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."
Transcript
Okay, let's talk about quiet quitting. I know
Leela Sinha:it's the buzzword of the moment and everyone's doing it. And
Leela Sinha:what even is that? First of all, what people are describing as
Leela Sinha:quiet quitting isn't quiet quitting, it's doing your job.
Leela Sinha:It's doing the things that you agreed to do in the way that you
Leela Sinha:agreed to do them and expecting to get paid for it. That is not
Leela Sinha:quitting. Quitting is putting down your pen, closing your
Leela Sinha:computer, walking out of the room, and not going back. If
Leela Sinha:your time is still being purchased by the company, and
Leela Sinha:you are still producing, that is not quitting. So let's start
Leela Sinha:there. But then let's start talking about why why this quote
Leela Sinha:unquote, quiet quitting. What it is, is a recognition of the need
Leela Sinha:for, for dignity. Humans are inherently entitled to dignity.
Leela Sinha:Humans inherently have worth. And when an institution or an
Leela Sinha:organization or another individual starts treating
Leela Sinha:people like they don't, eventually they will notice. It
Leela Sinha:might take a while. In this case, I think it's probably
Leela Sinha:taken the better part of almost two generations. But here we
Leela Sinha:are. Here we are. And the bottom line greed has finally overtaken
Leela Sinha:people's willingness and ability to ignore it. And so people are
Leela Sinha:taking a good hard look at what they actually agreed to sell.
Leela Sinha:And only selling that much. They're doing it because they
Leela Sinha:have finally realized, we have finally realized, that we
Leela Sinha:deserve to have ourselves whole and beautiful, that we belong to
Leela Sinha:us and not to institutions, corporations or capitalism. That
Leela Sinha:we should be able to eat and sleep and breathe and rest when
Leela Sinha:we are sick. And make the choices that are best for us and
Leela Sinha:still earn a living. For a while in a past life, a fairly long
Leela Sinha:time ago, I worked as a baker in a small town. I worked at a
Leela Sinha:bakery. That is to say it was not my bakery. But there weren't
Leela Sinha:very many of us working there. And we pushed ourselves. Yes.
Leela Sinha:And some of that pushing was probably unwise. Yes. And it may
Leela Sinha:have led to my back injury, yes. But at least we were afforded
Leela Sinha:the dignity of basically making the decisions for ourselves
Leela Sinha:about what was possible. And not doing more than that. Of what we
Leela Sinha:were capable of and not doing more than that. Of not working
Leela Sinha:with substandard tools if we didn't want to. Sometimes what's
Leela Sinha:substandard isn't obvious. We worked with ancient pizza ovens.
Leela Sinha:But those old ovens would heat up come hell or high water.
Leela Sinha:Every morning. It took three hours but once they were hot,
Leela Sinha:they were hot. And we could run three, at least, batches of
Leela Sinha:bread, maybe four through them before they needed a break to
Leela Sinha:reheat. Nobody is quitting and staying at work. That's not how
Leela Sinha:that works. But how do you be a company that people don't want
Leela Sinha:to do that to? That people won't do that to. Well. You treat them
Leela Sinha:like full people. You give them plenty of time off, you give
Leela Sinha:them the flexibility to define the terms by which they are
Leela Sinha:judged. You work with them. You get them on board with your
Leela Sinha:company mission, you do something that matters in the
Leela Sinha:world. You care about them for real and you act like it. If you
Leela Sinha:ever find "Oh, well, that's a cost of doing business" coming
Leela Sinha:out of your mouth, you better be talking about something like
Leela Sinha:credit card fees. And not about human misery. Quite some time
Leela Sinha:ago, I got into a very brief spat on Twitter, because
Leela Sinha:somebody had said that he wanted to see that people were crying
Leela Sinha:at work. He was, I don't remember, either a founder or VC
Leela Sinha:and he got on this thing about "you don't have to tell me that
Leela Sinha:you're doing well. You just have to tell me that you have people
Leela Sinha:crying at their desks." And I thought that is atrocious.
Leela Sinha:Especially in the beginning of a company's culture. At the very
Leela Sinha:beginning of a company's culture. What are you thinking,
Leela Sinha:sir?
