Listeners call in to talk about whether they've engaged in "quiet quitting" at their job -- where they put in the minimum amount of effort to get by -- and how it's going over in their lives and with their employers.
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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now, another lived experience call-in, as we often end the show with these. Today, it's your stories of quiet quitting, or seeing your employees quietly quit. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Last week, we did a whole week of call-ins and many of you heard from people in job categories facing labor shortages. Teachers, healthcare workers, police officers, and airline pilots. There are others but those are the four we did. A lot of what we heard had to do with the way people in those fields feel they get treated with something less than dignity and respect, not just their pay. Though, fair pay was certainly a big factor. You know about the 'Great Resignation' during COVID. They call it the 'Great Resignation'.
Lots of people in lots of fields deciding the risks and lack of respect and lack of satisfaction from their jobs, and too much on the job side of work-life balance just wasn't worth it if they had a little savings cushion or COVID Relief cushion to fall back on for a while. The 'Great Resignation'. Also, in this same picture is quiet quitting. If you haven't heard the term yet, it's the recent phenomenon of not leaving your job, but only doing the minimum that's expected of you, motivated by some of those same factors I mentioned. It's really taken off on TikTok with people sharing their quiet quitting stories there, for example.
Now, we're inviting you to tell your quiet-quitting story, hear your stories of quiet quitting, or if you're an employer, seeing your employees quietly quit if you think you're seeing something new. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Here's a montage from an NPR All Things Considered story on quiet quitting yesterday. This is of a few people on why they have decided only to do what's actually expected of them at work.
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Zaid Khan: You're still performing your duties, but you're no longer subscribing to the hustle culture mentality that work has to be your life.
Scott Seiss: If I'm supposed to go above and beyond, then so should my pay. Don't expect--
Claudia Alick: It's not quiet quitting, it's just resisting wage theft.
Nancy Allard: It was important to me to show them that I was serious about my job, until later. It became clear that it didn't really matter that much.
Brian Lehrer: Workers' name Zaid Khan, Scott Seiss, Claudia Alick, and Nancy Allard, on yesterday's All Things Considered. Did any of them say anything that reflects a reason that you are quietly quitting yourself? 212-433-WNYC. In a way, I guess this is nothing new. If people are in jobs that don't pay well or they're otherwise not treated well or that provide little satisfaction, workers have long just done what's necessary and not much more. Now, it's got this contemporary overlay, though, for life conditions in 2022. That's another question you can answer when you call in. Do you think quiet quitting 2022-style is somehow different from giving back to your employer or to your job what you feel they give to you?
There was a quiet-quitting article on Business Insider this week that put it very directly. "You give me minimum wage, I'll give you minimum effort. Fair deal." Does that sound like you? A wrinkle in this, from one of the clips in the NPR piece that I'll just throw out here and then we'll start taking your calls, was of a worker who acknowledged that you may be sacrificing advancement to a better job if you are living a quietly quitting lifestyle. It is static if you do that. Work with no apparent ambition, you might have that crappy job for the rest of your life. Doing it well enough to keep it, but not well enough to get a promotion or a reference if you apply somewhere else.
One of those voices said, quietly quitting for now, and when they want to angle for a promotion, then they'll amp up the effort. Does it work like that? Does that sound like you? We're inviting you to tell your quiet-quitting story of yourself or colleagues or if you're an employer, seeing your employees quietly quit. What's it all about? 212-433-WNYC. We'll take your calls right after this.
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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Speaking of the Emmy Awards, by the way, which Allison is going to have a segment on. As it relates to quiet quitting, did you see that amazing moment when Sheryl Lee Ralph, the Barbara Howard character from Abbott Elementary-- A Rutgers alumn, by the way, some New Jersey pride there. Of course, she goes all the way back to shows like Dream Girls. She gave that stemwinder of a thank you speech that started out with her singing, and in which she specifically labeled herself a striver, and said, "Don't let anybody stop you from being that and reaching your dreams," some version of those words.
If you're a quiet quitter and you watched that and you jumped off your couch cheering for her, how did that go with your decision to quietly quit at this time? 212-433-WNYC for your calls on quietly quitting or stories of your employees quietly quitting. Charlie in North Carolina, you're on WNYC. Hey, Charlie, thanks for calling in.
