The movie Office Space is about this exact problem. Why go above and beyond the bare minimum when management doesn't care? (And then is so oblivious that they f

The movie Office Space is about this exact problem. Why go above and beyond the bare minimum when management doesn't care? (And then is so oblivious that they fire some of the hardest workers?) I'm personally the sort who gets frustrated when there isn't enough to do or when it's clear other people on the team aren't carrying their weight, but I can't say I blame the "why try harder than I have to" crowd, but I try to avoid companies with that culture. I've seen some companies avoid it by trying to punish and fire people to ensure a 'minimum quality bar'. That works better than letting obvious negligence slide, probably, but still isn't particularly motivating to go above and beyond. The "pay well but make it understood that you're paying for quality" method is way better as long as you still keep a close eye on that quality and it doesn't just turn into "pay well and screw around" (it's not hard to find stories of this in FAANGs in the past decade).