4 ms·

I really honestly don't get what "quiet quitting" means today. It's origin is quite clear: disillusioned employees don't quit their job, but instead do the bar

I really honestly don't get what "quiet quitting" means today. It's origin is quite clear: disillusioned employees don't quit their job, but instead do the bare minimum needed to not get fired. Now it apparently means anything from that to people who still work very hard and sometimes do overtime, but aren't willingly working weekends and 50 hour overtimes just to please their corporate overlords anymore.

tonyedgecombe 3y ago
>It's origin is quite clear: disillusioned employees don't quit their job, but instead do the bare minimum needed to not get fired. That's not how I understood it so maybe it isn't that clear. My understanding was that it was doing the work you were contracted to do. So if you were salaried to work 40 hours a week then you wouldn't do 50 or read your emails at home.
- cedilla 3y ago
  But how is that "quitting"?
  - tonyedgecombe 3y ago
    It's quitting doing the extra work for free that most salaried employees get guilted into.
    - rantallion 3y ago
      Maintaining a healthy work/life balance is in no way 'quitting'. Employers expected too much (without adequate reward) and are simply shocked that people are drawing a line.
      - voakbasda 3y ago
        Exactly. Which is why I read the phrase as sympathetically directed toward management. They are the ones losing here, and they want a way to shift the blame away from their own incompetence that requires such free overtime to run a profitable business.
      - tonyedgecombe 3y ago
        >Maintaining a healthy work/life balance is in no way 'quitting'. Hence the new term.
acdha 3y ago
It’s a marketing term pandering to insecure managers. A lot of upper management believes that they have a ton of employees who will be slacking off unless constantly watched, and they don’t trust the lower level managers to do their jobs making sure that doesn’t happen. Sometimes that has a race or class component but I think it most often is simply that it conveniently shifts the blame for poor performance. That project didn’t fail because incompetent managers confused Accenture’s suits with competence, or because the management layers are only good at playing politics, but because the staff “quiet quit” (i.e. spent their unpaid time with their friends and families rather than gifting it to their boss). The United States has a lot of people who either are in management or self-identify with the people at the top so a business writer can have a very easy career writing “it’s not you, it’s them” pieces like this. Our retirement system also means you have a large audience of people who have spare time, depend on stock market returns for their income, and are thus far more willing to think other people should have harsher working conditions than they personally did.

tonyedgecombe 3y ago

>It's origin is quite clear: disillusioned employees don't quit their job, but instead do the bare minimum needed to not get fired. That's not how I understood it so maybe it isn't that clear. My understanding was that it was doing the work you were contracted to do. So if you were salaried to work 40 hours a week then you wouldn't do 50 or read your emails at home.

cedilla 3y ago
But how is that "quitting"?
- tonyedgecombe 3y ago
  It's quitting doing the extra work for free that most salaried employees get guilted into.
  - rantallion 3y ago
    Maintaining a healthy work/life balance is in no way 'quitting'. Employers expected too much (without adequate reward) and are simply shocked that people are drawing a line.
    - voakbasda 3y ago
      Exactly. Which is why I read the phrase as sympathetically directed toward management. They are the ones losing here, and they want a way to shift the blame away from their own incompetence that requires such free overtime to run a profitable business.
    - tonyedgecombe 3y ago
      >Maintaining a healthy work/life balance is in no way 'quitting'. Hence the new term.

acdha 3y ago

It’s a marketing term pandering to insecure managers. A lot of upper management believes that they have a ton of employees who will be slacking off unless constantly watched, and they don’t trust the lower level managers to do their jobs making sure that doesn’t happen. Sometimes that has a race or class component but I think it most often is simply that it conveniently shifts the blame for poor performance. That project didn’t fail because incompetent managers confused Accenture’s suits with competence, or because the management layers are only good at playing politics, but because the staff “quiet quit” (i.e. spent their unpaid time with their friends and families rather than gifting it to their boss). The United States has a lot of people who either are in management or self-identify with the people at the top so a business writer can have a very easy career writing “it’s not you, it’s them” pieces like this. Our retirement system also means you have a large audience of people who have spare time, depend on stock market returns for their income, and are thus far more willing to think other people should have harsher working conditions than they personally did.