A Rant On 'Quiet Quitting' & The Privilege Of Workplace Self-Care

In this video, Chelsea dives into the "quiet quitting" trend, what it really means, and what it says about our relationship with work.

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[lalakuma]

When I worked in fashion design, my senior coworkers (who are 50-60 years old) actually taught me how to basically quiet quit. They suggested that I slow down my work pace so that it doesn't raise unrealistic expectations to how fast I can churn out work (I was a contracted intern/assistant), also because the work never ends. So no, quiet quitting isn't just some Millennial/Gen Z thing. The Boomer workers did it too.

[wafflestolman-zoepfl]

ariana huffington saying people should just find jobs they are passionate about is the most privileged thing ive ever heard.

[elena_]

I actually didn't know what quiet quitting meant and assumed it meant some form of actual quitting. This is just...doing your job. It kind of blows my mind that hustle culture has gotten so out of hand that literally completing the duties you are paid to perform is now considered "quitting."

[missmoxie]

Sigh… here’s my quiet quitting story

I was 22 and I worked in a gas station for $9.26 an hour. I was basically the person the manager relied on because her assistant manager could NOT be relied on. For the last two years I basically did the assistant’s job because she was freaking LAZY. I covered ALL the call outs, did ALL the grunt work and hazmat work, I stayed late, etc etc. I hauled some serious a$$ because I wanted the assistant manager job as soon as the current one got sacked.

She FINALLY got fired. I was shoo in for that job and everyone in the store expected me to get it too. But go figure the manager decided to give the job to an employee from another location. This other person’s manager had sold her like the cure for cancer to MY manager because she was trying to get rid of her anyway she could. When I asked why she got the job instead of me, the reply was that she was older and truly passionate about her job. (She was 23, I was 22.) So finally, this girl was transferred into our store, and she was WAY WAY worse than the assistant manager who preceded her. Not only did she not do any of her work she barely justified her presence in the building assuming she showed up at all.

I decided I was done. After the fourth time this girl called out in her first two weeks at our location, I got the phone call can I come in and cover her shift? I told the manager that was a brazen NO. (Others had covered for her before.) the manager was not used to hearing the word no from me, and needless to say she was aghast.

I flat out told her that I was not doing her $11.60 an hour job for my $9.26 an hour. I am not doing assistant manager work for sales associate pay, and if she wants me to shoulder those responsibilities, she has to give me that position. Needless to say this girl was a total disaster. That manager had to put in ridiculous hours just to make up for what she wasn’t doing, and I moved onto greener pastures shortly afterwards.

Edit: WOW didn’t expect that to blow up the way it did. I may age myself here but this was 2006. When even low wage jobs were scarce. So I wound up taking a job that was slightly better than this one and returned promises of money and promotions. Either way I finished college a couple years later and moved on to a career that is actually worthwhile.

As for the others involved in this story. They’ve been perpetually between jobs since. Hell, breaking your back at a job like this one DOES NOT return the investment.

[arielgaede]

Stole this from someone else but love the phrase "Act your wage"

[ACAB.forcutie]

Anytime anyone says "quiet quitting", I reply "you mean following the law?" Remember kids, it's illegal for your employer to force you to work without pay 👍

[dominiquetheeasyminimalist]

I recently quit a high paying job in a multinational American company. 7 people quit within 18 months in the same role, and the employer’s response was to give us a speech on how we should increase our resilience to face their “challenges “. I was never against doing more for a rush of a few weeks, but will not sacrifice my life and health for a company. And being passionate about our job doesn’t mean we should overwork ourselves 🤷‍♀️

[ratatataraxia]

If I’m getting paid minimum wage, I do minimum work. I thought that was common sense but apparently I was ahead of my time.

[katiemoss]

The thing is what quiet quitting is, only working the exact rules of your job, already has a name and it’s an effective form of protest if everyone does it. It’s called working to rule and if everyone’s doing it like a strike and it’s incredible useful especially in industries where you’re expected to go above an beyond. If unions decide to work to rule in industries where everyone works overtime to get it done suddenly you can’t do as much.

This is happening in the uk lots of rail workers are working to rule as a form of strike and lots of train companies are having to put on less trains and therefore make less money. because everyone is working to rule and not working overtime there’s not enough to run the same timetable.

[free]

I remember working as a full time intern while going to school full time, only to be told by an executive director that I had only done my job for the past year. He had expected me, as an intern, to come up with cost-saving ideas to improve their efficiency. Mind you, they had people earning 3 times my intern pay whose job it was to “innovate.” Expectations for performance are sometimes unrealistic.

