Quiet Quitting

Its a sad state of affairs where working to your contract is framed by the judgemental as a form of “skiving”. - yes, this too.

Working is a business contract - piece of paper between you and an employer. Its not a personal relationship.

Its a sad state of affairs where working to your contract is framed by the judgemental as a form of “skiving”. Expectation of going over and above - providing unpaid labour to your employer, and making yourself ill in the process - seems to be the norm with some people. No job is worth more than your own health.

Most employers don’t give a f**k about you and will suck the life out of you if you let them.

Maybe many of you haven't worked for an organisation (or with a manager) that owned you? Or at least, acted as though they did.

If you work overtime to get a report written or a funding bid in, or to cover a sick colleague or because a client family you are supporting is in distress - well, that is one thing.. but when you have a lazy, incompetent manager who takes all the credit and does stuff so badly and blames others, it's hardly surprising that you "quit" doing stuff "over and above" for her!

I think thete are different ways of "quiet quitting" - and in defence of it, if you are quitting, clearly you have at least started something first or you couldn't quit it... some people have been at work for years but haven't yet started!

I'm with Grandmabatty on this one!

But not fair on your employer because you should have been conducting your personal business in your own time, not theirs

If you had read my posting a little bit more carefully my dear you would have seen that I took all those days off as annual leave. And the research was done in my own time. I just stopped using my own time to do extra research that I had done in the past for the job.

The profession in which I worked has now all but disappeared and the kinds of organizations in which I worked are now run by volunteers.

I made the right call in leaving while I was still young enough to do something else.

biglouis

*If you don't enjoy your job find one that you do, re train*

This is exactly why I left to go to university - something I had always wanted to do but not had the chance when I was younger. Giving up a well paid job to become a student and moving to another city to live on a rough council estate takes tremendous courage. But I knew it would give me other options.

My "quiet quitting" was from a job which had already taken 20 plus years of my life and I felt (rightly) that the changes in the profession were not to my benefit. It was time to take charge of my future. As I have explained, applying to uni is a year long up-front process. You have to read up on institutions and departments, visit the campus for your choices, attend open days and interviews. I used my annual leave for the days off - boss wondered why I was taking all those odd days but it was none of his business how I spent my leave. Boy was he surprised when I suddenly resigned without explanation.

So my time and energy went into my future plans and not into my past. I was certainly not sitting in a corner doing nothing!

And you’re actually proud of that fact 🤦🏼‍♀️ I don’t think your boss was surprised, just couldn’t believe his luck.

So my time and energy went into my future plans and not into my past. I was certainly not sitting in a corner doing nothing!

But not fair on your employer because you should have been conducting your personal business in your own time, not theirs.

If you don't enjoy your job find one that you do, re train

This is exactly why I left to go to university - something I had always wanted to do but not had the chance when I was younger. Giving up a well paid job to become a student and moving to another city to live on a rough council estate takes tremendous courage. But I knew it would give me other options.

My "quiet quitting" was from a job which had already taken 20 plus years of my life and I felt (rightly) that the changes in the profession were not to my benefit. It was time to take charge of my future. As I have explained, applying to uni is a year long up-front process. You have to read up on institutions and departments, visit the campus for your choices, attend open days and interviews. I used my annual leave for the days off - boss wondered why I was taking all those odd days but it was none of his business how I spent my leave. Boy was he surprised when I suddenly resigned without explanation.

So my time and energy went into my future plans and not into my past. I was certainly not sitting in a corner doing nothing!

I m all or nothing If I couldn’t or didn’t want to put my all into a job I d not be in it

What enjoyment is there in sitting in a corner, doing the minimum work and counting the hours to the end of day?

If you don't enjoy your job find one that you do, re train, accept responsibility because that frequently makes work more enjoyable, volunteer opinions because someone might listen and be impressed and be sociable to your colleagues.
Time passes so much more quickly.

Here are a couple of interesting pieces on the philosophy behind quiet quitting:-

www.linkedin.com/pulse/lazy-girl-syndrome-quiet-quitting-john-haslam

www.linkedin.com/pulse/quiet-quitting-what-how-prevent-mary-smith

biglouis

Well we are never going to agree on this but that does not make any side more right or more wrong.

Attitudes to work have changed very considerably since I began back in the 1960s. Now it is reported that the ones doing the quiet quitting are mostly younger age groups who have a very transactional attitude to work. Their sense of self is not so much invested in a job as a balance between work and family life/other interests.

I dont entirely think thats a bad thing. There is more to life than work.

And when redundancies occur they might have a shock.

lixy

Is this similar as 'working to rule' in Trade Union terms? It's designed then to highlight how much 'above and beyond' work is involved in keeping any thing going at all I think.

