low enough
  • DanTheManPR 4y ago
    Some people definitely do work 200% longer and harder than a regular employee who is conscientious about their work. Working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, and not letting off the gas, really putting your energy into it. The author works at CERN, so maybe they are that passionate and feel fulfilled by the work. Most people who do that are being exploited.
• avgcorrection 4y ago
  > This concept is illustrated by a video that has gone viral on social media. “You are still performing your duties but you’re no longer subscribing to the hustle culture mentality that work has to be your life,” the young man in the video says. They really needed a word to describe having a rational (as in rational self-interest) attitude towards work.
  • bitwrangler 4y ago
    How about "quiet working" instead of quitting?
    • avgcorrection 4y ago
      Working. Just working.
• NegativeLatency 4y ago
  > From the Ombud’s watch post, I confirm that giving fair recognition and appreciation Interesting that compensation is not included in this list. I imagine cern pays pretty well, however I’ve seen HR at many companies try stuff that either literally or figuratively amounts to a pizza party, while trying to not give raises.
• dangerface 4y ago
  I handed in my notice today I have been with the company for 7 years and am nearly doubling my pay by going else where. Last time I got a significant promotion or raise was because I got another job, stuck with the company put in the work got nothing else. Now im quitting again suddenly im the most valued member of the team and they are going to move heaven and earth to make it work. I don't like having to threaten my boss with quitting in order to get anywhere. My friend starts looking after 2 years and makes a boat load more than me. Loyalty and hard work just don't get you paid, knowing your market value does.
• neilv 4y ago
  Agile sprints might as well have been designed to facilitate quiet quitting.
• matchagaucho 4y ago
  The Cousin to "quiet quitting" is a culture of "immediate gratification". The number of quick-fix, no-code, RAD tools that are delivered via SaaS are experiencing amazing growth. Front line Information Workers are increasingly conditioned to use the cloud for solutions. Managers are quick to approve budget for these tools. Is this working smarter? More resourceful? Or just lazy? Whatever the conclusion, the Hacker community can turn this into a thousand opportunities.
  • jen20 4y ago
    Visual Basic and Delphi would like a word.
• lm28469 4y ago
  Not to be rude but a 50+ years old who works at CERN for 20 years and probably is paid X times the min wage _will_ not understand the mindset of quiet quitters These people haven't "worked" a day in their lives, either because they pursue their dreams or because they have extremely comfortable working situations. Same people who ask construction workers to work until 65/67 years old. "if I can do it everybody can", yeah no sorry we're not all pursuing our dreams and getting paid $$$ for it
• mrbonner 4y ago
  I am seeing this happening on multiple occasions in my career. One: there was this engineer I in my sister team. They put in just enough effort to get by and not to get pipped. They were not incompetent, I would argue the opposite. I thought they were lazy for doing minimal amount of work to get by while I was putting in 200% for the customers. Fast forward a couple of years, I couldn’t get to the promotion I needed the most. They retired and then retreated to a LCL area. Looking back, I would admire them for being conscious about work. Second: current team, there is this employee who has been with the firm for over 18 years. They are in product management, not an engineer. Recently performance review questioned why they stay at that role for so long: was that because of complacency or just incompetence? Their manager answers that they are good of what they’ve been doing for over 15 years, but have no motivation for moving up because they care more about work life balance and family relationships. They were put to pip next quarter. Those two experiences have shaped my perception of work very much. Especially the 2nd one, where I was involved in the performance review. I see all the nasty side of management and stack ranking system designed to screwed employees, albeit they are doing a decent jobs. I’m still pushing for my promotion everyday. But, I no longer am invested emotionally heavily in that rat race. If I am to be promoted next time, it is great. If not, it’s not because I’m incompetent, just quiet quitting. Peace and take care of your health, fellows.
• mahathu 4y ago
  Why are some people working more than they can? For their own startup or doing a PhD they are passionate about I understand it, but for a random company?
• boole1854 4y ago
  I find myself saddened by the 'quiet quitting' meme. If people were simply promoting trying to find a new employer if your current employer doesn't value your hard work properly, that would be great. That would benefit workers. If people were simply promoting a balanced life in which it is okay to take leisure time and not make your whole life about your career, that would be great. That would benefit workers. But 'quiet quitting' isn't just those things. It actively encourages people to stay where they at but to perform the minimum required to maintain employment. In many cases, it promotes a sense that you are sticking to the man; you're finally causing your your employer to get what they deserve. But adopting apathy towards your career hurts you proportionally far more than it hurts your employer. 'Quiet quitting' is a meme that can easily harm the people who are most enthusiastic to put its tenants into practice. Years ago I read an autobiography of a Black gentleman who came from very poor beginnings in the US South but ended up having an accomplished career laid on the foundation of the hard work he had put into being successful in his academic pursuits when he was young. He discussed some of the challenges that other young Black boys and men faced. In some parts of the Black community, young Black boys would insult their peers who were interested in academics by saying they were 'acting white'. Although it is virtually certain that these young boys had legitimate grievances about the 'white' society in which they were growing up (which was early to mid 20th century America), this had developed into a meme in which trying to be successful at learning was derided as pointless or as selling out. This was a tragedy since becoming successful at learning was in fact one of the best things that young Black men could do to raise their standards of living. The similarities with the 'quiet quitting' meme seem sadly clear to me. Hopefully it will pass before too many young people's future growth is inadvertently self-sabotaged. To be clear, I don't mean to deny that there are problems with the typical 21st century "employee-employer bargain". Let's just try to find a way to fix those problems without spreading a self-harming meme.