Charlie: Hi, thanks so much. I just have a problem with the whole branding process. When it comes to actions which better our society, progressives rock, but when it comes to branding those actions, it's like we're dumb as a rock. Quiet quitting has such negative connotations and I feel like conservatives are going to grab that and run with it. "You want to do nothing. You want a handout," as opposed to just standing up for yourself and not doing more than you're paid to do. It's the same with defunding the police. We messed up that branding. Critical Race Theory, we messed up that branding. Let's just call it what it is, education.
Brian Lehrer: History.
Charlie: For quiet quitting, I like the term 'act your wage'. I've heard that around and I like that much better.
Brian Lehrer: Yes, that was in the Business Insider article that I mentioned too, act your wage. Does this apply to you in your job? Do you have a personal relationship to this?
Charlie: Since the pandemic, I've gone from producing TV commercials to driving a tractor trailer. Not a smooth transition there. Yes, continuously I see how tractor-trailer drivers are devalued by our driver managers. I simply say, "No, I'm not going to do that, and personally, I don't think you have to."
Brian Lehrer: For a lot of our listeners who are ignorant about trucking, is there a way to quiet quit? As a trucker, if your job is to drive from point A to point B, is there a way to do that more ambitiously or less?
Charlie: Sure. Your health is not considered at all in many cases. For instance, I'll be given assignments where I've got to sleep in the daytime today and at nighttime tomorrow, and it's just not healthy. It's not safe. I'm asked to do things that really aren't in line with hours-of-service regulations. We're told we can't decline loads, that's what we're told. I'm 60 years old. When they send a load that I know is not healthy or smart or advantageous load for me, I say no.
Brian Lehrer: You say no. Charlie, thank you.
Charlie: You can't decline a load and I simply do.
Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much for calling in. Please, call us again. Sarah in Woodside, you're on WNYC. Hi, Sarah.
Sarah: Hi, Brian. Thanks so much for having me on. I wanted to call up once I heard this because I only just recently heard about the phrase quietly quitting, but it's something I've been doing for about five, six years now in my corporate management consulting gig.
Brian Lehrer: And?
Sarah: It seems like a really good way to-- You realize early on that your work isn't really going anywhere. I was on a lot of different projects that went in circles for a while and then, basically, just ended. I became really divorced from seeing where my work was going. I realized that everybody above me was getting all these promotions and doing a lot more work than I was doing, and I still got promotions. I still got salary raises. I really just said to me again and again, "Why am I sticking my neck out?"
Brian Lehrer: You're getting raises and promotions even being a quiet quitter, is that what you're saying?
Sarah: Yes.
Brian Lehrer: Pulling back on the effort.
Sarah: Your managers above you, they do well when you do well. They push you forward to go for those promotions and I did not do much for mine. They made me make a PowerPoint again and again and again. Sooner or later, that PowerPoint trickles down to the right people and they give you more money, and I continued to do as little as possible.
Brian Lehrer: Sarah, thank you very much for your story. Interesting. I wonder if she is seen for some reasons other than her effort as a productive employee if she's getting the raises and promotions anyway, because I think typically the quiet quitters don't get the raises and promotions, but we're not going to get that answer right now. Nick in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Nick.
Nick: Hey. Hi. How are you doing? I told your screener that I'm actually calling about a response to quiet quitting or the phenomenon, not me doing it. I work for one of the largest companies in the world. I don't want to say their name because I still work there and I'm not quiet quitting and this is why. They're implementing the infamous back a decade or two ago, a couple of decades ago, the Jack Welch system. They're ranking all technical employees, I'm an IT guy.
Every year, they're going to fire the bottom or 10% or 20%. That's how they protect themselves against quiet quitting. Since I have-- excuse me, three kids, two of whom have significant health problems, I can't lose my health insurance. I don't want to change firms because I know the ACA, "Blah, blah, blah, you're protected against that," but you're not really. I don't want to change horses in midstream, so I'm not quiet quitting. Companies are going to make you go out and compete for your job every day. Compete for it. Not just be good at it, compete for it just to keep it-
Brian Lehrer: You're saying just to keep your job.
Nick: -because they're going to fire-- Every employee now at review gets a ranking in within your department. You're 10, 9, 8, 7, whatever, wherever you are. If there's 100 employees in your department, God help you if your ranking is 84, you're gone.
