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.
til I’m Japanese
今こそ日本語の話し方を学ぶ、expatriadoさん。
Duolingoはもう選択肢にないようです
I worked at a place where basically every other department would stand in the lobby at 4:58 PM, waiting for accounting (which was on the other side of the building) to leave. If you didn’t wait, the CEO would likely see you from his office window and you’d be getting a “talking to” by your supervisor the next day. I have never before or since worked anywhere where I’ve seen so much collective time wasting, trying to keep up the appearance of being busy.
This was an American company. I don’t miss that shit hole in the slightest.
America has a mentality of “I’m paying you for your time, not the quality of your work.” Even if you complete the work assigned to you they will throw a hissy fit if you leave one minute early because that is one minute they are paying you that you arent available if something goes wrong.
It’s all ass backwards because it is cheaper in the short term to pay for cheap labor with low reliability and high availability than for expensive labor with high reliability and medium to low availability. If you take the high availability away from the former you are left with nothing.
Doing a good job is also self-defeating.
Managers want to see you grow every year. If you do your best early on in your career, you will hurt your ability to show growth that’s visible to management. Therefore, the optimal solution is to do a better job by a barely perceptible amount every year, staying under your maximum quality output until you’re retired/dead.
The reward for good work is more work
This is one reason I hope to never leave my sweet WFH gig
depends on what you do. I’ve only seen that when working at a corporate grocery store as a teen. after that I’ve been surprised how it wasn’t that way at all even though I was always told in school it would be that way. every other workplace I’ve been in (office jobs) has treated everyone like an adult. get your work done and do it well and do what you need to do that. I’ve been pretty lucky I guess
You are lucky. Office jobs with stack ranking are rife with backstabbers and politics.
This is also going away (and it’s less staring out the window and more pretending to be busy), but it’s not going to happen overnight, particularly where the micro-managing dinosaurs are still in control. I’ve worked at two (fairly westernized) Japanese companies and have not seen this personally, but know many who have.
I’ve been reading more about the job market in Spain lately and it sounds like they have a similar problem. Not nearly to the extent that Japan does, but similar attitudes about being at work for unnecessarily long hours even if there’s no real point. There doesn’t appear to be any reward, either. I don’t blame people for declining to participate.
It is seen as a positive to fall asleep at work because it means you’re working hard 😂
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…
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.
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
It’s corporate media term for doing what your job requires, but not giving your time to companies for free
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
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.
People do give their time to companies for free- it’s called working free overtime and tons of people do it (exempt employee pain), which is why employers are not happy with the change. What my comment says is just the short version of what you’re saying- you’re doing what the job requires and no more
Literally doing your job. And nothing else.
“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.
I know a neoliberal small business owner who was complaining that his minimum wage workers aren’t as invested as he is… I told him that was obvious: they don’t benefit from the work they do, they don’t own any of the business, and there is always more minimum wage work out there. By his own ideology, why should they care about something that gets them nothing but the bare minimum and has no intrinsic value?
Doing what you’re paid to do without doing extra shit.
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.
“Quiet quitting” would be 37 or even 38 in your example. Basically doing what’s in your job description, but nothing more. Setting clear work/life boundaries where you aren’t accessible to do work for your boss/manager outside of working hours (even if they just want you to answer some emails while you’re on vacation or whatever), and not doing stuff that you aren’t qualified for/isn’t in your job description and that you aren’t getting paid extra to do.
People have started refusing to let companies expect more than they’re paying for, and it’s pissed them off, so they’re calling it “quiet quitting.”
“[make a guy]…work just hard enough to not get fired.”
This one.
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
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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.
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.
You’re doing exactly as much as required? How rude of you.
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.
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.
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.
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).
Goddamn I wish they’d stop using “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.
we should normalize to punch everyone in the gut who uses the words “quiet quitting”.
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.
How is this related to quiet quitting?
Generally, leaving work early in Japan is (was?) seen as lazy and a sign of a morally dubious person. Keep in mind that, traditionally, people in Japan are expected to work 12-16 hour days with no complaints and, for businesspeople, sleep at the office if there is a lot of work to be done.
The fact that people are eager to leave early and don’t think of it as inherently shameful signifies a huge shift in culture.
Considering the article specifically mentions Japan, and that typical Japanese work culture is quite literally the opposite of what I’ve observed, I think this is very related.
It is an interesting anecdote that was worth sharing, but quiet quitting employees underperform and do the bare minimum while watching the seconds until the end of their shift. Your teams are doing the opposite.
You can’t say employees are both doing the bare minimum and underperforming. It doesn’t make sense.
A person doing the bare minimum underperforms the average worker.
Makes sense to me.
No, no, no. Two concepts.
Doing the bare minimum = being productive enough that you don’t get yelled at Underperforming = being unproductive enough that you get yelled at
It’s not possible to do both.
Underperforming = being unproductive enough that you get yelled at
Don’t agree with this definition. In a group, half the people will be underperforming and half will be overperforming. Yelling is not at all guaranteed.
But we do agree that if you do less than the bare minimum then you do get shouted at.
Japanese work culture often meant staying late and working unpaid overtime to appear extra-productive. Now you’ve got an anecdote describing people who finish the job, consider their work done, and cut out early despite not having fulfilled an arbitrarily dictated number of hours worked. It is a sharp reversal in behavior.
Hmm, what’s your definition of quiet quitting? The definition I understand is doing your job as it is described to you, but not doing any of the “going the extra mile” for free, or putting in extra effort beyond what the job description entails.
I’m also curious if those replying to you also have the same or different definitions, since conversations only work if we agree on the definition of terms.
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
The Japanese work ethic doesn’t even make sense and does more harm than good. If you don’t have time for yourself or family the society will collapse (already happening). To be clear, I’m not talking about being diligent work, but working 8+ hours every single day.
Many Japanese don’t leave work at 5pm even though those are the official business hours because it’s rude to leave before the boss leaves. So people stay at work until 7 or 8pm. Many times having to also go drinking with co-workers or the boss. So, depending on the day, you may end up with 1-2 hours for yourself. No wonder they aren’t having children, and depression rates are sky high.
Same applies to Korea.
