What managers should be on the lookout for? This column is oriented toward management! What about the workers who are claiming entitlement to their own mind and their own time and consciously limiting their work to what they are paid to do?
The column quotes Joe Grasso, a "senior director of workforce transformation at Lyra Health," who cites warning signs like "withdrawing from the team, limiting communication and interaction to only what’s required" and "cynicism or apathy" or "complaints from colleagues... [who] feel frustrated by having to pick up the slack or feeling shut out." It's like a disease!
Employees sharing opinions about whether they're paid enough for what they do? Heavens!
Let's look at the top-rated comment over there:
Doing what you're paid for and not killing yourself to work overtime isn't quitting - it's living a sane life. I think the concept is right, calling it "quiet quitting" gives managers the idea that people are loafing instead of just doing their jobs but not being on call 24-7. Other countries manage this - to call doing your job and then leaving to live your life revolutionary is a sad commentary on American values.
Exactly.
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86 comments:
“consciously limiting their work to what they are paid to do”
If you do that much, you’re not doing quiet quitting right.
What does a quiet quitting manager look like? Probably one who's counting how many team members are quiet quitting.
It's amazing that this thing is being treated like it's something new just by giving it a new name...the name itself being horrible and low effort. Come on...'quiet-quitting'?
This has been going on since Snecheb the taskmaster was whipping lower Egyptian Nile levies for not lifting limestone blocks at Khafre's pyramid with the speed and enthusiasm demanded of their beer ration.
Not new. Not even 'everything old is new again' new. Less enthusiasm. Less beer ration.
Won't last. A few promotions to obviously hard workers, a few firings of obvious slackers will do the trick. Remember that most people are average performers anyway ( except in Lake Woebegone), working to the average is what should be expected. Management just has to put on their big boy pants and manage. Maybe that's too much to ask!
There is talk that professors who fear being de-platformed or fired will retreat from any committee work and personal supervising of student work, maybe move to a different city so it is a bit of a commute, and simply say you are only available to teach your classes and have limited office hours (with the door open).
Profs often have some flexibility in their schedules that might allow for this. I sympathize with people who used a job to pay the bills while they pursued their "real" careers: Graham Greene writing reviews (including the famous one about Shirley Temple movies), and even working for a publisher, T.S. Eliot working for a bank of all things. T.S., the son of an American plutocrat, had spent time in Europe and worked hard to learn some languages. A bank used him to communicate with foreign customers, not requiring all that many hours.
It's just another term for "funemployment." Pay people enough welfare and jobs get less important. Especially what we used to call "entry level."
There is a difference between quiet quitting and just ‘doing your job.’ I did not mind the employee who ‘only’ put their time in but managed to do their assigned workload, esp. when they did step up for year end as they almost always did. I loved the ‘fire and forget’ employee that you seldom had to check in with and got their work done efficiently and effectively. There were a few workaholics or ambitious people who would go above and beyond. I tried hard not to take advantage of them. Then there were the 20-30 percent who were slackers. They spent more time and effort trying to get out of doing anything. When you see performance drop across the board, and/or when you see employees complaining that it doesn’t matter what is done, that leadership and management suck, then you have a problem. My experience is that quiet quitting is a response to poor leadership and poor corporate culture. When I determined I no longer wanted to work as a peer with my leadership, I figured I’d either find a new job or hunker down and retire at 62. In the end, when I found I could no longer protect and take care of my employees, I started to quiet quit and ended up retiring early.
As a manager, let me say this: Work-life balance is extremely important, and no one should let their employer (or anyone) take advantage of them. Advocate for yourself, because no one will put your self-interest first besides you, and anyone outside of your family who claims to care a lot about it is a shyster. BUT, do not come to me expecting to be paid as much as the person who does go above-and -beyond, and don’t be surprised when you find the bar being raised because someone else is doing the same job as you but doing more with it.
Please don't quiet quit the blog!
Yes, work/life balance is important. And it's probably easier to attain during a worker shortage, such as our economy has experienced since Covid.
If that shortage is overcome as the economy slumps, and unemployments starts going up, don't be surprised if the "quiet quitters" are the first laid-off. Employers usually know who their most valuable workers are, and it won't be the quitters.
Enjoy it while you can. Sometimes, life is a bitch.
Does anyone really think that the Millennials and Gen Z "work/life balance" crowd are really going that above and beyond? They were all about "work/life balance" from the get go, how did they end up in this predicament?
Over under on the "17 pieces of flair" reference?
