Have you ever done “quiet quitting” even if you didn’t call it that?

When you say ‘incomers’, biglouis, what do you mean? In your earlier post you said that you were fully qualified in a professional role, but then that you left to go to university because others were coming in with worthless qualifications.

I’m struggling to understand the situation. I can understand resentment if you were more qualified than the ‘incomers’, but it sounds as though you left to become as qualified as they were.

Reading back that wasn’t worded well. I meant that I am not clear whether you were reverting to fulfilling the role you were employed to do when previously you had been doing the duties that were now going to more qualified staff who were, presumably, being paid more, so you left in order to study to their level.

Would your employer not have helped you to get more qualified in-service? It would have been a lot cheaper.

@Doodledog

Think of an profession like accountancy where one qualified to take the internal exams, taking a number of years to do so. And thereby working ones way up in seniority as ones knowledge and experience increased.

Then things changed. The new universities began offering degrees in accountancy. So you got people coming into the profession who had a bit of paper that the older more experienced people did not have. Ofter they were not very good degrees - 2.2 or 3! The new people had some theoretical but no practical knowledge of the job so we had to train them up and babysit them. But because we had no degree (although our qualifications were supposed to be equivalent) we were then regarded as less than the new people. This was because the structure of the profession had changed.

Short sighted employers promoted the new people over the heads of their experienced (and often far more able) staff who had years of experience.

As I saw it I had 2 choices:

#1 stay on and see my qualifications become further devalued as time went on

#2 go to uni - something I had always wanted to do - get a good degree which would give me further options.

I chose the latter - a courageous decision at my time of life and one whicn involved considerable financial sacrifice. I moved from a "naice" area to one of the roughest council estates in Manchester because that was what I could afford as a student.

The colleagues I left behind - some were made redundant in a big shake up a few years later - a cost cutting excercise.

How much loyalty do you think an employer like that deserves?

A similar thing happened in other professions.

When I was a young woman you qualified as a teacher by going to "teacher training college". Then in the late 1970s the new universities began to offer a degree in education, so out poured a new tranche of young people clutching a bit of paper which many of the older and more experienced teachers did not all have. I am not an expert on the teaching profession but would not be surprised if the young people with degrees were not regarded more favourably than the more experienced ones.

And of course the new people are cheaper. Lets not forget that.

You sound very bitter, which may have some basis in circumstance. All the same, degree certificates may be written on 'bits of paper' but they represent a lot of work from the students (as you will know as you now have one yourself), and it is very unfair to dismiss them in this way. It is a brave step to go to university later in life, but often people find that the rewards are worth it.

If, as I suspect, the degrees are validated by a professional organisation, they will have to meet the standards laid down by that organisation, and the universities who offer them are regularly visited to ensure that they are kept up to date with developments in the profession. New graduates will be inexperienced, as are all new starters in any workplace, but they will have much more recent knowledge and other transferable skills.

I can't comment on schoolteaching from personal knowledge, but my understanding is that a training college course was for primary teachers, where they don't need expertise in a particular subject, but an understanding of how small children learn a wide range of subjects. Secondary school teachers have needed a graduate level subject specialism for a long time, AFAIK.

You do sound rather bitter and judgemental, as though you’ve been unfairly sidelined.
Of course teachers should be educated to degree level. It isn’t a bit of paper, it’s confirmation that the graduate worked hard at school to gcse, a level standard, then on either to a full time one year pgtc, or a two year part time one. One of my daughters worked as a TA for twelve months after her (2.1 as these things clearly matter to yiu). She got a place on a two year pgtc and accepted that, continuing to work at a TA.
These young people work very hard. It’s a competitive world
My professional training was funded by the home office 1978-81. I qualified with no student debts.
I think we’ve been a fortunate generation

Funny that - I too was funded by the Home Office many many moons ago - even more moons that your Iam - and I too left with no debts. I feel very sorry for students now who leave with such a financial burden to start their careers with. I think one of the differences when I was studying was that only a very small minority of school leavers went to university, so funding them was not such a burden on the tax payer in grants.

We were lucky weren’t we. Professional qualification, on an excellent course which did prepare us to be new workers. Managable case loads, stable teams and supervision. Supervision wasn’t the best quality but my first manager was supportive calm and very experienced.

I would feel I was letting people and employees down, so no.

Does this sound like husbands contribution to helping maintain things around the house Ie cooking cleaning and washing

Trade Unions call this 'Working to Rule'. Workers carry out the tasks that are laid down for them to do in their contracts of Employment, no more no less. Often used instead of going out on strike, as it does keep their salaries being paid. However, it is always so noticeable how much this impacts on the services they are providing.

I never ever did , always did my work , and others . One colleague, senior, sat in the office, reading a paper, whilst myself and a HCA did all the 20 bed morning work. Yes that was the NHS.

