Quiet Quitting.. The modern way of working a job you don't like..

“We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war… our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.”

This was written almost thirty years ago about the disenfranchisement of young men in the 90's, but is more applicable to this entire generation. This is a generation that has had no conflict in their lives and been shielded from any emotional conflict. They have no perspective on the struggle that it has taken to achieve the comfort our society provides them and as a result believes comfort and fun is an entitlement to life, not something achieved personally through hard work and sacrifice. So they contrive non-existent social issue to give them purpose, and rebel against personal responsibility. You shouldn't have to work hard, especially in a job you don't like, to achieve your goals, so no job is important. If a job is not important, being successful at work or even being concerned about protecting your job, is not going to be a priority. The inevitable result is going to see how little you can do to just skate by, which in turn results in the bare minimum you achieve and get paid, and then creates envy against those who do work hard, achieve and profit, and fuels the social hatred to those who have more than you do.

 

do your job and then go home and do what you want. That's not 'quitting' and that's not something new. I think social media buzzwords are silly

 

Kids today are all on dope.

 

I'm at the point where I don't give a shit anymore. This whole country is a shitshow so I'll just enjoy the chaos.

 

When I ran a company, I took over with a policy of time based raises. After x months you got this. After a year you were increased to this....so on and so forth. I felt that the only thing that enougared was for people to do the bare minimum to remain employed. Keep you job, get a scheduled raise.

We decided to change things to merit based raises. We still had cost of living adjustments but beyond that it was all based on job performance. We could hire two guys at the same time and after a year one could be making significantly more than the other. Eventually the guy making less would end up in my office wanting to know why so and so made more than him. I would then explain it to him. They either got the message or they quit (or were replaced.)

The notion of doing the bare minimum is sickening to me. Take pride in what you do. Now if your hard work goes unrecognized, then you have evey right to be pissed off. There is nothing worse than busting your ass and being compensated the same as some guy that does the bare minimum.

 

I think there's been people that make effort and people that don't since the beginning of time. There's also people who do more than asked and others who do the bare minimum since the beginning of time.

I try to stay away from generational complaining. Yea, I didn't have to get drafted or I barely lived a life without internet (at least 56k). I find computer illiterate people to be annoying and a waste of time. Id rather have someone who does just what supposed to do as opposed to someone who needs constant hand holding trying to do more. Sue me.

 

You're right, those people have always existed. And, perhaps, the "generational" issue is simply a result of how modern technology allows fringe attitudes to be celebrated and proliferate in society, but there does seem to be a significant applaud of the behavior today moreso than in the past.

of course that could just be because in the past stupid and lazy people kept there mouths shut because they didn't have the ability to promote their stupidity and laziness like they do now and get rewarded for it.

 

Definitely say it's the latter.

 

Aloha, Mr. Hand.

 

This is also the generation that is saddled with college loan debt because they are brainwashed into thinking the only way they can make a living from sales to bioengineering is to go to school. They are then handed a $43,000 coordinator role they’ll take them at least half a decade to get into middle management.

The home market makes it extremely difficult to buy a house until you are in your mid thirties without some solid breaks if you come from a lower middle class home without a good financial starting point from your parents.

No conflict in our lives? Dude. If you were born in 1990 you were born into a country where the United States has been in a Vietnam-like conflict in the Middle East for 25/30 years. We are also about to enter our second recession in 14 years with the highest inflation rate in 40 years after a historic 100+ year pandemic that wrecked the world economy in the prime of our lives.

I’m all for trashing the current generation. I’m apart of it and it’s filled with people who want to work 9-3:30 from home, send 9 emails all day and focus on their “mental health.” But there’s also a large contingent of this generation that are working their asses off and are walking on a treadmill that is going at max speed although there is no wondering why we’re falling off.

The older generations, like the one I suspect you’re from, act like you lived the late 70s and the entire 1980s through nuclear winter.

 

That’ll show em

 

let’s not turn this thread into another valentine for Bitcoin.

 

Exceptions to the vocal contingent who demand that they shouldn’t have to be responsible for their own debts is not the discussion. Of course the exceptions exist. But when you describe the generation as victims having been brainwashed you validate everything I asserted about them because your concept of them strips them of any responsibility for their decisions and contrives them into victims of brainwashing. even if the need for a college education was a deceptive exaggeration, that doesn’t absolve them for the decision to take ridiculous amounts of loans out to do so. They did so because it was the easiest way to get what they wanted quickly, instead of other alternatives that would require hard work and result in less immediate fun. Being brainwashed to go to college doesn’t explain the mass proliferation of the generation to seek the easiest route for them today at the expense of their future. An expense which wasn’t hard to predict.