Brian Lehrer: Right. There is a movement in management circles that reflects exactly what you're saying. I'm sure this is what you're talking about. That there's the bell curve and those who are at the lowest end of the bell curve by those assessments probably should be let go, these management consultants and this kind of thinking says. I know that Facebook and Google's CEOs have recently both said something about how they probably should be letting more people go than they are," because some people just aren't that productive. In the past, they've been flush enough with money that they've let those people slide as the CEO see it, anyway. Now that the economy for tech is turning down a little bit, those people may be a little more at risk. That just plays into what you're saying, Nick.
Nick: I'm going to be more productive every year. Obviously, as I said, a few years down the road, you're not firing the dead wood or the lazy people or the quiet quitters anymore. You're out of them. You fired them all five years ago. You're just making people go out and compete just to have enough money to eat and take care of your kids every day.
Brian Lehrer: Nick, Thank you.
Nick: That's sick. People should be hanging from lampposts for that.
Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much for your call. We appreciate it. Another call from North Carolina, Jan in North Carolina. You're on WNYC. Hi, Jan.
Jan: Hi, Brian. I've been a nurse for 43 years, just recently retired. My comment is about quietly quitting is if a nurse decides to quietly quit, it's going to have huge, potentially big ramifications for you personally or a family member. Talk about quiet quitting, when a nurse does it, you might feel very differently about your whole philosophy of quiet quitting.
Brian Lehrer: Which is also to say that some job categories may have the luxury of quiet quitting, whereas some don't. Just to perform the basics of your job takes so much effort. We know what nursing involves these days.
Jan: Exactly, exactly. Also, there's something personal about pulling back. I always felt good when I left work feeling like I did the best I could do and perhaps I made a difference in people's lives, whether they knew it or not. That left me feeling good, proud that I gave it my all.
Brian Lehrer: Jan, thank you so much. Ernesto in Rahway, you're on WNYC. Hi, Ernesto.
Ernesto: Hi. How are you doing today? Can you guys hear me?
Brian Lehrer: I can hear just fine. Hi, there. You're on.
Ernesto: Okay, good. Good. I was working for this company. In my field, I'm licensed by the state. I got a lot of-- how'd you call it? I know what I'm doing and everything. I'm working for this company and trying to do it at my best and all I got was just extreme amount of responsibility from management and everything, so I started quiet quitting. I did it till to the point that they realized that I wasn't going to do what I was hired to begin with. I got let go and sometime in April, I couldn't be happier. I couldn't happier.
Brian Lehrer: You cut back because you thought they were asking too much of you. They saw it and fired you, but you're happy. [chuckles] Why are you happy?
Ernesto: I'm happy because I realized and I told my therapist about it. "Listen, am I doing the wrong thing?" He said, "With the amount of experience that you got, this is just a stepping stone." To be honest, the amount of work that I get offered, it is insane.
Brian Lehrer: There you go. In whatever your field is, you have the luxury and a certain sense of being able to quiet quit, because you think you still quiet quit and get fired because you think you're still going to be marketable. Thank you, Ernesto. Here's an employer. Sean in Monmouth County, you're on WNYC. Hi, Sean.
Sean: Hey, how you doing Brian? [unintelligible 00:16:11]
Brian Lehrer: What you got?
Sean: All right. In my field, we expect our people to quit. We will take them on after they have two or three years of great experience from someone else. We'll give them seven or eight, nine more years of experience, but by the time they did their eighth or ninth year, if they're not looking to get out on their own in our industry, they start to lose some of their value to us. What we're having a problem with is, though, for the last 30 years, we've had no problem replacing them with the next generation that we're going to train, but now we do. Now, we can't get them. We can't find any of them.
Brian Lehrer: What's the solution?
Sean: We go to the vocational schools and we go to the tech schools, and they're not turning out really great products right now. I don't know why that is. We try to hire them off of other companies. If they're happy where they are, then they stay if the job is generally the same, because some of them are looking to go into an area in this field that might be different from what we do as our regular job. We are very big in industrial and medical and commercial. They might be looking for a residential learning or something else or governmental. We're just not finding any people right now.
Brian Lehrer: I'm going to have to leave it there. Sean, thank you for your call, and thanks to all of you who called in. Interesting sampling of people who are quiet quitting or dealing with quiet quitting in their workplaces. Thanks a lot for your call. It's Brian Lehrer on WNYC.
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