IMO, people generally only want a few things out of work:<p>- Sufficient money so you don't feel ripped off or left behind compared to others in your social class<p>- Agency over your day - you can take an afternoon off if you're feeling down, your kids are sick, etc<p>- Enough free time to relax and have an out of work life<p>- Lack of obstacle/roadblocks to actually doing good work<p>Most modern companies get all of this wrong. They pay the bare minimum and raises are small and slow, encouraging job hopping. You have to beg for time off like a child. No clearly defined off hours for most employees. The daily job is filled with bureaucracy and excessive micromanagement that slow you down at every turn.<p>Being disengaged is the logical response to these conditions.
In a lot of modern corporate jobs, how hard you turn the crank of effort is almost completely disconnected from the outcomes that you see.<p>Beyond a small minimum requirement, turning the crank more only leads to the expectation that you will continue to turn that crank that much. Rewards for going beyond -- money, security, autonomy -- are rarely present and almost never in proportion to how much you turn the crank. Plus, one day the company will decide it no longer needs you to turn the crank anymore, and without so much as a "thank you" you're on your own.
"Quiet quitting" as a phrase is just the latest bigcorp propaganda attempt to trick workers into doing more for free, now that previous attempts like "company loyalty" are dead and buried.
> Not all solutions require monetary compensation. Employers often overlook what employees find rewarding. This is where a culture of curiosity becomes invaluable—simply asking employees what motivates and empowers them can reveal unexpected insights. Acts like acknowledging sacrifices, allowing flexibility for parenting emergencies, or offering an afternoon off after a rough day can build goodwill and strengthen the employer-employee relationship.<p>This reminds me of that recent SNL skit where Nate Bargatze plays George Washington and when Keenan Thompson asks him about the slaves, he changes the topic hastily: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYqfVE-fykk" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYqfVE-fykk</a><p>What employees want is <i>money</i>. All that extra stuff is nice, <i>in addition to more money</i> for their work.
My first job out of grad school (MSW) was as a public policy wonk at a small nonprofit. I ended up being promoted over the years because others were brought in and the board decided to recognize my experience that way. Great.<p>Throughout my tenure (~8 years), I worked more than 40 hours/week. I loved, loved, loved the work. In the early days, I worked way more than 40 hrs. Then I got married and I worked fewer more hours. The board chair noticed and said something. I agreed with her and told her it was because I got married. She understood.<p>What she wouldn't acknowledge, though, is that my productivity at 30 hours a week surpassed every other staffer's. <i>That</i> was a problem and management was not gonna address general it. In some ways, I could not have cared less. When first married, my husband had a cancer scare and was in and out of the hospital over a couple of months. After a major surgery, I stayed with him in the hospital. He was so doped up that I got a ton of work done. When he got home, work sent food for a week. I worked from home and still got a ton done.<p>Colleagues wondered why I got this treatment. Most board members understood what that said about my colleagues; the ED was, again, not gonna do the hard work of managing us.<p>I really lucked out. But I often wonder what kind of good we could have done for kids and families in DC if we were all functioning at a high level. Such a missed opportunity.
The gap between the rich and the poor keeps getting bigger, and somehow we still wonder why those "at the bottom" don't want to work more...
> Gallup estimates that disengaged employees cost the global economy $7.8 trillion annually, or 11% of GDP, due to lost productivity, absenteeism, and turnover.<p>Estimates from consulting companies are worth as much as estimates from LLMs or from rolling a dice: nothing.
Quiet quitting is the intelligent response by employees who don't have effective incentive programs to reward them for more work completed. If there were better incentives, it would be less of a problem.
People are tired of killing themselves for low to no increases, and no loyalty from your company when things aren’t going well for you.<p>If you want people in office, put your money where your mouth is. Prices are up and salaries are not.
> Quiet quitting might just be more about employees setting healthy boundaries.<p>I think it'd be dangerous to confuse quiet quitting with setting boundaries. If you want to set boundaries, you have to be proactive about it. Tell people that you won't do something, and why. Don't just silently drag your feet, it doesn't teach anyone the lesson you think it's teaching them, any more than a kid giving you the silent treatment teaches you anything.
Is that still a thing? At least from what I can see around me, employers have reigned in employees pretty tightly. Anyone in "quiet quitting" mode has already been laid off like a year ago.
An easy formula to decide how hard you should work, is to take your compensation, divide it by the total comp of the CEO then multiply 100% of your effort by the result. For example:<p>If your total comp is $250k and your CEO's total comp is $25M you should put in 1% of your maximum effort at work.
An excellent, relevant blog post: <a href="https://blog.alexewerlof.com/p/your-business-value" rel="nofollow">https://blog.alexewerlof.com/p/your-business-value</a>
Fuck Forbes. They are a garbage SEO spam site. <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41670210">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41670210</a>
Ah stop the whining, you're getting paid, do the work as asked by your employer. If you don't like it or think it's unfair, quit. Quiet quitting is stealing in my book. Employers should be free to fire any employee for underperformance.