Episode 33

fixing quiet quitting

Quiet Quitting isn't really quitting at all. And if employers treated employees with dignity, we wouldn't be talking about it.


An article from In These Times on the Fed, interest rates, and how the Fed's response to inflation is "highly likely to involve some pain."

https://inthesetimes.com/article/federal-reserve-workers-pay-biden-inflation-corporations-profits-wages

Transcript
Leela Sinha:

Okay, let's talk about quiet quitting. I know

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it's the buzzword of the moment and everyone's doing it. And

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what even is that? First of all, what people are describing as

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quiet quitting isn't quiet quitting, it's doing your job.

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It's doing the things that you agreed to do in the way that you

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agreed to do them and expecting to get paid for it. That is not

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quitting. Quitting is putting down your pen, closing your

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computer, walking out of the room, and not going back. If

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your time is still being purchased by the company, and

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you are still producing, that is not quitting. So let's start

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there. But then let's start talking about why why this quote

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unquote, quiet quitting. What it is, is a recognition of the need

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for, for dignity. Humans are inherently entitled to dignity.

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Humans inherently have worth. And when an institution or an

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organization or another individual starts treating

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people like they don't, eventually they will notice. It

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might take a while. In this case, I think it's probably

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taken the better part of almost two generations. But here we

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are. Here we are. And the bottom line greed has finally overtaken

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people's willingness and ability to ignore it. And so people are

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taking a good hard look at what they actually agreed to sell.

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And only selling that much. They're doing it because they

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have finally realized, we have finally realized, that we

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deserve to have ourselves whole and beautiful, that we belong to

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us and not to institutions, corporations or capitalism. That

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we should be able to eat and sleep and breathe and rest when

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we are sick. And make the choices that are best for us and

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still earn a living. For a while in a past life, a fairly long

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time ago, I worked as a baker in a small town. I worked at a

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bakery. That is to say it was not my bakery. But there weren't

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very many of us working there. And we pushed ourselves. Yes.

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And some of that pushing was probably unwise. Yes. And it may

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have led to my back injury, yes. But at least we were afforded

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the dignity of basically making the decisions for ourselves

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about what was possible. And not doing more than that. Of what we

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were capable of and not doing more than that. Of not working

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with substandard tools if we didn't want to. Sometimes what's

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substandard isn't obvious. We worked with ancient pizza ovens.

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But those old ovens would heat up come hell or high water.

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Every morning. It took three hours but once they were hot,

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they were hot. And we could run three, at least, batches of

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bread, maybe four through them before they needed a break to

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reheat. Nobody is quitting and staying at work. That's not how

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that works. But how do you be a company that people don't want

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to do that to? That people won't do that to. Well. You treat them

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like full people. You give them plenty of time off, you give

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them the flexibility to define the terms by which they are

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judged. You work with them. You get them on board with your

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company mission, you do something that matters in the

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world. You care about them for real and you act like it. If you

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ever find "Oh, well, that's a cost of doing business" coming

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out of your mouth, you better be talking about something like

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credit card fees. And not about human misery. Quite some time

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ago, I got into a very brief spat on Twitter, because

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somebody had said that he wanted to see that people were crying

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at work. He was, I don't remember, either a founder or VC

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and he got on this thing about "you don't have to tell me that

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you're doing well. You just have to tell me that you have people

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crying at their desks." And I thought that is atrocious.

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Especially in the beginning of a company's culture. At the very

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beginning of a company's culture. What are you thinking,

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sir?

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What are you thinking that you're building that into your

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culture that that is considered normal? That someone being that

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miserable or that tired or that overwhelmed is a sign of

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success? No, sir, no. That is a sign that your system is already

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failing. And your primary concern should be to stop

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failing. Because that will grow into 10 and then 100 and then

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1000, then 10s of 1000s of employees, all of whom have this

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culture of needing to cry at their desks in order to prove

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that they are working hard enough. Which leads to burnout,

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which leads to resentment, which leads to corruption of various

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kinds, which leads to people being less important than almost

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everything including and especially the bottom line. And

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if that is how you are running your company, sir, it is a moral

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failure. I said as much, more or less. Some people agreed with

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me, a whole pile of other founders and VCs jumped on my

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head. But you know what, I'm still right. Because we know

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about systems theory that you need to create a healthy culture

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from the beginning, in order to have a healthy culture going

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forward. And not only is it healthier for your employees,

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it's also healthier for you. It also means that everyone else

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develops this fierce loyalty to your organization, because your

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organization is actually taking care of them. That old fashioned

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company loyalty thing was some systems and propaganda, but it

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was also some, the companies actually took care of their

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employees sometimes. And so of course, you wanted to keep

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working for them, because they were providing for you in a

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reasonable way, they were making a reasonable life possible, a

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balanced life possible, a happy, healthy life possible, a joyful

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life possible. If that's making that possible under capitalism,

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you're gonna stick with it. People don't quit, or cut back

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on what they're doing, because they're happy. People cut back

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and quit, because they can't figure out how they're going to

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survive any other way. Nobody likes to compromise having their

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basic needs met. People compromise having their basic

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needs met, because they don't know what else to do. People

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quit their jobs when they don't have another job. People cut

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back their work, people set limits, when they have tried to

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set limits every other way and nobody has paid attention. If

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you're a manager, and you just keep telling someone, they need

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to be more productive as you quietly eliminate position after

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position at that same level so that the one person is now doing

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three, or four or six jobs because it's better for-

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something- your bottom line, you need to stop. Because that

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person will hit a limit and that person will quit. People don't

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want to. They do it because they are not happy. Because they are

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not thriving, because they are slowly eating themselves in the

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name of your bottom line. And that is immoral every way you

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slice it. And so they just won't anymore. And that is what this

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thing is that people are calling quiet quitting, it's actually

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people taking care of themselves. It's actually people

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attending to their own needs, it's actually people putting on

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their own oxygen mask first, so that they can be of service to

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others and to themselves. So don't tell me that this quiet

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quitting is some kind of weird rebellion. And don't even get me

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started on what the Fed has been saying about how there needs to

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be a little pain in the wage-earning class. They're does

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not. There does not. We can all be well-paid and treated well.

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And nobody will suffer. And that is the transformation that we as

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business owners can bring about. Because the more often we offer

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a job with good, healthy boundaries and benefits; the

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more often we, as intensives, look at the world and say this

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whole system is bullshit and we're not doing it. The more we

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do that the better off we'll be. The more we do that, the more

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people will come to work for us, the more people will value

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working for us over working for corporations that treat people

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like a number on a spreadsheet. And when there are enough jobs,

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like what we're offering, that will put pressure on the job

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market, like what we're seeing.

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And suddenly, large institutions will also have to offer people

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their humanity back. Thanks for tuning in; talk to you soon.

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