I had an employee review with my manager this week, at my request. She told me she wasn't comfortable uptraining me right now even though they badly need the help in the position I asked to be crosstrained for, because they'd rather hire someone just for the role; but we could talk about it again in two months. After a little digging, I found that (A) they can't afford to lose me from my lower-paid role and (2) they know I'm looking for another job and don't want to train me until I demonstrate I'm planning to stay.
My response is that (A) well you're definitely gonna lose me now and (2) I'm definitely no longer willing to stay.
There’s a great reply to this in the same publication: https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/2024/04/27/quiet-quitters-or-good-workers/
Sir, – I read with interest Olive Keogh’s article (“Quiet quitting: You always had workers who did 9-5 but it’s a creeping malaise, employers say”, April 25th).
The article defines working one’s contract hours as a form of quitting, a contortion of fact that I have struggled to grasp since laying eyes on it.
It is asserted that employees are obliged to put in extra hours, do additional work and recalibrate their work-life balance for the “benefits” of social capital, “wellbeing” and career success.
I have a novel proposal. Pay employees in actual capital for the additional time they are expected to work.
Dispense with the relaxation classes on their lunch breaks and the sweet treats and the tokenistic attitude of management to the labour that drives their business.
Instead, resource staff sufficiently to complete work within business hours, respect the rights of staff to a fulfilling life not defined by their day jobs, and stop using gaslighting terms like “quiet quitting” for fulfilling the terms of their contract of employment.
This may seem radical to those managers who have been around the block, but KPIs (key performance indicators) don’t spend time with my loved ones nor do they put food on the table. – Yours, etc,
SHANE FITZPATRICK,
Dublin 7.
"Most people work just hard enough not to get fired and get paid just enough money not to quit."
-- George Carlin.
"Jill, I'm afraid we have a problem. Your quality of work is very high, as always. But you don't look enough like your job isn't soul crushing. I'm not saying you look like you're bored out of your mind or that I think working here is depriving you of your will to live. I'm just saying that there are times when you're not smiling like a completely unhinged person and that makes me question whether you really want to be here."
Shes just working there...menacingly!
Quiet quitting is when I do my work
Oh yes. The company where I work at does these performance reviews: doing 100% gives you a 'C' (as a grade). I do everything that is expected from me without anything to complain about? Yeah, that's not good enough.
Fuck that.
There is the silent complaint that you could do more... Give up your spare time for your work. Work yourself tired and burn out for your company! That's what they want to see.
I'm looking for a new job while I still work there.
"we have nothing to complain about, but we'll still complain because fuck the poor, am I right?"
So they just work?
Irish Times is known for their clickbait articles. Not too long ago, an article that was written just to generate outrage (fake tan is cultural appropriation), was found to be generated by AI, and I wouldn't be surprised if this was also the case. My advice is to ignore anything Irish Times is writing. (I've been living in Ireland for well over a decade, and I learned to regard IT as the low end of the already poor media landscape here.)
"They asked us to pay them in money and not pizza parties, then the janitor came in and said "Wait you guys are getting Pizza Parties? I can't even get some cleaning agent to wipe the god damn toilet down properly with, I've been spitting on it and waiting for management to notice the smell and order more fucking cleaning agent and they're just giving you guys free pizza?" it's a mystery why they keep leaving., maybe we should try putting in an Air Hockey table that they'll never have long enough breaks to actually us?" - Management
Parkinson's law: Work expands to consume the time available. (1955)
This is just blaming bureaucratic drift on the workforce. Only in the 2020s (or since the late 1980s) companies abandoned any care or concern for their own workers, and are glad to lay them off during growth to maximize profit.
The ownership class will tremble something something. We literally have nothing left to lose but our chains.
I wanna punch Olive.
Funny and strange that the article came from The Irish Times. I live in Ireland, and foreign nationals love to work here because of more laidback working culture. This is not "quiet quitting" in the Irish context, it's "as long as all your work is done, you can do whatever the fuck you want."
I have culture shock hearing from others who worked abroad and say how toxic the work environments are in some places. I had co-workers from Spain and Portugal say you can get pressured to work on weekends, or do tasks outside of working hours. Verbal abuse and shouting also happens more frequently.
Not astonishing, as it is in line with THE major belief of conservatives, i.e. a person's status in live determines their worth and character traits.
As an employee you are a bad person. Simple as.
I love the desperate calls. But not instantly, you get them like a week later, every single time. Sometimes they schedule a super important meeting where they HAVE TO talk to you and just cancel it a day or two before it because they realize it's futile.
Ok working class, we need to talk about your flair
I see a lot of people complaining about the term "quiet quitting." In this thread there are people saying that that's exactly what they want in a job, that that's what they've been doing since before the term existed, etc..
I'm curious what other succinct terms people would use to describe the act of doing the bare minimum and not engaging beyond what is required and asked for.
I'm asking because I also dislike the term "quiet quitting", and I know such an activity has existed forever. At the same time it does seem useful because I can't think of a succinct way to describe what it explicitly describes. In the past it seems like such a behavior was implicit, but with modern "engagement" and "hustle" and "110%" work culture, it seems like we need a more explicit term.
So, is there another term we can use that people don't hate as much?
This has got to be made by the same type of shitheads who churn out clickbait excrement every five minutes, in a different section of the clickbait excrement factory, opposite side of where they churn out
"Physicist Brian Cox's terrifying reveal - CERN at Switzerland unlocked demon forces, world's end by 2025".Or you're being trolled and got those big red shiny buttons pushed.
Translation: "Workers aren't happy with their pay and we keep refusing to give them a raise despite noticing a ceiling in their productivity."
PAY. THEM. MORE.
Labor isn't free, you cheapskate bastards.
"How dare the slaves have time for other things and not prioritize our profits first?"
Is this someone just looking have their name circulated, no matter what? It's a bit over the top.
When "line go up" mentality gets applied to your workforce. God forbid they keep working to the same standard they always have, must be moar! Always moar!
