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Quiet Quitting

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Re: Quiet Quitting

#151

Post by ryandrake »

mafuyu wrote: post #99
axg11 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the basis of your comment is incorrect. Employees have never had more freedom. Work from home is now widespread. Working hours are more flexible than ever. Workplace benefits have improved drastically over the last 10 years. Percentage of workers with access to maternity/paternity leave is increasing year-over-year. > There has been an erosion and change in the nature of an employee-employer relationship. Thi…

WFH is more widespread, but have you seen all those videos and memes of people attaching their mouse to a fan or whatever so their employer can't see that they're stepping away from their laptop? That would be unthinkable at my cushy tech job, but some employers are clearly using it as an opportunity for even more employee surveillance and asserting more control over their employees' time.

Yea I think us HN'ers are in a bit of a bubble here and many of us are unaware of the unprecedented amount of monitoring and measurement being done on employees in "normal" companies today, and not just office workers having their keystrokes counted. Service workers, warehouse workers, delivery drivers, everyone is now subject to monitoring and measurement of their behavior at a microscopic level! The last 20 or so years have been a real permanent sea change.

Re: Quiet Quitting

#152

Post by hamburglar »

swagasaurus-rex wrote: post #118
nordsieck wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Times used to be you'd be recognized for your hard work and get raises, bonuses, and promotions but those days are gone. Now you have to change jobs to get ahead. So why put in any extra effort at a temporary job? I guess it depends on what you're looking for. If you just want to chill, that seems reasonable. But if you're a climber, it seems reasonable to put in work and ask for extra responsibility that will help…

This translates into "Pad my resume" work. Yes, I spearheaded a campaign which doubled the visitors to our store (I ran some google ad words). Yes, I led a team which overhauled our public image leading to double digit growth. (I tweaked some CSS). Yes, I reported directly to the CEO (we chatted about my project and the company a few times)

Perhaps your approach is wrong. “Put in work and ask for extra responsibility that will help you get a better job the next time” doesn’t mean fluffy resume padding, it means putting in effort at the next level so the bosses see that you deserve that promotion. It means gaining actual skills and experience, not some resume talking points that a tiny bit of scrutiny would reveal as fluff.

Re: Quiet Quitting

#153

Post by matmatmatmat »

falcolas wrote: post #146
matmatmatmat wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, you got a great deal. I've been hearing this story at least since I worked there, about 15 years ago.

We absolutely did. I’d pity CERN for the loss of some amazing, hardworking talent, but they had their chance.

I don't have any sympathy for CERN and neither do they have any for their employees. The people that run CERN are entirely focused on a particular path of scientific progress and their handling of the situation will only change if they can't find people to do the work that needs to be done.

An article like this is a nice alarm bell that maybe they should reconsider their approach, but nothing will really change until it impacts their bottom line, which is getting correct work done on a timely schedule.

That said, I think it's fair to say particle physics hasn't had any major discoveries since the Higgs and no sure-fire theoretical path toward one, either, so the best and brightest may start looking at other fields.

Re: Quiet Quitting

#154

Post by sheepybloke »

axg11 wrote: post #62
jenny91 wrote: post #13

There has been an erosion and change in the nature of the employee-employer relationship. Back in the day that the author initially started working, the nature of the relationship was probably much more balanced: the employee got a decent wage, was trusted to fulfil their duties with reasonable concessions and freedom (sometimes possibly doing overtime if necessary, but also being able to leave early on days when the…

I think the basis of your comment is incorrect. Employees have never had more freedom. Work from home is now widespread. Working hours are more flexible than ever. Workplace benefits have improved drastically over the last 10 years. Percentage of workers with access to maternity/paternity leave is increasing year-over-year. > There has been an erosion and change in the nature of an employee-employer relationship. Thi…

I wonder if the housing market is also impacting this. It is a lot easier to pick up and move jobs when you don't own a house or have kids. It will be interesting to see how this changes in the future.

