r/antiwork • u/bobcat734 • 2d ago
The reason everyone is “quiet quitting” is because they reward everybody who does nothing while ignoring the people who are productive
I have never received a promotion the entire 4 years I’ve been at my current job.
Hounded them over and over again.
Just been told they have “no money” or “timing is not right”. “We don’t have it in the budget”.
Basically every excuse under the sun to not pay people a market rate for the experience they have.
And yet every month they seem to bring more and more managers onboard because they “know their stuff”.
At this point is basically just become adult daycare for nepo hires. People who just sit on calls all day and offer no value. But everyone around them thinks the sun shines out their ass for some reason.
They’re basically all protecting their own asses because they know they offer no value and would get cut instantly if we needed money.
These managers do nothing aside from scrutinise everything you do in order the make themselves look busy.
And hold hour long meetings where all they talk about is how great their weekends were and how amazing they are. It’s all me me me.
Anytime anything goes wrong they immediately come to you up in arms and stressed for you to “trouble shoot” because they don’t know what they are talking about.
I have just started to respond with; “That’s above my pay grade” and they go absolutely ape shit when they realise they actually have to try and fumble their way through the very job they passed an interview for.
They serve no purpose.
I have 5 direct managers and I am in a team of 4 of us.
But what really grinds my gears is they keep seconding people into roles after claiming they had no money to give the rest of us a pay rise or promotion.
So the “budget” they don’t have magically appears when the face fits. Yet when I ask, they don’t want to know.
They just promoted one person into a;
System infrastructure continuity lead
Whatever the fuck that means
And all of our systems are Microsoft.
This person has basically hidden anytime anything they have done in the past has gone wrong.
And now they WANT TO REWARD THEM with more money and a shiny new job title.
They’re being taken for a ride and they truly believe this person is some sort of genius. They’re all freaking idiots.
The last process this person put in place got scrapped after 2 weeks….. and now they are suddenly the EXPERT in everything.
The higher ups are now moaning about productivity slumping.
Like yeah, no shit we aren’t going to work as fast.
There is no incentive to.
That is why productivity is falling.
All my colleagues just have no motivation anymore because month by month we just keep getting shit slung at us, and nobody ever has our backs.
When something goes wrong it always falls on us. And it is never the managers who step in. Keep getting told “It’s a learning experience” like we aren’t all adults and are still in high school. It’s a humiliation ritual at this point.
When you screw over the workers who actually provide value you will soon learn very quickly that everything can unwind in a few weeks if we don’t play along anymore.
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u/Left-Star2240 2d ago
I applied for a promotion. I knew all the systems and challenges my colleagues faced. I had 10+ years experience with the company. I regularly received calls from colleagues for advice.
It wouldn’t have cost them much more in payroll. I would have taken on more responsibility for a whopping $5 more an hour.
The response was that I needed to “demonstrate leadership without authority,” as though I wasn’t already doing this. They hired someone outside the company. My direct manager who I respected was forced to train him. He was useless.
I only “quiet quit” until I could actually quit. I punched in, did the minimum my job description required, and then punched out. My colleague also “quiet quit,” but didn’t actually quit.
Luckily I found a new job quickly and gave notice a month later. I’ve since learned that the person they hired stormed off the job after screaming at a longtime employee.
If employers aren’t going to promote from within, they don’t get to be surprised when employees leave for other opportunities.
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u/red__dragon 2d ago
Friend of mine had a similar situation, was told to 'demonstrate leadership' except they when they did, they got told to sit back down and work within the processes.
It's bullshit. At some point they just stopped applying for better positions and are just riding out some benefits while the company reshuffles (and probably kills their job).
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u/mopedophile 2d ago
I have been up for a promotion the last 2 years, my boss supports it, and his boss supports it. But HR said there are too many senior positions in the US so no promotions unless you are in India. They straight up said my work supports a more senior position but they won't give it to me.
Also every time there are layoffs they go way out of the way to make it clear they have nothing to do with performance, and basically no one gets fired outside of layoffs.
So there is no reward for hard work and no punishment for bad work. So why shouldn't I do the bare minimum and abuse our unlimited PTO while I look for a new job.
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u/Amosral 2d ago
Yeeeah I had an employer string me along with a promotion like that, I did an interview and they told me we'd do a kind of trial period, then after the 3 months 'trial' they said I'd have to submit my cv and have another interview, because upper management wanted to "put the job up on rhe market and see what their options were" I decided two can play that game, didn't give them my CV but instead posted it on a recruitment site. I got 10 phone calls in 2 days. It was hilarious, I had no idea until then that my skillset was in such demand. I got a new job that offered like 30% more money, was more fun, and had more room for growth.
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u/laurasaurus5 2d ago edited 2d ago
I had an employer string me along with a promotion like that, I did an interview and they told me we'd do a kind of trial period, then after the 3 months 'trial' they said I'd have to submit my cv and have another interview
This should seriously be considered wage theft and should be made illegal.
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u/Thanatofobia 2d ago
"Quiet quitting" is made up by HR people to make people think it is bad to do exactly what they are paid to do.
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u/za72 2d ago
There's ZERO upward mobility... HR wants to call that quiet quitting? congrats... but that's the root cause
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u/albatrossSKY 2d ago
Why the fuck would I want to be the boss os this shithole?
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u/JumpingThruHoopz 1d ago
If you just love extra bureaucratic nonsense and dealing with idiots…it might be for you.
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u/FadeIntoReal 2d ago
“We don’t have it in the budget”.
So you’re telling me you can’t afford the labor required to operate your business? Sounds like it’s time to fail.
They love capitalism until it puts them in bankruptcy.
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u/ephemeriis_ 2d ago
The reason everyone is “quiet quitting”...
