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

Refusing to do overtime
Refusing extra responsibility or promotion opportunities
Not answering calls or emails outside work time
Working the exact hours one is paid for
Not volunteering for anything
Not attending works social events (outside working hours)

It was difficult as a teacher not to prepare lessons over and above the time I was paid for, but apart from that I have often throughout my working life refused to do overtime, said no thank you to social activities I was not paid for attending, refused politely to do overtime unless I was paid at least time and a half and only volunteered for things I was interested in doing.

And I was never interested in promotion or increased responsiblity - I just got on with my job.

There is obviously a very great difference between working in the UK and working in Denmark, as no-one here thought I as difficult to get on with, or could reasonably have fired me for adhereing to the above. My union would have supported me if I had been fired on any of the above grounds.

I don't see it as 'living to work'. I took all my leave, would sometimes leave early, and when I was working from home I'd take time out to put in or hang out washing, prepare food etc. I knew that I would more than 'pay back' that time by working late in busy times. Not all jobs are of the type where you can clock in and leave at the end of the shift and forget about it.

To me, when you take a job you agree that you will be paid an agreed salary to do the job to the best of your ability as per the job description. That is a contract between you and the employer, and if that won't fit around your family or other commitments, or if you are too stressed to do it well, you are not fulfilling your side of the bargain, and should leave. Nobody asks for less money because they haven't done things, but many expect to be paid even if they are passing their work to other people. Would people who think it's ok to give half a performance be willing to pay their hairdresser for doing half a job, or their dentist for filling half a tooth?

The reason that (some) employers have strict rules about working from home, wanting people to stay in the office for fixed hours and so on is because there are those who take advantage and there is no guarantee that everything will get done if the rules are not in place - it works against everyone. If everyone stuck to their side of the bargain there would usually be some slack built in for when people needed it now and again. 'Opting out' whilst still being paid is very unfair IMO.

Just hope some emplyees in NHS don't adopt that approach. Too bad if surgery goes over finishing time and they down tools. I'm not for employees being exploited but there are jobs that just require people stepping out of their comfort zone now and again just to get the job done.

Cambsnan

I don’t understand many of these replies. If your job cannot be done in the hour you are paid for, you are being exploited. Also, I would never take a wok call at home or read emails in the evening. Sort out your work life balance. We do not live to work!

Cambsnan & 4allwe know - there is the issue! My work could not be done to a professional standard in the time allotted.

Nannarose

Cambsnan

I don’t understand many of these replies. If your job cannot be done in the hour you are paid for, you are being exploited. Also, I would never take a wok call at home or read emails in the evening. Sort out your work life balance. We do not live to work!

Cambsnan & 4allwe know - there is the issue! My work could not be done to a professional standard in the time allotted.

Neither could mine!

When I was in a salary job, teacher, I wouldn't have been able to do quiet quitting which is probably why so many teachers leave with the excessive workload expectations.
Now I'm in a paid by the hour job so I don't call it QQ I call it working to when I'm paid. They pay by the hour so I work by the hour. I'll not engage outside of paid time to texts, emails, WhatsApp groups etc. If they want more they can pay more. I do the job well for the Hours paid just don't have the need to shout about doing what I'm supposed to be doing anyways. Others do for some reason. Work life balance is much more important to me. Having said that, I have a casual contract with another employer (hope to move over full time in a matter of months) that is so much better so the work to hours paid doesn't feel as important.

I can absolutely understand people being paid by the hour for certain tasks deciding to do those tasks and nothing more. But the OP said she was a fully qualified professional, which is rather different. Usually, a professional contract expects self-management, which means that you have no fixed hours but are expected to 'do the job' properly, and sometimes that will mean you can go home early, and at others you will work late.

I agree about social activities not being necessary, however. I had a commute to work, and when my children were young it was difficult enough fitting everything in without having to socialise near my workplace as well. Plus, I think that socialising with colleagues is fraught with possible danger, and preferred to keep work and home separate as far as that goes, with the exception of a couple of colleagues who were also friends.

If one is being made redundant, you are entitled to time off for interviews. That has happened to me more than once!
I always work over and above, no matter what, but I certainly concur with sticking to the basics when you are treated badly. Its matter of conscience but also not being exploited.

