u/AnalystIntelligent22

An older person I know asked me a while ago why younger employees are doing "quiet quitting" and refusing to put real effort into work. I told him that quiet quitting is a made-up phrase that means doing the job you were hired to do, instead of donating extra effort for free.

He started talking about how you have to work hard, push yourself, show initiative, and do more than what's required if you want to advance. I told him that the part that has changed from the past is that extra effort no longer reliably comes with a higher salary, promotions, stability, or even basic respect. Then I asked him:

If everyone is supposed to accept that employees should go beyond what's written in the contract, why is the company never expected to pay more than what's written in the contract? Why doesn't payroll also "show initiative"? If extra work is called ambition, shouldn't extra pay be treated the same way? Isn't my employer doing quiet compensating to me?

He couldn't say much after that. He frowned a bit and changed the subject. I don't think I convinced him, but he definitely didn't have an answer.

The job market has become full of candidates who are more polished and prepared than at any point I've seen before, and because of that, I feel like there's no longer any space for ordinary people. New graduates aren't lazy or especially less competent. They're doing more than the classes before them: more years of study, side projects, student orgs, internships, online courses, portfolio work, and everything.

In a market this crowded, going "above and beyond" has literally become the norm. There's almost no room left for someone with average intelligence, who needs a normal amount of sleep, has normal ambition, normal family circumstances, a normal work ethic, and a normal desire to have a life outside of work. Everyone is expected to be a unicorn superstar. Even cafés and retail stores act like you're supposed to magically have 4+ years of experience before they take you seriously.

I used to think that nonstop grinding was something people did because they wanted an intense career path, and honestly, that doesn't matter to me (no one is going to sit around talking about your amazing career at your funeral). Now I've realized that grinding seems to have become required just to find any random junior-level office job.

We recently went on a trip to Costa Rica. The main goal was to disconnect for a bit. We had our personal phones with us, but we both left our work phones at home. Apparently that's become shocking behavior now?
At some point during the trip, her manager called her on her personal phone. My wife didn't answer and saw the missed call later.
Her manager was calling because something had been added to her calendar with almost no notice while she was on PTO. She didn't have access to her work calendar, and there was no way for her to know that anything had been added. And since she didn't know it existed, no one had been arranged to cover it. So her manager decided to call and reprimand her while we were literally on vacation.
Luckily, she was able to move past it and enjoy the rest of the trip. We got home late on Wednesday, and she worked Thursday. No one said a word about the calendar issue that day or on the next workday.
Then she went to work this week and was given a formal reprimand for failing to arrange coverage for that calendar event.
She's also transferring to another office in about three weeks. The commute will be worse, but she'll be reporting to a different manager, and hopefully to someone who doesn't think PTO means "still responsible for surprise meetings you can't see."
I told her to talk to her manager's boss about it. Neither of us thinks it makes sense for someone to be punished for something that was added while they were out of office, especially when the manager knew she wasn't there. She doesn't want to escalate it because she's trying to leave without burning any bridges.
Honestly, I'm extremely angry. This office is constantly losing staff. My wife works 55 hours a week in a high-pressure role and does everything she can, and her mental health has been deteriorating for months.