Now do all the Federal employees “working” from home since March 2020, the ones Biden just extended this (wink wink) “work” arrangement with the further extended lie that we are still in a state of emergency. I’m sick of these Chinese trends getting repackaged by American media to sound like it’s happening here on a large scale but our economy is mostly private sector and corporations tend to have goals and objectives to meet— or else— that weed out the quiet quitters. Only government drones are getting away with it IF it is happening here at all. And even if it’s happening it ain’t the scale or effect the Chinese movement is having.
It's a balance.
I know a lawyer who expects everyone in his orbit to work non-stop including Sunday.
I know a roofer who tells me that getting young white guys to work hard is impossible. They do nothing but whine... and then quit, after asking for a raise on day two.
Meanwhile, the Hispanics he hires and trains - they work hard with no whining.
It's a cultural thing. (He isn't a slave-driver either. He is a supremely honest and fair guy.)
He is tired of training these whiny white boyz and all of his efforts to train are for nothing...
because they quit at the first sign of difficulty.
This same story also is recounted by the electrician.
We are training our young people (in many public schools) to be soft and whiney... victims... entitled...
On balance - yes it is important to have a life outside of work and not let work take over your life and free time. However, today's entitled crowd do not want to put much effort in - and whine cry and quit when the going gets tough. Hunter Biden leads by example. Get your money for nothing and your chicks for free.
I spent some time working in France, and those guys manage, but they manage with less material wealth, which is ok, they do it with flair. (Couldn't resist)
Apparently the “top comment” writer is unaware of the origin of this movement in the previous “lie flat” trend. WaPo readers need to widen their news intake. Relying on one source deprives the reader of necessary context.
When it comes to management vs workforce, if management is expecting more than what is required of the worker, then management isn't very good about setting goals and objectives. It's more a failure of management.
I see this at the tech company I have worked for the last 17 years. A global workforce with around 10000 employees. A few years ago it was not uncommon to receive 20-30 emails over the weekend from employees working on proposals, implementations, presentations, etc looking for info to move projects forward. Yesterday I received 2 corporate emails and one was from IT reminding me to change my password. The quiet quitting message probably resonates with me as well. I regularly head to the gym or go for a run at lunchtime instead of working/eating at my desk. COVID showed I don’t need to travel 8-10 days a month away from home and still be effective. And fewer company all hands calls around sales/financial/product performance and more around DEI initiatives indicates what is more valued. This is largely driven by a shift in what management seems to be focused or not focused on.
Gee, I worked hard because I felt both responsibility and pride in my work product.
Guess that's not a thing anymore.
Gen Zers are, by and large, too ignorant to do significant work. Search: "the dumbest generation."
Quieting at Amazon warehouses. Quibbling at WaPoo.
"...warning signs like "withdrawing from the team, limiting communication and interaction to only what’s required" and "cynicism or apathy" or "complaints from colleagues... [who] feel frustrated by having to pick up the slack or feeling shut out."
So, go ahead and do all those things.
You won't be the average worker. You'll be sub-par. You'll be the one dragging the team down.
Then comes the time for ratings and promotions.
It won't just be the workaholics getting ahead. It will be the teammates. It will be the communicators. It will be the those that interact. It will be those that don't ALWAYS respond with cynicism or apathy.
There is a huge gap between the work-til-you-die fringe and the I-showed up (most days) why am I not the CEO folk.
DEMOCRACY DIES IN DARKNESS!
«Démission discrète» en français.
A lot of shade being thrown at the lazy kids, but little to none at the inane, counterproductive and downright stupid things that management gets up to. Frankly, the kids are probably right to slack off, because corporate management in this country is the biggest pack of morons and busybodies assembled since the Suffragette days. Everything they want is pointless, impossible or counterproductive. The most productive thing anyone can do is nothing. And boy, is the current generation productive.
Is it any surprise that "leaning out" turned out to be more popular than "leaning in"?
If this means we won't be getting President Sheryl Sandberg count it as a win.
Now if we could only export "quiet quitting" to China ...
Be lazy until you want to buy yourself something. Then wake up...YOU have to work for it (unless you live in a Progressive city...then you can steal up to $950. and not be prosecuted!!)
So many different ways to interpret this. They called it 'Work-Life Balance' before the Great Pandammit. I think most over-50 people in this current climate would call it 'laziness', which I happen to think is more accurate. I've talked to many local contractors who have a similar problem finding motivated workers that are willing to break a sweat and eager to work or learn. It's mostly a 'white people' problem, at least here in Texas.
