Fuck the term quiet quitting. Call it what it is, doing your job.
Employee burnout is a symptom of a toxic work culture, and “quiet quitting” is a corporate psyop invented to prevent you from noticing it.
From the original reporting in the Japan Times:
Some 45% of full-time employees in Japan are “quiet quitters” — workers doing the bare minimum to meet their job requirements
Oh, no! People are doing their jobs! What a disaster!
The phrase “quiet quitting” really grinds my gears. Are you fulfilling the terms of your employment contract? Yes? Then you’re working, and haven’t quit.
I’m not quiet quitting, I’m doing exactly the work I am paid to do and no more of the extra stuff I’m not paid to do.
Japan has strong worker protections. It is very difficult to fire an employee in Japan, without showing that the employee committed a crime. Employees can do practically nothing at work and still get paid. Call in sick as much as they want and the only penalty is not getting paid sick days once they run out of paid sick leave and vacation days. If an employer does mass layoffs, they have to show that the company is on the verge of bankruptcy and they have tried everything else, including reducing the pay of executives or removing executive positions before firing employees. Elon Musk is in hot water in Japan for mass firing Twitter employees in Japan. He violated Japanese labor laws.
So when the CEO of Nintendo cut his salary due to the poor sales of the Wii U and every American tech writer praised him for it, that was just common practice in Japan?
They have to try reducing or eliminating the costs at the upper levels before trying to fire the wage slaves in Japan, so yes.
He voluntarily cut his salary in half. That’s more along the lines of taking responsibility than shoring up the company. CEO pay is a tiny percentage of revenue, despite what lemmy thinks. To make a serious dent, pay would have to be cut across all the C suite, and much deeper.
CEO pay is a tiny percentage of revenue, despite what lemmy thinks
It is the most obvious symptom of the problem, that’s for sure, no wonder it’s the most targeted
Every thread where you see “ceo of failing company gets $3M bonus” followed by “those workers could have used that” ignores the fact that there are so many employees that, divided evenly, it’s never more than $5, and frequently less than a dollar.
Yes, that’s technically better than nothing. And I agree the CEO doesn’t deserve a bonus if their company is failing. But focusing on this is missing the bigger picture of the lack of workers’ rights in America, and paints a target on the wrong people (CEOs instead of the government).
Japan has strong worker protections
this doesn’t apply to contractors and part-time employees, AFAIK
This is for full-time “permanent” employees known as 正社員 (seishain). There are cases where a long-term contract worker gains those same protections (I think after 5 years, but I’m not too up on that).
Various other types of employment have their own restrictions and freedoms to varying degrees on both sides, but I’m not super knowledgeable there.
That was several years ago, so surely the water isn’t that hot. Have they tried bringing it to a rolling boil yet?
As with most governments, Japan has a justice system that works slowly and methodically. Thousands of workers were not given their required notice or severance pay when they were unilaterally terminated. Twitter / Musk cannot make the case that the company was on the verge of bankruptcy and didn’t even bother trying to. He just assumed because workers have no rights in the USA that he could do the same thing in Japan that he does in America. By not paying the workers their severance or giving them proper notice he opened himself up to each individual having the ability to sue him for at least a year’s salary, probably more. The government can also attach additional fines and penalties because they have to dish out unemployment benefits for all of those workers because Musk broke the law. The water will boil when it boils and it won’t stop.
Yea instead of firing you they’ll try their hardest to get you to quit. They’ll send you to the 追い出し部屋.
Yea, every article using the term quiet quitting is getting a down vote. Doing what you’re paid for is simply doing your job. This is basically akin to getting mad you didn’t get a tip. A TIP IS OPTIONAL.
Doing just what you’re paid for and not one bit more is called “Work to Rule” and it’s just total bullshit that it’s an effective labour tactic of resistance, because it implies that exploitation is part of the expectation in capitalism.
People want to do a good job and employers milk that.
You’re doing exactly as much as required? How rude of you.
I mean, that’s not what quiet quitting is. Quiet quitting is doing the bare minimum to not get fired from your job, which is different from the bare minimum that would be reasonably expected of you. Most of the time, if your employer actually knew how much work you were doing, they would want to fire you, and it would be for-cause, because you are doing essentially nothing.
This is possible because many workplaces have very little accountability. One of the classic moves is to always be working on multiple projects - so anytime someone asks you to do something, you say “I dunno how quickly I’ll be able to get that done, I’m pretty swamped from X” - at which point everyone sagely nods and agrees that the team working on X is definitely swamped.
If your bosses actually knew that you were just lying, and were spending 7.5 hours everyday playing video games, you’d be fired. But since they don’t know that, you can keep getting paid for showing up to a few meetings every week. That’s what quiet quitting is.
I have never seen the term used the way you describe. Because doing that is definitely not doing your job and grounds for termination if they ever found out.
Hence the quietness
… yeah. That’s the “quitting” part. You aren’t doing your job, but you are quiet about it so you keep getting paid. That’s what this phrase means.
So what does it mean in the context of Japan, where employees cannot be fired except under exceptional circumstances?
I dunno. I’m not Japanese.
Whoa dude, Americans can see this! Don’t say that!
