Quiet Quitting

The only so called quiet quitters I have worked with were managers and senior managers who just let everyone do the work while they did the minimum required.
Funnily enough they thought they were doing a good job by encouraging the work-force to work harder for very little reward.
Not much of an incentive for those poor people at the bottom working ridiculous hours with no sick or holiday pay whilst the managers were away on fancy holidays as often as they could 'manage.'

I’m with Big Louis on this one. I think it’s easy to misunderstand what she’s describing as slacking or shirking but that’s not it.

I can only think that many of you have never been in the position of constantly being taken advantage of by an employer. In my experience those who are taken advantage of are the most hard working and the most prepared to go above and beyond - until they reluctantly reach their absolute limit.

I think the ' working to rule' description was much more apt than quiet quitting.
Grannytomany describes exactly the situation many people find themselves in.

Funny we’ve all worked with someone like this.

I’m with Big Louis on this one. I think it’s easy to misunderstand what she’s describing as slacking or shirking but that’s not it

I kept in contact with one or two of my workmates for a few years after I left. By then there had been yet another big re-organization and more penny pinching by the employer - the local authority. Several of my erstwhile colleagues had been made redundant. Others were on temporary or part time contracts. That left them aged mid 40s or 50s in a dying profession with outdated qualifications. So working their asses off and mistaken loyalty to the job simply got them the chop.

I could well have found myself in the same position. I have made some mistakes in my life which I now look back on and regret. They were mostly choices I made with my emotions. The decisions I made with my head rather than my heart I have not regretted.

Its a bl***y hard world out there and you have to put yourself first sometimes because no one else is going to do so.

I was advised before I went for my first interview for promotion that 'you have to blow your own trumpet sometimes, because no-one else will do it for you'.

Sound advice but difficult to do if you are as naturally shy, retiring and very, very modest, as I am!
(I did get the promotion.)

I don’t understand why people are loyal to companies that would fire them in a heartbeat if it was deemed better for the company.

I had a boss complain I left at 4:30. That was literally my end time, and leaving at 4:35 meant having to wait an extra half hour for the bus. He also complained when my husband was able to drive me one morning and I was at my desk at 830am instead of early.

After that? I didn’t sit at my desk until exactly 8:30, made sure to take my full break and lunch, whereas before I had no problem starting work when I arrived, generally 20 minutes early (bus schedules again) or eating at my desk to cover for others.

If you want me to start earlier and leave later, or work through my breaks, pay me accordingly. Employers have no right to demand free labour.

I assume you left your desk/position/whatever at 4.30 rather than walking out of the door at 4.30?

I don’t understand why people are loyal to companies that would fire them in a heartbeat if it was deemed better for the company.

My husband worked for one of the big banks. His contract stated "hours as required" and involved regular weekends away from home, as well as many hours travelling to cover his patch.

After a few years the bank decided that to save money they were going to sell off the office buildings. He had a call one week to go into the office on Friday and collect some furniture as he would be working from home from Monday.
I was already working at home as a registered childminder. We had our own three school age children living at home.
No spare room so he had to set up his laptop in our bedroom, not ideal at all.
Eventually he bought a large summer house and set up an office in the garden.

Fast forward a few years and the bank decided that to save yet more money they would "restructure."
This entailed my husband being "made redundant," but in reality his job was given to someone younger who was paid less and given a much smaller company car. She still had to cover the same distances though, 30,000 miles a year up and down the motorway network in a little Corsa instead of a Mondeo.
To cap it all my husband was told he had to take his replacement round to all his dealers, introduce her and show her the ropes... 🙄

🤔 it's what you can live with I guess
I'd struggle giving more work to others if affects them
If you've a management prob can you brave it at appraisal

Have worked with several 'quiet quitters' over the years and they've been a major cause of friction in the workplace as others have had to finish off their work and generally clear up after them ending up taking responsibility for what should have been their work.
On the other hand I did sometimes think that if we all worked just our set hours or never took work home to complete then more staff would have to be employed which would be a win win for staff and the economy at large.

When I took up one job I found that the person I was working with was, in effect, a quiet quitter. I was appointed to make big changes (and given money to do so) but he was then my assistant rather than being in charge himself. I tried really hard to involve him in the changes that management had asked me to make, but he refused to participate in anything, and, as others have said, was out of the door on the dot. Eventually his health deteriorated, which I was sorry about, and he left his post. It was an interesting job, because at the same time I also had an assistant in another area of my responsibilities who couldn't accept change and had very poor health. Interesting times!