I think the COVID shutdown has reinforced this outlook in a most unfortunate way. Management has been shunted out of the room as workers work from home, and now it's become an endemic condition. My son-in-law works mostly from home, aside from 1-2 days per week. The commute has been a shock to the system, even though he's been in the workforce a good 5 years. He maintains he does better working at home (and this might be true, in his profession), but - these vast corporate hierarchies don't work without structure, and that means performance management, and that means measurement of productivity and control of employee development. We're supposed to just jettison modern management concepts now? Companies no longer have to compete to survive? Hah!
This is the kind of upheaval that Free Markets are absolutely essential for. I predict we will revert to the 200 year baseline with modest innovations.
So many different ways to interpret this. They called it 'Work-Life Balance' before the Great Pandammit. I think most over-50 people in this current climate would call it 'laziness', which I happen to think is more accurate. I've talked to many local contractors who have a similar problem finding motivated workers that are willing to break a sweat and eager to work or learn. It's mostly a 'white people' problem, at least here in Texas.
I think the COVID shutdown has reinforced this outlook in a most unfortunate way. Management has been shunted out of the room as workers work from home, and now it's become an endemic condition. My son-in-law works mostly from home, aside from 1-2 days per week. The commute has been a shock to the system, even though he's been in the workforce a good 5 years. He maintains he does better working at home (and this might be true, in his profession), but - these vast corporate hierarchies don't work without structure, and that means performance management, and that means measurement of productivity and control of employee development. We're supposed to just jettison modern management concepts now? Companies no longer have to compete to survive? Hah!
This is the kind of upheaval that Free Markets are absolutely essential for. I predict we will revert to the 200 year baseline with modest innovations.
I was a teacher. I started to "quietly brake" about 12 years into a 37 year run. At first I just tapped the brakes. I quit coaching. The money was peanuts but a huge time suck coaching three or four sports. Then I quit taking papers home to grade. That freed up another 2-4 hours an envening. I wasn't getting paid overtime so I stopped working overtime. When the last bell rung my day was done. I was completely engaged when I was at work but I made sure that it was only for the time I contracted for.
When I transferred from a seaside affluent community school to an inner city refugee and immigrant school the demands intellectually lessened but the in class focus had to sharpen. Burn out was complete by year 20 with retirement and DROP (deferred retirement option program) still 15 years away. I stayed because there was literally no one else who wanted the job. No one. And I liked my JoJ (just off the jet) kids. In the end I was so burnt out and anxiety ridden for poorly functioning Administrations I retired early leaving $100K on the table. They never did find anybody to take the classes I was told by other teachers just a rotating circle of substitutes.
That’s fine. If an employee was hired to do x work for y dollars, and is happy with that deal great. But (other than possible cost of living increases) that employee isn’t entitled to a raise or a promotion. Good employees know what it takes to get the job done and recognize that there are times that, for the good of the company and their advancement, more is beneficial to both employer and employee.
It is ridiculous to expect a raise or promotion for doing the bare minimum. Quiet quitters please remember you have to live with the choices you make.
Addendum: Poorly functioning Administration translates into 50 kids per class in a room built for 25. No textbooks of any kind. Zero translators for 6 languages and a racist principal who bankrupted the school so thoroughly there wasn't enough money to buy toilet paper for the students by January. Plenty of money to rent Escalades for dubious educational conferences in Las Vegas. I could go on...
I'm torn on this one. I've always worked the manufacturing supply chain and worked hard in my career. The supply chain is where the rubber hits the road. We're the ones that never missed an on-site day of work during COVID. If we don't work, the lights go out.
Right now I work for a small company with a good amount of new business coming in, but we can't find labor like everyone else. But, while the second generation owner just bought a new Porche and spends half the week at his gold club, we are complaining that we can find $20 per hour labor. Generation Z doesn't want to work in machining. You have to work. The same wage is available at Kwik Trip or Menards, and the benefits are better. To be fair, the OEMs and their price targets along with the consumer market really set the labor rates. Kind of like how we buy $15 shirts a Kohls, Walmart, or Costco fully knowing the were produced by $1 a day labor overseas.
Also in my career I have run in to dozens of mid-level six figure managers that make a career out of doing NOTHING but playing office politics. Creating change for change sake and recognition. No money saved, or efficiency gained. Stealing the ideas of hourly employees without giving credit where it is due. Firing hourly employees to cover for their incompetence. Deflection of accountability is a career in itself for many people. Somehow by just staying under the radar and kissing the right asses, they manage to get ahead. We ALL have worked with people like this.
