This is why the “Quiet Quitting” rhetoric backfired royally.
If you have not been under a rock for the past month, you might have seen this topic somewhere.
“Quiet Quitting”
I can’t pinpoint when I first heard the term. I can precisely tell my exact first thoughts: “okay, so people are just… abandoning their jobs without quitting?”.
No. Not even close.
After reading the article, I understood what they suggested by “quietly quitting” a job. In their definition, it is doing what you were hired to do, in the amount of time you were given to do a specific task/job. That is simply seen as “not enough” or not acceptable by some employers.
As the term gained national attention in the media, so did the outrage on social media.
But before we get into all the issues that come with branding an attitude as perverse, we need to understand why the context of why this is being spread out there.
It turns out that, in the (semi) post-pandemic world, employees have gained a lot of leverage.
Employment rates are at a record low, the most recent showing 3.5%. The Great Resignation has proven to employers wrong onto what they thought to be just a bluff. Burnout and mental health have started to be taken seriously.
With government benefits to keep some afloat, and the mindset changing from the Hustle culture to a Mental Health first ideology, employers have been struggling to acquire workers by feeding the lies of an “exciting environment” or “opportunity of growth.”
The promise of future rewards just doesn’t cut anymore. After all, if there was one thing we have learned in the past few years is that the future isn’t guaranteed.
Sometimes these lies can make you join a company, but it won’t take long until you realize how that company culture affects your ability to move up on the hierarchy ladder.
While some managers are very protective of their positions and will not give you room to be a potential viable replacement for their job, others simple are in the middle of it all. Yes, mid-managers. Always afraid they will be sacked. The main appeal is to make those profit margins thicker.
To make that work, they have to promise the world to the clients while maximizing the budget, meaning hiring as few people as possible. And squeezing that pay. Again, using future rewards promises as leverage.
But these lies get old, and intelligent people can realize that.
At the same time, every employee should know of their contractual obligations. And should make their assessment if they should go “above and beyond.”
As more and more people care about the overarching mission of a company when choosing a new job to apply for, it is easy to understand that even paying above-average pay isn’t enough to motivate a person to work more than they have to.
So companies that have the sole purpose of “making it rain” will have to employ people that are interested in “the dough,” and the only way to keep them motivated is to share more of that money with them.
Ultimately, going above and beyond has to be a personal decision. Always coming from the employee. There will always be the threat that somebody else can come along and perform better and take that job. And I don’t see why employers would not replace an individual with another that can produce more. It’s a no-brainer.
But the thought that doing just the “bare minimum” is something to be frowned upon should not be the case. Ever.
A job has to be a dance of reciprocity. It has to benefit both sides and their clients as well. The rhetoric that you should be thankful for spending most of your life in a place you hate, making just enough to survive, and having to make your job the #1 priority in your life is fabricated. Just as the term “quiet quitting.”
But we’re in 2022. It has been a wild ride the past few years. And old tactics don’t work anymore. The
Maybe some “quiet” is not all that bad.