There was no societal impact to the Middle East conflicts after the initial invasions to even make it comparable to Vietnam and to argue it hung over the generation is laughable. There was no threat to be drafted that brought the evils of war to their lives and a burden to them. 46,000 Americans died in or as a result of their wounds in Vietnam; 7,000 in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nothing about the two is comparable socially other than the duration. Just a terrible attempt to contrive a burden. Yes, they were so burdened by it that they forgot about the fact that America was attacked and made Muslims the victims of America with the concept of Islamaphobia.

My generation that was raised in the 80’s and 90’s were encouraged to fall off our bikes, skin our knees and went home with nothing when we lost except the pain of losing which taught us how to pick ourselves up. Contrast that with the 90’s kids who have been shielded from any of this emotional conflict, and it’s no wonder many lack the ability or desire for truly personal autonomy and simply want to substitute being taken care of by mommy and daddy with being taken care of by Uncle Sam, which actually means being taken care of by you and I. But they don’t care who it is, as long as somebody else is doing it for them.

I sympathize for anyone who is priced out of home ownership and has been hindered by the modern economy; those are things out do their control. But not any debt or loan; student, car, personal or otherwise.

 

You’re pigeonholing an entire generation and multiple generations quite frankly, into the group of extreme California liberals you see on the news who think working should be an option.

Everyone who was born in say the 1990-1995 range had the same experience you did as a kid. The internet was there but it wasn’t what it has become in the 2000’s and still very much was a side hobby with dial up still making it rather unaccessible. I’d love for you to talk to some other folks born in that time frame that weren’t encouraged to go outside.

Did you go to high school in the 2000’s? They don’t lay out a lot of options for you. If you don’t go to college, you’re thrown right into the barrel of dirtbags that are likely to end up in prison. At the end of the day, it is the child’s choice but the child is entering into a 20 year loan with the idea that it’s worth it and their career will be so fruitful it won’t be a problem to pay it off.

There was no societal impact of the wars in the Middle East? Wow dude. Maybe you should read the two articles below.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_War
https://www.forbes.com/sites/hanktu...-day-for-20-years-with-big-bills-yet-to-come/

You discuss Vietnam like you were under the threat of being drafted as a youth as we both know that’s not true. How did it personally impact you?

The generation that raised us and those that follow also implemented the “stick Johnny in front of the TV or iPad and he’ll shut the fuck up and leave us alone,” parenting style so y’all are complicit in rotting the minds of the youth.

 

The discussion is the the contingent that believes they are entitled to have someone else pay off their debts. They are face of the generation whether you like it or not.

the Middle East conflicts have been nothing but background noise to this generation. That doesn’t mean there hasn’t been indirect prices to pay, but they aren’t prices that the generation are aware of and are consciously directly correlating to the wars.

 

You’re trying to draw two different discussions together. I am not advocating for college loans having anything to do with the wars in the Middle East as you are trying to do. You said it had no societal impact. That’s patently false.

The economy crashed at a critical point (2008) in most peoples lives born in the timeframe that I outlined as they were nearing college and is on its second free fall as Covid hit and inflation runs rampant when we are approaching home-buying age.

The wars in the Middle East have contributed greatly to America’s shitty economic downturn even if indirectly. If you don’t think so, then I think you have your head up your ass.

 

It's not quiet quitting. It's acting your wage. No one is willing to work harder than what they pay for when all they have to show for it are fake promises of raises, bonuses, and promotions.

Uh, millennials have been a huge portion of the fighting force in Afghanistan. Some still made it to Iraq. I know when I was doing contract work in Afghanistan, it was mostly millennials.

 

The other big difference between the 70's/80's and now is that back then you at least had the idea that you might find a job and make a career out of working for that company.

Today, fuhgeddaboutit. Most people are treated graciously when management wants something and like total dirt at all other times.

The gig economy is all about controlling your employees by scheduling them in ways that it is hard for them to latch on somewhere else, even though you are carefully controlling their hours so that they are not full time and not eligible for benefits. This happens everywhere and to almost every young worker at entry level.

Then we get upset when they take their job less seriously? Come on you guys know what's happening out there.