I've seen other people at large OEM customers who just dig holes to fill them in. Of course they don't do the digging or the filling, they just send out the mass emails from cubicle 342, with some waste of time form they invented for everyone to spend sixteen hours filling out so they can take it to their next waste of time meeting.
So for Generation Z, priced out of the housing market for perhaps a lifetime, facing massive student debt to support bloated college admini$trator$ and PHDs...I can see why they are saying, "you're not sucking the life out of me for chicken shit money, and I wasn't born to make your mid-level ass look good by working every weekend and Christmas".
I don't know what the answer is. But Americans are stuck working full time, most with a paid week or two off...while Europe shuts down a month at a time...and we subsidize their smarmy, arrogant, cheap asses.
My kids are Generation Z. They do not have it easy. The helicopter parenting of Generation X. Never knowing life without the smart phone and social media. Public schools putting 3rd grade boys on Ritalin, and the girls on anti-depressants. Now they are pretty much economically fucked heading out into the adult world.
Carpe Diem kids! I can't really blame you.
I consider myself part of the "laptop class". I've been working from home 6 years now, pre-covid and I wonder if what we are seeing is the exhaustion of some folks working from home for the first time and feeling like they are on the clock no matter what? WFM means abandoning the 9 to 5 social contract that has existed for close to a century.
It took me some time to manage myself and not react to every email or continually work on an issue into the evenings, weekends etc. Maybe this "quiet quitting" is more of a spiritual burnout and feeling they are on a perpetual treadmill? I can imagine younger workers rejecting this lifestyle as we pull farther away from a 9 to 5 social contract.
In the private sector it's always been expected that you give more than you're paid for. Anyone who left the office at 5 pm sharp was known as a clock watcher. Anyone who wouldn't come in on a Saturday to make a Monday deadline was soon found to be either looking for a new job or at the very least passed over for the next promotion. Not to mention ranking near the bottom when raises were being considered.
I finished the last seven years of my work life in civil service. What a difference. Leaving the office for an hour at the gym, hour and a half lunches with maybe a beer or two, no biggie. Department heads in "meetings" all day; often not seen for a week or two at a time. There was usually at least one conscientious employee who would take over informal leadership in the boss's absence. We even had one guy who claimed to come in to the office at 4:30 am. He usually had his work done by 8 am and was off to who knows where the rest of the day. I believe he had another job selling real estate.
Yuuuge difference between civil service, where you almost can't get fired, and the real world of private sector work. I realize a lot of that's changing but I'm not sure if it's good for society or not.
Can you even imagine being Generation Z and working for a Millennial manager?? Tell me that wouldn't suck.
Just from what I’ve observed and been told, “quiet quitting” is almost invariably inspired by willfully ignorant management. There’s been a growing trend where management talks only to itself, and any communication with the managed is of the most formulaic and rote nature. “If I close my eyes, you can’t see me” has become the creed of the demotivaters and anti-leaders.
I’m guessing most of this quiet quitting occurs in government or large, heavily bureaucratized, businesses. Lots of room for the unproductive to hide, be they management or staff.
It's always interesting to read commenters comments on This topic
i LOVE the ones like:
Won't last. A few promotions to obviously hard workers, a few firings of obvious slackers will do the trick.
What's the trick? i'm confused? Oh! i think i see! y'all are saying, that The Trick Is
most employees are average.. FIRE ANYONE below average, then complain that you don't have enough workers
Then, of course; the commenter HAS TO say, how THEY Always worked 120 hr weeks, and LOVED IT!
Here's the thing; WHY should i bust my ass for YOU? WHY? Let me know, I'll Wait.
And if your answer because; you'll fire me..
Have FUN PAYING my unemployment
Have FUN hiring a new employee
Have FUN PAYING Their unemployment
All of which comes back to one thing; WHY should i bust my ass for YOU? I'm Still waiting
Heh - go look at a big lawfirm.
gilbar's (hopefully) final comment on commenters saying that ALL employees need to over produce
There are only four types of officer.
First, there are the lazy, stupid ones. Leave them alone, they do no harm…
Second, there are the hard-working, intelligent ones. They make excellent staff officers
Third, there are the hard-working, stupid ones. These people are a menace and must be fired at once.
Finally, there are the intelligent, lazy ones. They are suited for the highest office.
No offense meant (well, TOTAL offense meant); but MANY of y'all seem to be number Three's
‘Other countries manage this - to call doing your job and then leaving to live your life revolutionary is a sad commentary on American values.Exactly.”