Ohh, right…
I should make that part bigger.
This is what happens in societies that have increasing income inequality.
Why should workers feel compelled to bust their asses when it benefits their bosses, but not themselves?
I fucking hate the ‘quiet quitting’ term. It puts the onus on the people who are tired of the inhumane hours and treatment, and the accompanying meager pay. Instead of putting it on the companies and government whose policies and ethics are fostering these awful conditions which engender these sorts of worker responses. It’s not quiet quitting. It’s holding boundaries between work and personal life. It’s not allowing the company to steal your time away from you. It’s preventing the company from overstepping their position in your life. It’s so many things that are important and ‘quiet quitting’ does those people a disservice in favor of a catchy corporate approved soundbite. I find that disgusting.
I did not find any proper meaning of phrase quiet quitting
It might as well mean - working only the amount you are paid for - which sounds totally reasonable.
Totally corporate worded article.
It’s a phrase meant to replace the old phrase “working your wage”, because that way of viewing it makes the whole situation less dramatic and more noble … and generates less clicks. Classic newsspeak.
I always took it to mean “doing the least amount of work possible without getting fired.” If someone’s making an effort to work the amount they’re paid for, I wouldn’t consider it quiet quitting.
You can define it that way, but the problem is that the authors of the article didn’t give a definition. For example, I think they think the term means to do what’s in your job description and contract. And they think that workers should be going above and beyond that. But if they were forced to spell it out, then people would ask why companies don’t change the job description or contract, because obviously it’s ridiculous to ask people to do what you didn’t ask them to do.
We used to just call it Work to Rule.
Heh, I’ve seen this personally. I work for a Japanese company, and part of my job is coordinating tooling installations with the factory I’m stationed at (pick a chip fab in the US, I’ve probably been there). When we get a tool onsite, I get an install team directly from our factory in Japan who handles all the physical installation aspects. They work hard, efficiently, and with the utmost care for the finer details (some of these tools are expected to last 20+ years - we have a few that have been in production for nearly as long with very little fuss). Occasionally, they will finish their tasks early the last couple days and take off after lunch, letting me know of this beforehand and that their daily reports will be sent to me and other relevant managers at the “usual” time, with a wink and a nod.
I don’t care how much time they clock, as long as shit gets done properly. Haven’t had any issues.
Goddamn I wish they’d stop using “quiet quitting”
Not listed in the article but, starting around corona, price increases started happening all over the place. Russia’s attack on Ukraine also caused price increases here for a number of reasons. Rice is now around double what it was a year ago (https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/backstories/3949/ – some general price increase, also shortages due to weather and shitty planning). The news keeps talking about price increases every month. Wages? Hardly budging. People are getting a lower quality of life for the same amount of work so of course the desire to put up with bullshit is dropping.
Now, if people would vote for anyone else, we might see something happen. Voter turnout is terrible in Japan. As a non-citizen, I can’t vote so nothing I can do there. (Technically, there are some local elections that non-citizens can vote in (I think all requiring permanent residency permits) but nothing at an upper level).
One big reason rice is expensive is the 700% tariff Japan has on foreign rice. Another reason is the government hoarding the rice supply so they can overcharge for it. For Japanese Government, see Yakuza. Look on your store shelves for Thai rice, American rice, Indian rice, or any other rice from major rice exporting countries. You won’t find it.
It’s protectionism and, yes, that’s part of what I meant by “shitty planning” above. There is American, Thai, Indian, and Korean rice here now. Calrose is a popular one. Same is true for butter and similar things here.
Edit: I accidentally a word.
What stores are you finding foreign rice in? I need to know. I only see Japanese rice at my local supermarkets and it is around 6000 yen for 5 kilograms. 5 kilogram bags not available most of the time. I see a lot of 2 kilogram bags. Near me, I have Ozam, Alps, Seiyu, and Inageya.
I live in the rural Tohoku inaka and personally mostly get genmai from Costco (which I prefer over white rice). Online stores (Rakuten, Kakuyasu, amazon, etc.) have it. For in-person, it’s what I’ve seen people talking about and seen mentioned on the news.
we should normalize to punch everyone in the gut who uses the words “quiet quitting”.
You miss spelled it… Its not quiet quitting… Its doing what’s necessary and nothing excess… if you aren’t paid for it
Exactly. Workers are doing their jobs! Gasp!
Considering that work ethic literally kills people: Good.
“kills” … This is still occurring, let’s use the present tense.
I don’t know if this was the intention, but that came off a bit condescending in my opinion. I completely agree with you, present tense would have been more apt (I’m going to edit it to fix it), but I resent the way your correction was presented. If that was not your intention, I apologize. I’m tired this morning.
Man, fuck all those guys for doing their job to a sufficient quality and quantity to not get fired, eh?
Well productivity is a good thing, I think the problem is the incentives. Their government essentially funnels all the money to their elderly via monetary policy, and the youth get the table scraps.
It was probably higher before, but it wasn’t as acceptable to say it as it is today.
You’re basically right. Back when unions were a thing, they dubbed this behavior “working your wage” I.e. not volunteering for unpaid labor. “Quiet quitting” is a neologism designed by a think tank to shift the burden of responsibility to the employee
