Week of 09/19/2022

 

Quiet Quitting?  Quiet Firing?  
Just Be Quiet!
– by David Matthews 2

It was two years ago that a supposed “new trend” was being reported by the air-fluffed ego-driven media as “The Great Resignation”.  It was when people originally considered “essential workers” during the global pandemic had enough of their mistreatment and poor wages and just up and walked out, often to other jobs that paid far better, but also for a lot of older workers just getting out completely and joining the ranks of the retired.

So not long after this started trending and more and more underappreciated workers started leaving the workforce – either to those better-paying jobs or to retirement – the media, at the behest of Big Business and their so-called business experts, began talking about “The Great Regret”.  It was all about how supposedly this “huge wave” of workers that had previously left their underpaid and unappreciated jobs for those better jobs were going to be begging – begging, I say – to their previous employers to come back.

It was a crock of crap.  The “Great Regret” was nothing more than a Big Business fever dream.  Were there some that regretted leaving their poorly-paid jobs for better ones?  Some.  But not in the “great” numbers that the so-called “business experts” deluded themselves would be.  And for those at home who still need a clue... twenty percent of those who previously resigned does not fit any definition of “great”.

So now we have the next BS “trend” being reported by the media.  It’s called “Quiet Quitting”.

“Quiet Quitting” is supposedly a “trend” whereby workers just do what they were originally hired to do, nothing more.  They show up on time, they clock out on time, but they also don’t volunteer for extra work.  No overtime.  No weekend work.  No accepting extra assignments or added responsibilities.  “Quitting” but not really quitting.  If they get hired to flip burgers, and they just get paid to flip burgers, then that’s all that they do.  They don’t do janitorial work.  They don’t fill in for the drive-thru cashier.  They don’t work the breakfast shift making scrambled eggs and sausage.  They’re flipping burgers and nothing more.

This has led to the retaliatory declaration by the same media of this thing called “Quiet Firing”.

“Quiet Firing” is supposedly “firing” an employee without really terminating their employment.  They still get paid for clocking in on time and clocking out on time and for doing just what they have been paid to do, but they don’t get anything else.  They don’t get raises, or, if they do, it is not as big as previous raises were.  There’s no talk about promotions or advancement.  No special projects for them.  But it also means giving them mediocre tasks and low expectations.  You’re flipping burgers and we now expect you to use a spatula.  You already do?  Great.  It can also mean no time off.  You’re here to flip burgers, not leave to attend a family funeral.  You’re not feeling well?  Too bad.  Suck it up, because you’re not leaving early to see a doctor.  See them on your own time.

But you know what?  These are still nothing more than crocks of crap.

Let’s get brutally honest here... “Quiet Quitting” and “Quiet Firing” are nothing more than bad management at work.  Oh, you *expect* all your employees to work above and beyond what they’re paid to do, sacrifice any kind of life outside of the workplace, forgo any kind of responsibility to family, and to work twenty-four-seven if necessary?  Oh, and to do so without additional compensation?  Gotcha.

There are several TikTok skits out there that best shows the mindset of these bad managers that all go something like this...

The bad manager tells the employee that he/she expects the employee to do the work of three other people.  When asked about how much more they’re get paid for doing the work of four people, the bad manager says they don’t “have it in the budget” for the additional pay.  The employee is just expected to work longer hours and do the work of four people but for that person’s current pay.  They, however, will be rewarded with experience and gratitude from the company.  The employee then calls up the bank and says they’d like to pay their mortgage with “experience”.  The bank laughs.  Then the employee asks if they can pay with gratitude instead.  Again they got laughed at.

Do you get the picture?  People can’t pay bills with “experience”.  They can’t buy groceries with “gratitude”.  But you expect them to work additional responsibilities and sacrifice their lives for nothing more than their original pay.  Yeah, I’d be looking for something better too.

And the passive-aggressive tactics to try to force someone to actually quit?  Yeah, that’s also on you as a bad manager.  You might even end up hearing from Human Resources.

So, you play these games and you get the person you don’t want there to actually quit.  Now you need someone else to do that person’s work.  It’s not like HR will have “another you in a minute” like Beyonce sings.  So what do you do?  You fob it off to the rest of the employees.  But you’re not going to pay them extra for the job, will you?  Of course not.  So now you have other employees who are miserable because they’re having to do the work of the person you just forced out.  And maybe they’ll be tempted to find other job that will treat them better and pay them more, so now you’ve got other people ready to leave.  Happy?

And this really isn’t anything new.  The mindset, the “hustle culture”, this has been going on since the Industrial Revolution if not earlier.  Having people work long hours for low pay?  Hell, Charles Dickens wrote stories about it!

Oh, and you know what else has been happening with some of these places?  A new surge in efforts to unionize in places unheard of before.  Places like Amazon and Starbucks.  And while unions are poor substitutes for good management, they also show the effort for people to get better pay and better working conditions without having to quit and find those better jobs.

So, really, shut the hell up with these bogus phrases like “Quiet Quitting” and “Quiet Firing”.  The media certainly have no business creating and hyping these nonsensical concepts.  Instead, the media should focus on what these things really are, which are the actions and reactions of bad management.