Unions are on the rise again in the US and no wonder. Germany has many unions and also has productive workers with far more time off with a higher happiness quotient than the American worker.
When companies do the exact same thing with the size of their products, it's called shrinkflation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrinkflation
This is how companies charge more per unit of product without raising prices on the package, and it is how employees get paid more per unit of work without getting actual raises
When companies do the exact same thing with the size of their products, it's called shrinkflation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrinkflation
This is how companies charge more per unit of product without raising prices on the package, and it is how employees get paid more per unit of work without getting actual raises
Well, there is not doing a good job during the time you are paid for and then there is not giving extra, especially when it becomes expected. Companies and managers got in the habit of throwing away workers without thought that everyone was seeing the companies had no loyalty to their employees.
How many employers just locked out employees during the pandemic and now whine because people are signing up for that again? Even the military is having that problem. And rightfully so. They can threaten those signed up with prison and bad discharges, but only after someone has signed their life away. The recruit pool isn't so dumb after all. They see and learn from the mistakes of others. Same in the office.
Example, my BIL ran a business line for one of the big chemical companies. But early one he saw that there were few if any over age 55 below the C-suite. So when they came with a reorg that had an effective demotion for him, he said he'd take early retirement. Six months later, they sold the business line and those still their had their retirement trashed as they now had a new employer. Take what you earn but depend on no "promises" calculated to keep you giving.
Even if you work for a business where you know the owner, they will be older, at some point, likely after you hit 50 and will have a hard time getting a new job, they'll sell that business as they are older, or the kid will take over and start getting rid of the old "guys".
Do you job well for your own pride and habit. But be wary of increasing demands that aren't compensated as they are unlikely to pay off in the long run. Look at all the dot com workers who took low pay for stock options only to see the stock crash in the dot com crash. Know it's a gamble not an investment.
Two kinds of jobs. Ones that don't add to your knowledge and abilities and those should be well-compensated. Others where you can learn something valuable that you can use elsewhere in the future, then those can be less well paid as they offer the skills. When you are younger more jobs are the latter, but if the work environment isn't conducive to learning, move on, don't try to fix your employer, just find another.
It's a culture shift as the old Boomers retire. Those of use born in the 1960s had to work hard with slow advancement because the whole system was clogged with early Boomers who got rapid promotions in an expansionist period. Getting into the trades was hard because they were chock full of 1950s Boomers who had been driven out as the factories closed. But those early-mid Boomers, even just young Boomers are leaving the workforce. Employers who developed bad habits are now having to learn new decency.
"Won't last. A few promotions to obviously hard workers, a few firings of obvious slackers will do the trick."
I'll bet this is mostly happening in places where the obviously hard workers aren't getting raises and promotions, because management has quietly quit doing their job. (Or because they aren't allowed to, like in most government bureaucracies.)
My experience is that quiet quitting is a response to poor leadership and poor corporate culture.
I generally agree, but not for reasons some assume.
After 20 years as a management consultant, It is clear to me that poor hiring practices and an inadequate performance appraisal and reward system create a dysfunctional culture that leads to quiet quitting.
Management's job is to instill systems that reward high achievers. It is not to motivate people to work hard. That is on the employee. Hire motivated, hard working people and reward them for achievement.
I am not as skeptical of the new generation of workers as others. I am skeptical of the leadership that does not reward productivity. Maybe they learned that in college. It is the postmodernist bullshit that is to blame.
Is it 'quiet quitting' if the employee ignores or evades, to the maximum possible limits, the latest corporate woke campaign?
It's pretty clearly a management problem. I'd bet this is mostly an issue in places requiring DEI seminars that waste the workers' time and clearly signal they don't value you. I've only worked for mom and pop businesses and they don't waste your time with nonsense and in return you don't waste theirs with "not my job" behavior. Any company with DEI staff deserves to be unionized.
If an owner or manager is looking to workers to supply him with a social life, the problem is with the owner or manager.
The problem with many employee/manager relationships today is that the manager is rewarded for keeping the employee's production up and salaries the same, but the employee gets no reward for maintaining or increasing production. None. And is expected to somehow accept inflation without an annual cost of living pay increases, let alone a performance or seniority increase. And is expected to perform more and more tasks, often taking over entire full time workloads from other employees who leave. And is expected to be on call 24/7 without recompense, in case of need by the manager. And is denigrated for lacking team spirit if any limits are put on how much management abuse is acceptable.