• Moissanite 4y ago
  A phenomenal amount of words are being written about this topic but it seems far simpler to me than most are suggesting. People are sick of those who are already extremely wealthy capturing so much value from economic activity, without truly earning their wealth (by any reasonable definition of "earning"). Since people still need to eat, we are entering into a spite-centric model where I earn as much as I can, but in competition with my employer rather than collaboration. The easiest way for me to do that is to minimize the benefit they can get from my employment, while not offering any excuse to get rid of me specifically. The best way I can see to recover from this trend is for employee ownership models to gain traction.
  • swagasaurus-rex 4y ago
    Why work hard when no amount of work can afford you a home? This is the reality for all my friends who haven't gotten into tech, medicine, law, or found some other way to work a desk job for a corporation.
    • Moissanite 4y ago
      Exactly. Even for people in those high prestige, high income fields the link between hard work and success is often negligible. Rent-seekers have taken too much, and we need fundamental structural change.
• volfied 4y ago
  > Loss of purpose, lack of fair recognition and the need to preserve work–life balance seem to be the main motives of the younger generations for quiet quitting. The fact that the author is not even recognizing "how much less money earned is worth" summarizes the entire problem. I wish you could pluck these people from the castle they have built for themselves and throw them back into the real world as a fresh 20 year old and tell them to do everything they did the same, and see how it turns out for them.
• 28304283409234 4y ago
  So this is "doing what you're paid for and stop giving employers your time for free"? I don't see how that is not the norm. There's no such thing as a free lunch, remember? That goes both ways.
• zac23or 4y ago
  I worked a lot on my first job. I thought this company was my company, and I tried to help a lot, failing in every attempt. Boy... it was very painful. After 6 years without a raise, I went to another company. After my departure, 4 people are hired to do my work. And six years later I went back to the first one, with a 700% increase in salary. What I've learned over the years is that with an external proposal, you get a raise 99% of the time. And that your effort is basically irrelevant. Politics and social capital are much, much more relevant. If your competitor is the owner's son, friend of the boss, you will lose. In the end, with some social capital you can't work in practice and you'll never get fired. Quiet quiting is for people without social capital. If, like me, you have zero social capital, my recomendation is to be very professional: I work 8 hours and if the company has an emergency, like a DDOS, I help, but I ask for a day off in the same week. If there's an opportunity for a raise, I'll try. If I see an opportunity to help the employer, I try, but without suffering. If employer try to umilate me or do not accept the days off from a emergency, like DDOS, etc I will find another job. Your employer will likely never be truly professional, but you can be.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• datavirtue 4y ago
  This will not abate at all given an economic downturn. The old school keeps waiting for these deeply rooted changes to blow over like a reddit fad. During a downturn I expect the "mellenials" (and all the gen x and others who have joined them) to double down. I currently jump at any chance to take less pay for less work. The opposite direction holds no appeal to me unless it is my own gig. Something this pervasive and organic does not blow over.
• red_admiral 4y ago
  Looking at one very narrow slice of the UK labour market, it seems to me that what's changed is this: in the old days, contracts said that employees would do "reasonable" unpaid overtime, and on a 100% job you ended up doing perhaps effectively 120% or something like that. You knew periods in the year that would always be busy, and periods in the year where no-one cared if you went home a bit earlier except if there was an unplanned crisis (which happened, but was rare). Everyone knew the actual deal, and it mostly worked. Now, it seems like there's always a crisis, the definition of "reasonable" somehow went above 150%, and you're constantly being pushed to get more done with less. Also pay rises have been below inflation since around the early 2000s, and are definitely not keeping up with the current cost of living crisis. I don't blame employees for going, if the employer's definition of "reasonable" overtime is anything but, what about if I work the number of hours I'm contracted for and no more? Because the unofficial actual deal worked as long as both sides were ok with it.
• lamontcg 4y ago
  This honestly reads like satire.
• itronitron 4y ago
  The tenured boomer view of indifferent younger colleagues is just survivorship bias (or ageist hiring practices or both). Because the company is only hiring younger people each of the boomers that still work at the company remember the good old days. What appears to be a generational shift in work ethic in reality is just people that survived at the company for multiple decades telling tales about their work experience (and it's easy to say, or think, that you worked long hours when there is no one around to correct you.) Point being, if the company hires boomers as new employees they will likely find that the indifference spans generations, and what does that tell you about the management and long term viability of the organization?
• breakalot 4y ago
  Nowadays employers fail miserably at fulfilling basic needs like, believe or not, giving someone a Linux computer.
• Bakary 4y ago
  Fundamentally, the price you pay from working a job in terms of time and energy lost will very rarely be worth it to the individual. There is a disconnect between the human mind, which has complex desires, and the place of any individual human in the world, where getting anything done requires either sacrifice or prior luck and your role is very small for the most part. For a job to be satisfying, it will either have to be something you'd do anyway (which is rare) or something where your contributions live up to the demands of your mind (which is even rarer)
• marvelous 4y ago
  This article is very ironic: it is written by the CERN's Ombud, who has a lifetime employment contract like all of CERN's management, and probably obtained it at a time when CERN was printing them like hot cakes. Today's reality is much different: the chances of obtaining this contract are very low and mostly depend on older colleagues retiring, otherwise you are limited to a 5 year staff contract. The disconnect between the Ombud and the people she talks about is striking, for example when she describes them as "obviously disoriented" for refusing to get into the career grind.
  • ephimetheus 4y ago
    She was apparently very hurt by the negative response to this article.
• unglaublich 4y ago
  A new generation figured out how to balance work and life... and boomers call it 'quitting'? While those same boomers gain more wealth each year than gen X and Z are able to save, because they cling to real estate that they got on the cheap? OK Boomer...