[icantwiththis]

Im 42 and have been working since I was I was 14. I climbed many ladders, I've worked very hard, I've trained people, I've hustled. I've been harassed, overworked, disrespected etc. Now I'm tired. I got a cheaper college diploma to get a job with high pay per hour and an easy schedule on purpose . It's a union job so nobody is allowed to scream at me or push me to do anything I don't want to do. I take long breaks and sit down often. I signed up for the employee retirement matching. I'm done working hard.

[lindag.]

As a disabled employee in the workplace, I want to offer a gentle reframe: it's often the privileged workers who are MORE ABLE to put in late nights, long hours, and go above and beyond for no extra pay because they aren't dealing with illness, disability, multiple jobs, childcare & elder care, and so on. Those workers, who have the space in their lives and the privilege (and physical and mental stamina as well as the ability to perhaps afford help with things like childcare duties and house cleaning and so on) to be able to do more for less, set the pace for the rest of us -- which can lead to people who are more marginalized having to keep up with a pace of work and expectations far beyond the actual job they are being paid for. Scaling back on that Girl Boss, Sent From My iPhone energy is better for workers overall. AND... working to rule is a tried-and-true union organizing tactic. If y'all stand together as employees, and stop seeing each other as competition and start seeing each other as comrades, and you are ALL working to rule (or "quiet quitting, " whatever you want to call it), management can't single you out. Because it's all of you (or most of you.) So, don't do it on your own, get your coworkers involved and start organizing. And, seriously, people, stop making "above and beyond" the baseline expectation. Stop going above, stop going beyond, for the sake of your coworkers who can't.

[hueypautonoman]

One problem with encouraging workers to go above and beyond is that it enables workers who just pretend to go above and beyond. I've worked with people who did the same job I was getting done in 6 hours, but it somehow took them 9 hours, giving them the appearance of staying late and working hard. In reality, they just weren't very competent or efficient. On the other hand, instead of being rewarded for getting work done early, usually, managers will just give you more work or, worse, start to think that they don't need you full time because you have time to spare. In that case, just doing the bare minimum is actually safer.

[tauIrrydah]

Quiet quitting: Class gaslighting about worker exploitation.

[EffingAndJeffing]

It's the phrasing that I dislike. If I do the exact job I'm paid for, I'm not "quitting"; I'm literally doing my job.

The Chinese concept of "laying flat" fits better. Not underperforming, not undermining the company, just doing the baseline work and no more; unless my pay is increased accordingly.

[Sane_Man]

To add insult to injury - take my wife for example: hard working, driven, gets results, goes above and beyond. How was she rewarded? Well, her company first pressured her to take a manager's position (but no pay raise), when she balked because of zero monetary benefit to her, the company instead made her a "lead", gave her two employee's to "supervise".... without a pay raise. But hey, she's more "visible" to upper management! Seriously, the only reason her and I work these corporate soul sucking jobs is strictly for the decent pay, decent health insurance and company stability... but even then, ask us if we are "happy" overall in our careers...

[merefinl]

I started my current entry-level job with promises of promotion and growth. They had me take my manager's tasks as 'training' but never told me that it was management training. I did 90% of her job for 6 months thinking I was just doing my entry-level tasks. They gave the promotion to an outside hire when I expressed concern about being ready for it, since I didn't know I'd already done the job for so long without fair compensation. Then I had to help train my new manager. Our executive team are known bullies who refuse to give raises even for staff that have been there 10+ years, so yeah I'm quiet quitting until I find a better job :p

[FernandoHernandez-jpgt]

CEOs/Companies against Quiet Quitting are basically saying, “We want to squeeze as much work out of you as we can”

[aguinn]

It's called "working your wage."

Post-2008 companies have been spoiled with a weak labor movement and lax workplace protection enforcement. Now that the pendulum has slightly shifted towards workers having a spec more bargaining power the powers that be are complaining. Since many corporations are seeing record earnings it would seem that quiet quitting isn't really hurting the bottom line.

It's about power and about holding wages down so the floor isn't raised for everyone.

[Micahlee_]

I'm glad someone is talking about how quiet quitting is not an catch-all solution, especially when it comes to women and minorities. There's that phrase "work twice as hard for half the credit" which is put totally at odds with the concept of quiet quitting. Yes, definitely set boundaries around yourself in the workplace and "act your wage, " but we should also be aware of those in our workplaces for whom that would end in a disaster and advocate for things like unions and other protections such as healthcare not being linked to employment.