Well, to hell with that. You want me to work as hard this year as last year? 9% minimum COLA. You want me to be happy working that hard? 5% increase for performance and another year here. You want me to take over all Joe's work when you fire him? Hahahahahahaha. Get another employee to replace him, I'm busy. You want me to be available on my "time off" if you need me? Pay me for the inconvenience of being on call, and pay me more than the regular rate if I help you our. You want me to center my life on work rather than anything else? First, hell no, and second, anything approachingthat's gonna cost you an arm and a leg and a large slice of your budget.
You hired me to be here 40 yours a week doing 40 hours of work. Anything more requires you to step up and pay me.
Original Mike @ 10:34: “ Gee, I worked hard because I felt both responsibility and pride in my work product. Guess that's not a thing anymore.”
Your poignant comment speaks to me from a vanished era. The trouble with enthusiasm is that if/when it boils off, what remains can be a bitter drink. One feels like a chump; resentful of those who have been free riding or otherwise exploiting one’s extra effort and sense of pride. The resulting alienation and cynicism can disrupt an entire team.
Not sure if there is a clear boundary between QQ (quiet quitting) and CA (cynical alienation). They do seem different in degree if not in kind. Maybe QQ has less demoralizing effect on the relevant workforce?
Well this is a WAPO junk piece whose culture content is telling. But don't worry! According to the WSJ "...U.S. Companies on Pace to Bring Home Record Number of Overseas Jobs...350,000 this year alone..." So all of these so-called employees who don't want to work hard will have more opportunities to pick over. Sorry but the article is behind a 'paywall'.
Hint: It's better to make a pile of dough, then loudly quit.
Passive performance (PP).
Quiet quitting — "renouncing hustle culture, quitting 'the idea of going above and beyond at work'" — is "resonating strongly" with "Gen Z and millennial knowledge workers."
Speaking as someone who has now practiced clinical medicine for more than 40 years, the future patients of these Gen Z and millennial "knowledge workers" are bound to be pleased with this new approach when applied to their own health care once they get sick.
(Certainly none of my cancer patients prefers an oncologist who "goes above and beyond" the minimum work necessary. They prefer a C-minus student who finished in the bottom 5th percentile of their Med School and residency training, never actually managed to pass their specialty boards, and mails their work in whenever possible.) Right!!!!!
Years ago we referred to workers with this mentality as slackers, and it was not considered a flattering term.
For public and union employees, and ESPECIALLY public union employees, this is nothing new.
Who hasn't heard these phrases:
"Good enough for government work."
"Careful not to work yourself out of a job."
"Fuck it. Nail it."
"What about the workers who are claiming entitlement to their own mind and their own time and consciously limiting their work to what they are paid to do?"
Well, if they prove to be productive, they are welcome to use "their own time" as they see fit. But of course "quiet quitting" is just a euphemism for slacking off and relaxing on the employer's time and dime. But then, in the Age of Entitlement (there's a book I'd recommend), what do you expect?
“Most people work just hard enough not to get fired and get paid just enough money not to quit.”
— George Carlin
Maynard said...
"Management's job is to instill systems that reward high achievers. It is not to motivate people to work hard. That is on the employee. Hire motivated, hard working people and reward them for achievement."
Agreed. I don't think there's much managers can do to "motivate" people. They can, however, de-motivate. High achievers don't respond to de-motivation by quitting on the job - they respond by going somewhere else.
How come we weren't talking about Quiet Quitting back in 1999?
The problem with many employee/manager relationships today is that the manager is rewarded for keeping the employee's production up and salaries the same, but the employee gets no reward for maintaining or increasing production. None
From the 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? And here's something else, Bob: I have eight different bosses right now.
Bob Slydell: I beg your pardon?
Peter Gibbons: Eight bosses.
Bob Slydell: Eight?
Peter Gibbons: Eight, Bob. So that means that when I make a mistake, I have eight different people coming by to tell me about it. That's my only real motivation is not to be hassled, that and the fear of losing my job. But you know, Bob, that will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired.
I read quiet quitting as people working just hard enough to not get fired. The difference now is that they are talking about it on social media. And there is no negative feedback loop.
Responding to gilbar's (hopefully) final comment on commenters saying that ALL employees need to over produce...
I was an officer in the AF for 9 years. I knew I was good with the enlisted when I received the following comments from two different NCOs:
1. As a young Captian on a deployment in Korea: "Sir, i want you to know we (the Enlisted guys) will take care of you." I looked puzzled. "You listen to us, Sir, Maj X, Capt Y, they don't listen, and when they order us to do something stupid, we do it and they get in trouble. Sir, if you tell us to do something stupid, we'll talk to you about it."
