If I am B2B I am not giving a customer 'more service' than what is being asked.
If I am a consultant I am delivering _exactly_ what is spec'ed by who's hiring.
If I go to a lawyer or an accountant and ask them to 'go the extra mile' they will ask me to go contact another professional.
The asymetry of employer/employee dynamics _specially_ in american and asian cultures is really quite impressive.
Or gladly do it, and bill you for the extra time.
Yeah, Why would I choose to do additional labor for my employer for free?
Is paying the agreed $5 for a $5 item instead of paying $6 'quiet stealing'?
This guy gets it. I have been passed over and screwed over for years. I worked above my level for 2 years without a promotion and a meager bonus. When they finally started talking about a "promotion" it would be a 13% increase in hours for a 7% raise, and higher expectations. They also wouldn't follow their own policies, to my detriment.
Basic psychology says I was conditioned to do the minimum because I get treated and paid basically the same whether I work hard in do the minimum. You reap what you sow, Mr CEO...
Record profits tend to do that.
But anyway, quiet quitters have decided that it's just business and not their life. Telling them that they might get "real fired" reinforces that viewpoint. You aren't getting them back with threats like that.
What a tone deaf statement. Conveniently Jay McDonald defines "better or harder-working talent" as people who are willing to perform additional labor for free.
I am by no means an "Eat the rich" kind of person...but I sure do understand why that sentiment is getting more popular when "executive coaches who sit on the board of several companies" have the balls to make a statement like this, especially now, given the current economic issues we're facing.
It's gnarly to see the stark contrast in lives being lived between wealthy/normal people.
If you make 100k you are still a nobody to these people. What weird times we're living in..
I'm not trying to detract from that, but I'd really like to ask about the "Why"; why is this narrative happening now? It is not as if businesses have just now starting trying to get more out of their employees. That has been the case for time immemorial. Is it because the economy is down? This isn't the first downturn in the economy since the advent of social news. Is it a """post"""-pandemic, getting people back into the office scare tactic?
I'd like to get some broad opinions about the timing, if possible.
EDIT: I realized that all the possibilities I listed point to businesses being bad actors, I didn't really intend to paint it that way. I'm open to considering both side.
I think that it has a lot to do with the massive resurgence of labor organizing we've seen across the globe; People saw how much bullshit they're forced to deal with while applying for and doing their jobs. Seeing record breaking profits while facing down skyrocketing inflation, in many cases without so much as a COL adjustment, and have had enough. Meanwhile, these companies know, even if they refuse to acknowledge it, that labor creates value; If you can get more value out of something at the same or less cost that makes your bottom line look better, why would they not try and work employees as much as they can for the same price? So now businesses want to make it seem like employees are to blame for refusing to allow themselves to be continually exploited in the same manner, which is why it is framed as 'quiet quitting' instead of 'only doing what they're paid to do'.
I also think that the pandemic/WFH may have given people a reason/time to do some reevaluation of what is important to them, what they want to invest their time into, and what they want to do with their lives generally, and me personally, it isn't to spend my life clicking buttons to make some number somewhere go up.
Plus a lot of people just died which at least somewhat shifts the balance of power towards workers. This whole quiet quitting propaganda campaign, as well as I think the related "return to office" one, is intended as a threat: "The expectations are the same, the conditions will not change, and you will accept it."
On a side note, with all the fantastical language used in job descriptions these days I sort of doubt anyone knows what the actual metrics/standard or bare minimum is. I know I don't.
Though it's been years since I've been in the market, many (most?) job postings had "and other duties as required" at the bottom for this very reason.
If you fire me, I'll have a job at your competitor in 24 hours, if not them, then someone else. I have 5 revenue streams deliberately so I cannot be abused by a tyrannical employer.
We can work together, or not, but I'm not sacrificing my heath for your crappy company, it's not 1890 anymore, so get real.
If your business cannot be viable without squeezing employees, then that's not a business I want to exist in this world, so I hope you go bankrupt.
What is real is people doing their exact role, as prescribed, and nothing more. Contracted 40 hours on salary? That's what you get. It's the natural response to companies exerting almost total control of your life. You may not feel this way, but people on PagerDuty, analysts, etc all do. If you aren't paid commensurate to your life sacrifices you're not quiet quitting you're fixing the agreement to be fair. As evidenced by "quiet quitters" being fired you are implicitly expected to work longer and harder than your contract hours and pay. The board room appreciates your sacrifice, they will send you a pizza party once the budget for it is approved.