As long as you genuinely do a fair day's work then it's fine, doing the bare minimum is not fine; that's shirking I feel, and very unfair on those who feel that they have to pick up the slack.

This.

That is fair enough but quiet quitting sounds like shirking, withdrawing yourself, not taking any interest or pride in your work and letting your colleagues down.

We've had someone join the organisation where I worked for the latter years of my working life, bounce in then announce they're going to book off all the school summer holidays, taking most of their annual leave then.
They were told quite firmly by others that no, they were supposed to work it out fairly with immediate colleagues so there was always cover and other parents could also have some time off.

petra

Mel1967

Quiet Quitting - ‘When an employee continues to put in the minimum amount of effort to keep their job, but don’t go the extra mile’

Does anyone do this?
It’s certainly something I’m considering 🤔

Why are you asking again you posted on this in January 24.

It takes a lot of thinking about 🤔

halfpint1

If you don't like your job find another, this is your life passing you by. Many moons ago I worked in a civil service job which paid well but was was so boring, i left and my life took off.

It depends on the civil service job, of course.
They are many and varied.

However, there was always one person who managed to wander around, piece of paper in hand looking as if he was doing something, used dumb insolence to the senior manager but always got away with it.

Well we are never going to agree on this but that does not make any side more right or more wrong.

Attitudes to work have changed very considerably since I began back in the 1960s. Now it is reported that the ones doing the quiet quitting are mostly younger age groups who have a very transactional attitude to work. Their sense of self is not so much invested in a job as a balance between work and family life/other interests.

I dont entirely think thats a bad thing. There is more to life than work.

👏👏👏 eazybee.

Can I say, as a teacher I was in work at seven and worked every night and weekends marking and preparing. I just stopped doing my boss's work for him. So I definitely wasn't lazy. I worked for the benefit of the pupils. Doing tasks which he was both paid for and given time for? Nope.

It is for the employer to decide the amount of work required, not the employee. If it is considered unfair then the employee has the right to leave and find more suitable work elsewhere.
People who apply the rules of quiet quitting, are not good colleagues, a drag on the workplace, and their attitude permeates their whole life.

There is such a thing as job satisfaction, which goes a long way, how can anyone working the bare minimum achieve job satisfaction? Think of all the hours we spend at work, if we are not happy doing it, why be there and waste a huge part of your only life?

When I worked I used to try and put in the extra mile and get the job done. It’s not an attitude that I find pleasing to see people just swan in at 9am - do their job to the minimum and they are first out the door at 5pm. Each to their own.

Is this similar as 'working to rule' in Trade Union terms? It's designed then to highlight how much 'above and beyond' work is involved in keeping any thing going at all I think

This is how I think quiet quitting should be. When I stopped doing things in my own time then jobs simply took longer. Of course my boss noticed but I managed to style it out by arguing that there were many people off sick/on holiday so the less urgent tasks were having to be put on the back burner. This is how you handle it when there is more work than you can reasonably do in the hours you are paid for. You allow it to "pile up" and say well we need more staff. That then makes it a problem for the employer.

People who take on more work to cover for a colleague not doing their share are foolish and are not doing themselves any favours. They are really just concealing faults and lack of recources in a toxic organization.

No one is going to write THANK YOU on your gravestone if you die from stress and over work.

Is this similar as 'working to rule' in Trade Union terms? It's designed then to highlight how much 'above and beyond' work is involved in keeping any thing going at all I think.

As long as you genuinely do a fair day's work then it's fine, doing the bare minimum is not fine; that's shirking I feel, and very unfair on those who feel that they have to pick up the slack.

I have worked with a number of these people as described by the OP.........I wouldn't call them 'quiet quitters', more suited to the description of 'lazy b*****s'! They were easy to spot, never cleaned down, never re-stocked, last in and first out!

GSM and I are never going to agree about this. She has stated that as a solicitor she was self employed and had a responsibility to her clients. I also noticed that some of the people on the thread I began were teachers, worked in the NHS or similar. Of course you cant always guarantee leaving at the end of your shift in those kinds of professions.

However I believe it is important to set boundaries from the word go in a new job. Ive heard so many tales over on Mumsnet of people being telephoned while they were on holiday and asked to do things. Fortunately there were no smart phones when I was working. But even smart phones can be left at home when you go away.

There is a world of difference between "putting in a minimum amount of effort to keep your job" and the kind of "quiet quitting" which biglouis describes, which I understand as setting your own personal boundaries in respect of your work life and is a desirable trait.
I see so many people of my age group who have made work a priority, (my husband was one) only to realise when they retire just how much they have missed out on