2. I'm working as a civilian at a Higher Head Quarters (No slackers here and not your typical Government Employees, at least not in our Directorate). It's 2:30 PM on a Friday. Our Col walks in to shoot the breeze and when the conversation lulls, I say to him, "Sir, we're all done for the week, not much is going on - is it OK if we knock it off early?" He looks around and says no problem. As we are walking out, a retired NCO says, "That's what I like about you you, Lanctot. You have the work ethic of a good NCO-work your ass off when you need to, and if nothing is going on, don't make busy work like the officers do to try and look good."
Alas, my last gvt civilian job was with the Forest Service. It was very disheartening, especially leadership. The two largest wildfires in NM were caused by the Forest Service. Incompetence is rewarded. I couldn't take it and retired early, and like others, left money on the table.
Isn't taking a government job "quiet quitting" to begin with?
On one hand you have the Protestant Work Ethic guys. They keep going full speed without a quibble. Their goal is producing more. On the other hand you have the accountants of beating the system. They see their goal as how to get paid more and more when doing less and Less. They are the Union guys and the affirmative action beneficiaries.
Then the Lawyers get richer and richer. To understand this difference better read or listen to Freedom’s Forge by Arthur Herman.
"all progress is made by a lazy person looking for an easier way"
-Robert Heinlein/Lazarus Long
I use that quote as a slogan in my business. Www.changeover.com/lazy.html for explanation.
"whenever I need a hard job done, I look for a lazy man
They will always find an easier way"
It's also called "lean manufacturing" but I think "lazy manufacturing" is a better term. More importantly, so do many of my clients and their employees that I work with.
John LGBTQ+ Henry
"Germany has many unions and also has productive workers with far more time off with a higher happiness quotient than the American worker."
German workers are about to have far more time off than they ever imagined. You can't run a modern economy without energy.
John Maynard Keynes imagined a "fifteen-hour week" and a general change in our societal values coming out of the upheaval of increasing mechanization. Maybe "quiet quitting" is part of this long delayed transformation?
In one of the 'Adam Smith' books of the 70s, he had a chapter on GMs then new Lord's town assembly plant. Among other problems were empty beer cans being left inside door and other panels.
He quoted an assembly worker as saying "I don't bust my ass at home for my wife. Why would I bust my ass here for GM?"
All of Smiths (george Goodman) books are worth reading even today especially Supermoney and The Money Game.
It was in one of those I first heard of Warren buffet. I wanted to buy some shares but at $300 a pop (1978 or so) thought it too pricey.
Currently those shares are worth $447,000
John LGBTQ+ Henry
Althouse wrote: "It's written for managers."
You bet your ass it is. To a Washington Post writer, there is only one reader: World's richest man Jeff Bezos.
So you bet it's written from the perspective of "how can we manipulate these idiots to keep on working. MANAGERS TAKE NOTICE!"
Well I would say the overwhelming majority of the comments here are sympathetic to the workers 'Quiet Quitting' and highly unsympathetic to the corporate entities. That's interesting, a generational shift I would conclude. I didn't much like the corporate world when I was in it, but I very clearly understood that I didn't want to be a working stiff all my life. So I busted my ass for about 20 years and was able to retire early; 14-16 hour days, 7 days a week, on call pretty much most of the time. But I guess there are not too many ass-busters here. And I would further guess, nobody that is wondering where their next meal, or next months' expenses, are coming from. Is life too good in this pre-recession US? Is this new 'so-laid-back-we're-horizontal' the new status quo? We shall see when corporate earnings start tanking.
This is not a new thing.
In the military, decades ago we had the term "ROAD officers"... Retired on Active Duty. Everybody knew who they were, and tried diligently to keep them off of any team or project you were on.
I'll add one other point: I was talking with my Internist the other day, and he's about to retire. There's a problem finding a good Internist now, it's a dying breed. The young doctors specializing in internal medicine are on their way to more lucrative specializations, endocrinologists, cardiologists, etc. etc. And, they want no part of private practice, no Sir, no headaches managing an office and staff, nada nada. So you'll find the internists working as hospitalists. Work a shift, go home, come back tomorrow, different patients, wash your hands, collect a check. That's all the young doctors have been trained to want. Be part of a hospital system, see patients A through Z, collect a check, go home.
Now tell me: Is that the kind of specialization you want to see into your golden years, looking after your health? As opposed to somebody who gets to know you, knows your problems, thinks it through before discussing a strategy for health? Or is your preference someone that's looking at their laptop the whole time, spitting out questions without even looking at you?