Leela Sinha:What are you thinking that you're building that into your
Leela Sinha:culture that that is considered normal? That someone being that
Leela Sinha:miserable or that tired or that overwhelmed is a sign of
Leela Sinha:success? No, sir, no. That is a sign that your system is already
Leela Sinha:failing. And your primary concern should be to stop
Leela Sinha:failing. Because that will grow into 10 and then 100 and then
Leela Sinha:1000, then 10s of 1000s of employees, all of whom have this
Leela Sinha:culture of needing to cry at their desks in order to prove
Leela Sinha:that they are working hard enough. Which leads to burnout,
Leela Sinha:which leads to resentment, which leads to corruption of various
Leela Sinha:kinds, which leads to people being less important than almost
Leela Sinha:everything including and especially the bottom line. And
Leela Sinha:if that is how you are running your company, sir, it is a moral
Leela Sinha:failure. I said as much, more or less. Some people agreed with
Leela Sinha:me, a whole pile of other founders and VCs jumped on my
Leela Sinha:head. But you know what, I'm still right. Because we know
Leela Sinha:about systems theory that you need to create a healthy culture
Leela Sinha:from the beginning, in order to have a healthy culture going
Leela Sinha:forward. And not only is it healthier for your employees,
Leela Sinha:it's also healthier for you. It also means that everyone else
Leela Sinha:develops this fierce loyalty to your organization, because your
Leela Sinha:organization is actually taking care of them. That old fashioned
Leela Sinha:company loyalty thing was some systems and propaganda, but it
Leela Sinha:was also some, the companies actually took care of their
Leela Sinha:employees sometimes. And so of course, you wanted to keep
Leela Sinha:working for them, because they were providing for you in a
Leela Sinha:reasonable way, they were making a reasonable life possible, a
Leela Sinha:balanced life possible, a happy, healthy life possible, a joyful
Leela Sinha:life possible. If that's making that possible under capitalism,
Leela Sinha:you're gonna stick with it. People don't quit, or cut back
Leela Sinha:on what they're doing, because they're happy. People cut back
Leela Sinha:and quit, because they can't figure out how they're going to
Leela Sinha:survive any other way. Nobody likes to compromise having their
Leela Sinha:basic needs met. People compromise having their basic
Leela Sinha:needs met, because they don't know what else to do. People
Leela Sinha:quit their jobs when they don't have another job. People cut
Leela Sinha:back their work, people set limits, when they have tried to
Leela Sinha:set limits every other way and nobody has paid attention. If
Leela Sinha:you're a manager, and you just keep telling someone, they need
Leela Sinha:to be more productive as you quietly eliminate position after
Leela Sinha:position at that same level so that the one person is now doing
Leela Sinha:three, or four or six jobs because it's better for-
Leela Sinha:something- your bottom line, you need to stop. Because that
Leela Sinha:person will hit a limit and that person will quit. People don't
Leela Sinha:want to. They do it because they are not happy. Because they are
Leela Sinha:not thriving, because they are slowly eating themselves in the
Leela Sinha:name of your bottom line. And that is immoral every way you
Leela Sinha:slice it. And so they just won't anymore. And that is what this
Leela Sinha:thing is that people are calling quiet quitting, it's actually
Leela Sinha:people taking care of themselves. It's actually people
Leela Sinha:attending to their own needs, it's actually people putting on
Leela Sinha:their own oxygen mask first, so that they can be of service to
Leela Sinha:others and to themselves. So don't tell me that this quiet
Leela Sinha:quitting is some kind of weird rebellion. And don't even get me
Leela Sinha:started on what the Fed has been saying about how there needs to
Leela Sinha:be a little pain in the wage-earning class. They're does
Leela Sinha:not. There does not. We can all be well-paid and treated well.
Leela Sinha:And nobody will suffer. And that is the transformation that we as
Leela Sinha:business owners can bring about. Because the more often we offer
Leela Sinha:a job with good, healthy boundaries and benefits; the
Leela Sinha:more often we, as intensives, look at the world and say this
Leela Sinha:whole system is bullshit and we're not doing it. The more we
Leela Sinha:do that the better off we'll be. The more we do that, the more
Leela Sinha:people will come to work for us, the more people will value
Leela Sinha:working for us over working for corporations that treat people
Leela Sinha:like a number on a spreadsheet. And when there are enough jobs,
Leela Sinha:like what we're offering, that will put pressure on the job
Leela Sinha:market, like what we're seeing.
Leela Sinha:And suddenly, large institutions will also have to offer people
Leela Sinha:their humanity back. Thanks for tuning in; talk to you soon.