Re: Quiet Quitting

#155

Post by Moissanite »

swagasaurus-rex wrote: post #119
Moissanite wrote: post #108

A phenomenal amount of words are being written about this topic but it seems far simpler to me than most are suggesting. People are sick of those who are already extremely wealthy capturing so much value from economic activity, without truly earning their wealth (by any reasonable definition of "earning"). Since people still need to eat, we are entering into a spite-centric model where I earn as much as I can, but in…

Why work hard when no amount of work can afford you a home? This is the reality for all my friends who haven't gotten into tech, medicine, law, or found some other way to work a desk job for a corporation.

Exactly. Even for people in those high prestige, high income fields the link between hard work and success is often negligible. Rent-seekers have taken too much, and we need fundamental structural change.

Re: Quiet Quitting

#156

Post by hotpotamus »

itake wrote: post #42
jenny91 wrote: post #13

There has been an erosion and change in the nature of the employee-employer relationship. Back in the day that the author initially started working, the nature of the relationship was probably much more balanced: the employee got a decent wage, was trusted to fulfil their duties with reasonable concessions and freedom (sometimes possibly doing overtime if necessary, but also being able to leave early on days when the…

I know people that try to extract the maximum amount of value from their job with the least amount of effort. This typically entails taking extended mental health leave. They get 6-24 months of 0-100% base pay, healthcare, pto, and rsu vests while providing negative value to the organization. I feel like these "take advantage of the system people" are partially the cause of stricter monitoring and leeway.

What if they're experiencing mental health issues? Many can take years to resolve and some never will.

Tying private health care to employment really creates some odd situations.

Re: Quiet Quitting

#157

Post by tappdarden »

cjohnson318 wrote: post #89
neogodless wrote: post #3

It irks me that some people use this term to mean "doing your job, as expected." I would imagine it to mean "doing the absolute smallest amount you can get away with without getting noticed and subsequently fired." Fulfilling my duties but not doing overtime seems like "doing your job" rather than "quiet quitting."

On top of that, using the term "millennial" to refer to "kids these days". A lot of millennials are pushing forty, own houses, and have multiple kids now.

To add on: some millennials have kids who are adults. finishing college and starting families of their own.

Re: Quiet Quitting

#158

Post by pydry »

phpisthebest wrote: post #131
shadowgovt wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general, the relationship between employer and employee has never been balanced. One thing that induced balance in the middle of the 20th century was the power of unions in the middle of high-demand industries; after World War II, manufacturing and transportation were massively valuable to rebuild tracts of the world bombed to bedrock, and this put bargaining power in the hands of labor because labor in e.g. heavy…

You have massively over estimated the power of Unions, and completely overlooked what I believe is the real reason for the shift. The institutional investor. 401K's, Pension funds, and other funds of funds that since WWII have pushed the business cycle from being a 5 year + picture to being a Quarterly Earnings report That more than anything has had the biggest impact on what the parent comment is talking about

A shift in power from labour to capital via weakened unions makes 10x more sense than this does.

Re: Quiet Quitting

#160

Post by phpisthebest »

pydry wrote: post #158
phpisthebest wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have massively over estimated the power of Unions, and completely overlooked what I believe is the real reason for the shift. The institutional investor. 401K's, Pension funds, and other funds of funds that since WWII have pushed the business cycle from being a 5 year + picture to being a Quarterly Earnings report That more than anything has had the biggest impact on what the parent comment is talking about

A shift in power from labour to capital via weakened unions makes 10x more sense than this does.

No, you only think that because you believe unions had any power to begin with. They could only ever move the needle by a few percentage points, never anything drastic

Taking care of employee requires the need to be able to look at the long term viability of the company, and understand that experienced work force is far more valuable than not.

However, when you are measuring your performance in 1 quarter goals no on give a shit about profitability in 5 years or how to service the customer in 5 years, that is the next CEO's problem

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