I do the job that I am paid to do within the hours I am contracted to work.

It's the never starters rather than the quiet quitters which are the problem.

I see nothing wrong with getting home to spend time with family/children/elderly parents at the end of your working day.

Not before the end, not without having tied up and dealt with all the loose ends, but at the end of your working, contracted day.

Thirty odd years ago I had two male colleagues with very different attitudes.

One would come in at 9 and leave at 5 every day.

The other came in a bit earlier but stayed at least an hour later every night

The first one worked conscientiously all day to get everything done. It was a job with deadlines. He also had a young family.

The second spent half of the day walking around talking to all and sundry. He was divorced and lived alone.

One of the bosses took the first one to one side and questioned why he only worked his set hours. He said that they were his set hours and he wasn't paid to work unpaid overtime and, he always got his work done.

IMO it should have been the other one who was taken to task.

I'm with Biglouis and Louisa. I found myself in the 'hanging in' category in the final 18 months of employment, at the same time as a change of management who wanted everyone to be trained for the future and working/available evenings and weekends - well that's a waste of the organisation's resources for anyone in the imminent position of retiring and short-sighted managerial skills!
I worked above and beyond in my earlier years, putting work above family but the 'more, more, more' attitude of the last manager made me realise all my unpaid efforts had been for naught and I therefore worked to contractual hours and requirements only, not beyond that, and left employment with my sanity and health starting to mend, rather than exiting on my knees. No, quiet quitting is NOT sciving in those circumstances - it is setting reasonable boundaries.
Whilst some people live to work, others work to live and therein lives the divide.

I do the job that I am paid to do within the hours I am contracted to work

100% agree.

I worked in a call center when I was doing my first degree. One day when I was on my way to lunch (an hour unpaid) the manager asked if I would get her a lottery ticket. I added the task on to my hour luch break. The lottery shop was in the opposite direction and there was a queue so I arrived back 20 minutes late. I did that every time she asked me to get her ticket or some little bit of shopping. I was happy to do her a small favour but on the company's time, not mine. Just establishing boundaries. Nothing was ever said but I would have been quite prepared to argue my case.

oops luch = lunch

I think that there are some out there who want you to do that little bit more, then a little bit more, then a little bit more and so on, unpaid. It then becomes the norm, unless you take a stand. No one should be made to feel guilty if they refuse to do extra on a regular basis that is outside their contracted hours and unpaid. If unpaid extra work is regularly expected (but it’s not written in your contract to do it as required),then that is wrong and more staff are needed to cover this increased workload. To me, this is when quiet quitting is justified. As long as the employee is doing the work they are contracted to do. Over and above this should not be an expectation.

Doesn't it depend on what your job is? If you're in a professional or management position, or a caring role, I think it's expected that you would put in extra as needed, to get a task or project completed, or support a client, without clock-watching. If you're in a more routine job, especially on minimum wage, why should you work beyond your contracted hours - in effect subsidising your employer? I'm not talking about skiving, but about doing your job for the agreed hours.

Also, for me, a lot would depend on the attitude of the employer - ideally there should be give and take on both sides.

I think it is going to get harder and harder to expect much maligned carers to stay after their hours, to then be called scroungers, too stupid to do any other job, unqualified and all the rest of it.

If their shift finishes at 10pm, and they have to travel home, then back the next morning to start at 7am, well then it's hardly lazy to expect to finish roughly on time.

If this is the current attitude in the workplace now, I am glad I retired from the job I loved when I was 68.
I could not have been happy doing as little as possible. It's shirking as far as I am concerned

nipsmum

If this is the current attitude in the workplace now, I am glad I retired from the job I loved when I was 68.
I could not have been happy doing as little as possible. It's shirking as far as I am concerned

Quiet quitting isn’t doing as little as possible.

It’s doing Your job, doing the hours that you are contracted to work.

Not doing unpaid overtime, often this being expected and ‘normal’.
Answering emails during your holidays, weekends and evenings.

Being expected to take the days baking into the bank during your lunch break and having to almost argue to get an extra 20 minutes because you have to drive to the bank, in your own car, and stand in the queue to be served, then have your lunch break.

Taking work home to do because you can’t get it all done in your contracted hours.

Finishing your days work then being asked to do someone else’s work as well as your own because they are taking time off.

I also wondered how some staff managed to get so many smoking breaks during the day when I got 2 cups of tea and a lunch break.

Hardly skiving.

Sorry that should read shirking.

Goodness! Banking not baking! I didn’t bake as well!