Yes, and in my old workplace, far from continuing to be paid, working to rule results in significant loss of salary (if it is part of an industrial dispute - I dare say that someone just choosing not to work to the best of their abilities would get away with it). Not only that, the 'work flexibly around a 37 hour week' part of the contract is used to work out a notional hourly rate that is high when deductions are being made, yet bears no resemblance to reality when taking into account marking late at night to meet university-imposed deadlines, or answering emails at weekends. The 'other duties as required by the university' clause means that anyone deliberately not fulfilling all of their duties can lose 100% of their salary during a dispute, which is happening now in the university sector, where a marking and assessment boycott is in place.

Gwyllt

Does this sound like husbands contribution to helping maintain things around the house Ie cooking cleaning and washing

Not in my experience Gwyllt quite the opposite in fact.

Working on PO counter for many years, four positions open and queues from 9am to 5.30 no chance to quiet quit, any sign of daring to move away would be met with customer in queue yelling, where do you think you’re going, I haven’t got my pension yet 😳🤣 it wasn’t always as polite as that.

Yes of course I felt angry and bitter that I had been sidelined. And that was why I felt no loyalty to the employing authority once I made up my mind to go back into education. I simply went through the motions and disengaged for the last year.

I was reading about how this movement began in China and has now spread to the USA. In China they call it "lying flat" (we would say being laid back) because young employees there are expected to work 60+ hours a week. After years of sacrifice from themselves and their families they are beginning to ask "whats it all for?" The lockdowns during the pandemic showed them that there was another way and many people re-evaluated their lives and what was important to them.

Needless to say this trend has not gone down well with the Communist state. At least here you cant get arrested and imprisoned for "quiet quitting".

When you got your degree did you expect to be paid more, or to work at a higher level than if you hadn't taken three (or more?) years to study for it? Do you see it as 'a bit of paper', as opposed to a recognition of your knowledge and abilities?

If the answer to either of those questions is yes, then maybe your resentment of the younger graduates is misplaced.

Visgirl been there done that late home most days.

Did your colleagues not have to shoulder a heavier burden whilst you were doing the bare minimum necessary to keep your job BigLouis? If so, weren’t you punishing them rather than your employer?

Most of the things I stopped doing were things I had done in my own time, like researching and organising exhibitions, giveing talks to outside groups, and what are generally known as "outreach" activities. So either these things did not get done or the senior management had to find someone else to do them.

I also stopped offering guidance and/or advice to less experienced colleagues unless it was strictly necessary to get the job done or cover my own back. So yes, my colleagues did sometimes suffer to a degree because they missed out on training that they might otherwise have received.

My boss did eventually notice and brought it up once. But it is difficult to pin down when someone is still working at an "average"speed and producing a "similar" amount of work to their contemporaries. When asked for examples to illustrate what he claimed he could not cite any concrete situations where I was actually under performing.

If someone is taking excessive sick leave, coming in late, neglecting routine tasks and so on the manager has something concrete to go on. Otherwise its very difficult for them to pin anything on you.

That is a very adversarial attitude though. Obviously it is up to you if that is how you operate, so long as you stay within the expectations of your role, but it is not one that sits well with me. I have always found that a more collegiate approach is better all round. Yes, there are those who take advantage, but if, on the whole, everyone does her (or his) bit, then the overall performance is better. Also, we all have strengths and weaknesses (or things we enjoy and those we aren't keen on). If we all play to our strengths it lets others pull back a bit on the things they aren't so good at, so it's better from that viewpoint too.

And yes, I realise that that sounds like a motivational speech, but I'm just having a quick break from packing .

JaneJudge

I'm really surprised the social gatherings thing is on there. Why should people be forced to socialise outside of work and how does that affect someones
impact inwork?

I was surprised as well.

My husband pays for a Christmas social event for his workers, no working involved, just a Thank you gift from his business to them.

I think perhaps, some like my brother, have to acquire/build business by their people contacts. It's "rainmaking" and expected.

I think it is theft, pure and simple.

Doodledog

That is a very adversarial attitude though. Obviously it is up to you if that is how you operate, so long as you stay within the expectations of your role, but it is not one that sits well with me. I have always found that a more collegiate approach is better all round. Yes, there are those who take advantage, but if, on the whole, everyone does her (or his) bit, then the overall performance is better. Also, we all have strengths and weaknesses (or things we enjoy and those we aren't keen on). If we all play to our strengths it lets others pull back a bit on the things they aren't so good at, so it's better from that viewpoint too.

And yes, I realise that that sounds like a motivational speech, but I'm just having a quick break from packing .

I suspect you, Doodledog, lead well from the front.

Thank you Norah. I tried in my day, but I'm happy to bring up the rear now ).