so goes Japan, so goes the world!!! ive been quiet quitting since i entered the work force
this post was submitted on 05 May 2025
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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?
Thank goodness. Now when im napping during work I can feel less guilty thinking about Japan doing it too.
ow when im napping during work I can feel less guilty thinking about Japan doing it too.
if questioned, tell your Boss, you are practicing a japanese work ethic
Good
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.
Wtf is quiet quitting
"Businesses can no longer rely solely on the goodwill of employees that they have financially and emotionally abused to the point of class collapse."
People are just doing the bare minimum and that's not ok by the CEO.
It’s doing the bare minimum, sometimes below the minimum so that they have to fire you. Like how you would act if your boss yelled at you for no reason and you no longer care about your job.
So is the goal to actually get fired? Or to just not go for a promotion? I'm a little confused.
Or is it the guy from office space? "[make a guy]...work just hard enough to not get fired."
Edit: Oh.. I've got a good way to help clarify this...
Another office space reference, but I think this quantifies it well:
So if they ask you to wear 37 pieces of flair, is quiet quitting wearing 35, 36, 37, or 38 pieces of flair?
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and that's a write up for explicit underperformance and en route to being let go.
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is basically the same thing but could be taken as a technicality or mistake.
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is technically right, but a lot of shitty bosses will have a fit with their own standards and be all passive aggressive about it, and may even rock the boat until they have to fire you.
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is juuust above the bare minimum, so they can't say shit, but you won't be getting a promotion anytime soon.
And anything above that, I'm just going to categorize as not quiet quitting for sake of simplicity. Don't worry about performance percentages, that's not the point here.
The goal is apathy. How can I put in the absolute minimum amount of effort to not get fired with the mindset that if I did get fired it wouldn’t be the end of the world. It generally comes from feeling like you aren’t appreciated or properly compensated from your job.
I think the guy from office space with the “work just hard enough to not get fired” sums it up perfectly
It’s not a new concept as office space made a joke about it in the 90s but it’s a current buzzword and becomes more applicable as the gap between C suites and average employees continues to grow
It's corporate media term for doing what your job requires and not giving your time to companies for free
No one gives their time to a company for free. That’s volunteering. Getting paid doesn’t mean you’re quiet quitting.
Quiet quitting means doing the absolute minimum not to get fired, showing no initiative or ambition. Employers often expect you to work extra hard and do a bunch of bonus work to try to get promoted or a raise. They believe all this extra work is part of what they’re paying for. But an employee who has quiet quit will do none of that, accept that the job is a dead end job, and just do the minimum to keep from getting fired.
Corpo media licking boots so hard they're literally breathless
Corpos own the media, so they're literally just the trumpets of money hoarders
But why quitting?
Why not
Quiet Cocooning
because if you're not giving your all to the company, are you really working?
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.
It's a different culture altogether, where a job is expected"for life", which also makes it difficult to quit a job. People are literally hiring other people to deliver their resignation notices because it's impossible to do in person.
No, not that I have seen. Job for life is some outdated Boomer generation shit. When people want to quit they just quit. But quitting on your own may mean no unemployment benefits. When an employer wants a worker to leave, for whatever reason, they come to ask the employee to resign and offer them some money for agreeing to quit. Usually about 3 months pay. The employee can also collect unemployment benefits for several months if the resignation is at the request of the employer. So if you want to quit, it's better to make your boss want you to leave, without committing any crimes. That way they ask you to resign. Much better than it was in the USA.
Japan has strong worker protections
this doesn't apply to contractors and part-time employees, AFAIK
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.
Ooh, 'boil the billionaires' has a nice ring to it
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?
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).
They have to try reducing or eliminating the costs at the upper levels before trying to fire the wage slaves in Japan, so yes.
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.
Tipping is optional but in the US many tipped employees are making $2.35/hr. They're paid a minimum of min wage after tips, but their tips first have to cover them to minwage
Whoa dude, Americans can see this! Don't say that!
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.
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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.
From what I’ve read, Japan’s work ethic has been more about presenteeism than productivity for a while. While long hours are the norm, it’s more important to be seen to be working than to be productive, so you don’t leave before the boss does, but you do spend a large amount of that time staring out the window or otherwise idling.
I always used to get from bosses, "Hicks! How come you're not working?"
I go, "There's nothing to do!"
And they go, "Well, you pretend like you're working."
Yeah, why don't you pretend I'm working? You get paid more than me, you fantasize, buddy! Hell, pretend I'm mopping! Knock yourself out! I'll pretend they're buying stuff, we can close up! Hey, I'm the boss, now you're fired! How's that for a fantasy, buddy?
- Bill Hicks
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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!
I much prefer the term "acting your wage". I'm not doing the bare minimum - I'm doing what I'm paid for. You want me to do more? Guess what, there's one way to motivate me to do so...
Goddamn I wish they'd stop using "quiet quitting"
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