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? And here's something else, Bob: I have eight different bosses right now.
If anybody is interested in what Obamacare did to Medicine, there it is. When I was still doing military recruit exams I talked to a lot of young doctors. None was happy with the profession. They were doing piece work for hourly salaries and were run by administrators who were all about cutting cost.
Not many things sadder than a stripper quiet-quitting in the Champagne Room.
I am Laaslo.
"What do I get out of this?" say the workers. If management wants "above and beyond" then management needs to provide a reason to get that.
Quiet quitting, Helplessly hoping, Wordlessly watching
Blogger tim in vermont said...
Isn't taking a government job "quiet quitting" to begin with?
Many are. The DoD employees at Scott AFB-a Midwestern location, were, for the most part good. A lot more of the Fed gvt employees here in NM are more stereotypical. State level even worse. But private employees in NM are that way as well. The issue that influenced employee performance the most was leadership and management.
I was at HQ Military Command in the late '80s, and went back to HQ Air Mobility Command (same basic mission and structure) in 2005 and there was a marked difference in Senior Leadership and Senior NCOs. They were worse, more political and much less risk adverse. It was and is not good. And it was only getting worse.
Enjoy the products and services you pay these people for, because they will suck. Imagine a paramedic, fireman, soldier or emergency room staff quietly quitting when you need their time, which you are paying for. Are there really any jobs where it doesn't matter how well you do it? These are the people who will squeal the loudest and hire a lawyer because you didn't try hard enough for THEM.
If you can't do your job with passion, fun and drive, then find something else to do. You are simply screwing other people over: your employer, the customers, your fellow tax payers, everyone else on the team, in the village, in the lifeboat, etc. Get beyond the narcissism. It's a dead end. If you don't try, then you never will do anything worthwhile.
Is it any surprise that these are the same people who embrace socialism, and then wonder why it never works? If everybody took this approach, we would be living in caves and using our own dung for fuel. You are simply a parasite on the ass of hardworking people who you will inevitably ask to pay for what you want or need.
"Hey, forgive my rent, my loan, my laziness, you fascist!
I have been programming computers for money for almost fifty years now. I defy my boss, or anyone else, to tell when I am doing productive work. If I am at my desk, typing away, I may be making a mistake that will end up wasting weeks of effort by multiple people. If I am sitting on a bench in the cafeteria, sipping coffee and staring at the trees, I may be recognizing that mistake in time to avoid it.
The best my boss can hope for is that once in a while I will sit down and enter some keystrokes. But no hurry. That's why there are benches and windows in the cafeteria, and empty rooms where you can go scribble on a whiteboard.
We had a Demotivator poster at work.
It said "Leaders are like eagles...we don't have either of them here"
In industrial relations this is called 'work to rule' and it is not new. It means following work rules to the letter, especially if doing so hinders production. It is a union job action just short of a strike and is meant as a warning to management.
"It was in one of those I first heard of Warren buffet. I wanted to buy some shares but at $300 a pop (1978 or so) thought it too pricey.
Currently those shares are worth $447,000"
Funny to read that, when I got my first job in '79 as a new Engineer, I read about Buffet and starved for 8 months to buy 10 A shares. I still have them.
If it's willful, it's snotty.
My early motto: Be Strong, Show Nothing, Stay Hungry.
My current motto: Get going, we can make the light.
"We had a Demotivator poster at work.
It said "Leaders are like eagles...we don't have either of them here"
No rain drop feels responsible for the flood.
Hard work pays of in the future, but procrastination pays off right now.
You miss 100% of the shots you don't take, and 98% of the ones you do take.
It will take much work to eventually decide that there is nothing we can do about it.
@ridespacemountain:
This has been going on since Snecheb the taskmaster was whipping lower Egyptian Nile levies for not lifting limestone blocks at Khafre's pyramid with the speed and enthusiasm demanded of their beer ration.
This comment had me laughing so hard out loud! And for a long time as well. So funny!
I think a lot of these articles about what managers need to do to deal the changing workplace largely in light of COVID lockdowns, is aimed at addressing an unstated fear of these managerial types. Many of them are worried that their boss will start to perceive their obsolescence. There are plenty of middle management types who exist solely to appear as if they are managing things but they contribute nothing. Without workers in the office there is no one for them to 'manage' and if things still get done then their salary just became a great item to cut What is a the typical middle manager going to do to address Quiet Quitting, get their employees to wear a certain minimum number of pieces of flair to show their enthusiasm for the job?
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