In my last job as a Learning Support Assistant, I was approaching retirement. Our boss had lost her job after some unfair complaints and was not replaced, so the two lead LSA's took over her role. Various other changes meant that where we had previously had about 15 minutes at the end of each day to do our personal admin including email checking, we were given duties which took up this time. Also where previously we were given one lesson a week of non-contact time, again for admin, we no longer had that either. The final straw was when one of the lead LSA's reprimanded me because I has clocked in 1 minute late 3 days running, despite us having a contract that said we would have a half hour lunch break unpaid, when the break between lessons was only 25 minutes!
At this point I decided that if I didn't get time to check email in working hours it wouldn't be checked. Sometimes I went days without getting a chance. I was able to check it from home but decided my pay rate was too low to put in the extra hours unpaid so I only checked if it was for my own benefit!
Since retiring I still work for the school as an exam invigilator so am in touch with many of my former colleagues. Some of them still come in early every day in order to check their email so I presume the situation hasn't improved much despite me writing to the governors about the situation when I retired. The school has lost some good employees as a result of these changes, some to other departments and some to other employers. Expecting people to work beyond their paid hours when they are fairly low paid is not reasonable and results in job dissatisfaction unfortunately. I did occasionally go the extra mile for a student, but not for my bosses!

Germanshepherdsmum

I would have hated to work with you BL. The proliferation of that attitude was one of the reasons why I left local government. You would not have been suited to a career in the law

That is quite rude

GSM and I often disagree as we have very different attitudes to life and work and of course I do not take her remarks seriously. No I would not have been suited to a career in the law. Unless perhaps I was legal consigliere to the mafia.

When I had a controlling, micromanager bully manager I done the bare minimum until I left. Kept to my hours, didn't volunteer for extra work and never said when I finished tasks early. This the exact opposite to me.

My attitude was 'I am not a charity'. I worked solidly on my 9 to 5 job and cleared off at 5 on the dot. Co-workers would say to me 'Going home early'. I would reply 'No, I worked solidly during the time I was paid, didn't go on FB, chat for ages about nothing etc'. so felt fully justified clearing off at 5. I had a boss who turned on his mobile at 9 and switched it off at 5. He was my boss and the situation worked well.

🤣🤣🤣 BL

There is a book called The Man who Mistook his Job for His Life. It is in fact about bringing childhood behaviour patterns into the workplace; but the title sums up how I feel about exploitative employers.

And no I would not expect someone to down tools mid-operation because their time is up - but I would expect them to be recompensed (in time or money) for that overtime and for it not to be taken for granted that they will work on unpaid. A service where this happens is understaffed and those at the top need to know this to plan accordingly.

Let me tell you, Luckygirl, that in legal practice it’s not the employers who are exploitative, it’s the clients.

Germanshepherdsmum

Let me tell you, Luckygirl, that in legal practice it’s not the employers who are exploitative, it’s the clients.

In universities I would say that pressure comes from both management and students (prompted by their parents). Managers are judged on profits, which often come from property, so squeeze as much as possible from staff to save money on salaries. They are also obsessed with league tables, as parents care about them, so make promises about things like returning marked work without considering the impact on staff who might have hundreds of papers to mark on top of the rest of their work, and are expected to give increasingly detailed feedback in a limited time.

Some students see the fees as a means of buying a degree, and some parents encourage this transactional relationship, so staff are stuck between trying to maintain standards for external examiners and professional bodies, and managing the expectations of the students, many of whom expect concessions to be made for their inability to meet the requirements of those professional bodies - it's a rock and hard place situation.

Staff are also increasingly held responsible for protecting the MH of students, when they have no psychiatric training, and often no way of knowing that a student is suffering - how would they know unless they are told? Even if they are told, staff have to respect confidentiality and staff may not contact parents even if worried. That can be stressful, but if a student refuses to access MH help, what can we do?

Some parents behave as though university is a prep school with students as boarders, and think that staff should know every student personally and know if they are struggling academically/their relationship has broken down or whatever is upsetting them, when they, as parents, are the ones who have allowed the vulnerable student to leave home and attend a course miles away. On a human level, if a tragedy happens I can understand a parent wanting to blame someone else, but that is even more pressure on staff who may also have cared for the student but could be subject to an enquiry if things go wrong.

Given that teaching, research and admin loads for academics take longer than 37 hours a week, contact with students (outside of lectures) pretty much has to come on top of that, either by doing it in 'work time' and taking work home, or by being available remotely outside of working hours.

The vast majority of staff care very much about the students. Many are parents themselves, and know how big a step it can be to move away from home for the first time, and try to be 'constants' in their lives, even if only from a distance. If I could put someone's mind at rest by answering a quick email in the evening, I was (am) happy to do so. I think most people who work with other people (as clients, students, patients, whatever) have little choice but to have a certain amount of 'bleed' into out of work time. Also, as GSM suggests, I think that most people expect that when they are clients, students (or parents), or whatever themselves, and they are worried.

Personally (and I know we are all different) I could cope with all of that, but when others backed off their roles and I had to take on a whole other cohort as well as my own, it was too much. When everyone is stressed it is very unfair for anyone to opt to refuse to pull their weight and still draw the salary.

"Pull their weight" = do the job for which they are being paid, and do it well. It does not mean lying down and being exploited.... and pretending that a service is adequately staffed when it is not.

Germanshepherdsmum

Let me tell you, Luckygirl, that in legal practice it’s not the employers who are exploitative, it’s the clients.

It does not matter who is doing the exploiting - it is still exploitation.

A legal firm should not take on more clients than it has the capacity to deal with.

We're back to the 'should' again, though. What 'should' happen at the top of companies or other institutions is pretty much irrelevant on the shop floor, where people are trying to do their best for the people they work with, whether as colleagues or clients in whatever shape that takes.

It’s not the number of clients, it’s the demands they make. And of course some are in a different time zone, so you work to that. You may have clients in the UK and in the US for instance. You serve them, that’s why it’s called a service industry. It isn’t a 9 to 5 job except for the support staff - who work shifts in a big law firm open 24/7. And some of your clients may be Jewish or Moslems, not celebrating Christmas so the office is open, and lawyers are available if necessary, 365 days a year. Shock, horror. If you’re not prepared to do that then you find another job which suits your requirements.

biglouis

Germanshepherdsmum

I would have hated to work with you BL. The proliferation of that attitude was one of the reasons why I left local government. You would not have been suited to a career in the law

That is quite rude

GSM and I often disagree as we have very different attitudes to life and work and of course I do not take her remarks seriously. No I would not have been suited to a career in the law. Unless perhaps I was legal consigliere to the mafia.

Very well said biglouis, of course we don't all agree and noting why isn't rude - it's part to discussing and learning.

GSM is correct though about clients in other time zones, I run an international antiques business and I find that some Americans are completely unaware that there is a 6-8 hour time difference between our two countries. In fact I occsionally find a buyer who does not realise that they have purchased something from outside the USA and are asking in 3/4 days where their package is!!! Others are seemingly incapable of pasting the tracking number into the US post office website and keep emailing me for a tracking update.

Fortunately I am a night owl and working for myself is far more rewarding than working for any employer. However I do have my boundaries. Unless its vitally important - or the buyer is making a very big purchase - I dont do business on a sunday. I just send a placeholder email.

The poster who wrote about accademia is also correct. I was a lecturer in the 1990s early 2000s when the internet was in its infancy and there was far less use of email than now. I did of course have a mobile but didnt advertise the number except to colleagues when I was doing fieldwork. And staff home landlines were not given out. But even back then I had to support students with problems of homelessness, substance abuse, bereavement and so on.

👍🏻 BL.

When I say that I supported students with problems like substance abuse, homelessness, special needs etc I dont mean that "I" solved their problems as I am not qualified. I just pointed them in the right directions and occasionally made appointments for them to see the appropriate person. Universities have a very diverse network of advisers and experts to deal with student issues.

Interesting thread here on Mumsnet about this topic:-

www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4837954-to-ask-if-anyone-else-is-half-arsing-their-job?page=1

Although the OP calls it "half arsing".

Wondering if this is a generational thing since Mumsnet is more diverse by age. Gransnetters are mostly over 50s and more likely to have fallen in to the "work ethic" scenario when younger. Some of the posters do call it "quiet quitting" and seem to be younger generations who have no ambition to be the hardest worker in the graveyard. Lots of argument about work/life balance (in the busy years when one is bringing up young children) which is what quiet quitting is supposed to be about.