I prefer the phrase "acting your wage" because I think it highlights the problem better. Nobody is actually quitting - they're just not going above and beyond the way that management wants them to. Because there's no incentive in it.
If you want outstanding performance you need to pay for it. If you want me to care about this job you need to make it into something worth caring about. It's a two-way street - if you want me to be dedicated and loyal and go the extra mile you need to do that for me, too.
If you're paying me the bare minimum required by law you're going to get the bare minimum out of me.
You want me to show initiative? Go above and beyond? Give 110%. Reward that. Give me something to work towards. A goal to achieve.
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u/CommonStrawbeary 2d ago
My annual review last year was all 4s and 5s, 20k bonus.
My coworkers annual review was 2s and 3s, 25k bonus.
Difference? she worked more hours. Because everything takes her longer, because she's not as good at the job as I am.
I have had a LOVELY 2026 taking double the time it took me to do everything last year; same amount of time doing the work I'm just on instagram/reddit much longer for each assignment and logging it all.
Its actually shocking how poorly run companies are
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u/Fabulous_Progress820 2d ago
I always get all 4s and 5s and have always gotten our max 5% raise. This last year I was only given a 4% raise despite having the same scores as usual and having worked extra hard after getting a promotion to management the previous year. The only negative things my manager had to say about me were that another manager complained about how much pushback he gets from me (a boomer that expects me to just do what he says when he says it, but I won't do something if I don't understand the reasoning first or if it goes against procedure) and that a different coworker told him I complain about having to attend meetings (they always talk in circles and the meetings could be at least half as long). Which after explaining my side of things, my boss even agreed that they weren't as bad as the coworkers made it sound.. but still only have me the 4% raise. So of course this year we're now constantly behind on everything because why would I put in full effort if I'm not going to get a full raise.
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u/Renbarre 1d ago
Our company gives us the raise rating before the year end review. Last year above expectation was a 'stupendous' 2% raise.
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u/Fabulous_Progress820 1d ago
My boss does it all in one go as an unnecessary hour long meeting. But 2% is ridiculous. I remember back in the early 2000s, my mom being excited over getting $0.25 raise at her new job, rather than her usual $0.10 that she typically got every year at the last job. She was making about $8/hr at both jobs, so that raise was just a standard and the previous job had been giving such paltry raises that it was basically just an insult.
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u/Slamtilt_Windmills 2d ago
Is thus the scale where 3 is "meets expectations"? Because i has a task for the year, support cost save efforts, for people who had to get 30k in cost saves. On my own, after hours, and partially on christmas, I did Christmas, that saved $150k, and got a "meets expectations "
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u/calaan 2d ago
That’s not accurate. Productive people aren’t ignored, they get MORE work.
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u/JuanNephrota 2d ago
Had a boss once that told me “you’re like a good whore. The better you are, the more you get fucked.”
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u/Short-While3325 2d ago
I applied for my former manager's job. Everyone thought it was in the bag. I was basically taking over the entire department in their absense.
Nope. Went to someone who knew someone high up in corporate. They flew them across the country and got them a hotel for a week every month to be my manager. And when you don't know how to manage, you micro-manage. I started to gray rock them and maliciously comply with all requests until they quit.
I got a bunch of write-ups that looked more like bullying than anything. Never trusted HR after that though (I thought they at least had integrity to see when something is being done in bad faith).
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u/BoredOfReposts 2d ago
The reward for a job well done is increased workload and the expectation that you will do just as good a job on that increased workload moving forward.
Only 1 in 4 on an average team is engaged, everyone else is trying not to be noticed and collect a paycheck.
Work your wage, don’t do extra work you aren’t getting paid for.
If its a toxic environment, find a way out. Or find a way to insulate yourself from it. That shit will take years off your life.
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u/FootSureDruid 2d ago
You just made me realize that in 15 years of working, I was never promoted a single time. I only ever leveled up by quitting and going somewhere else, only then was I ever offered more money or title and I busted my ass with always exceeding expectations in performance reviews
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u/kilamumster 2d ago
Oh shit, this one is sentient! Remove them from the matrix!
Old reference, but hey, it fits.
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u/Errornametaken 2d ago
Your job has the chance to go above and beyond every pay day, but you get ECACTLY what youre owed, so thats the amount of work I do. Exactly what is owed.
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u/please_fix_your_face 2d ago
I can honestly say that 65% of the people that makes 6 figures in my company can’t figure out a Microsoft product, email a pdf or remember a daily pass phrase so it’s on a post it note on their desk. They also never empty their voicemail so they are impossible to reach because they are “away from their desk”
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u/Mindless_Abroad4520 2d ago
It's even worse when they quiet promote you. You get more and more responsibilities, more work, they get mad when you have a day off because nobody can do your job, but when it comes to pay you're not that important.
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u/dalastwaterbender 2d ago
Or they reward you with more work 😒
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u/kilamumster 2d ago
I wish they would ignore me. Instead, I've learned to act my wage, "oh, is that added responsibility a promotion and increase? That's intriguing g , more money would be great!"
"Oh, no? Well, I mean, if the whole team is being tasked with this, that makes sense. Otherwise I'm not looking to have my duties diverge even more from the core work we are all doing! We work great when we are able to all be working at the same level!“
Yeah, I'm union, bish, don't be trying to work me above my pay grade.
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u/Pathetic_Cards 2d ago
The people who make these choices have literally built a system where the best possible choice we can make is to operate with zero loyalty to our employers and zero concern for the end product or quality of our work.
You get a raise by using company time to apply for a new job, where they’ll give you the raise you want to get you in the door. And a year later they’ll stiff you on your raise and pay some new hire more, so you get a new job to get your raise.
It’s been a major issue in the programming industry forever. You hire programmers and refuse to give them raises or promotions, so they recognize the quality of their work is irrelevant, they just need to job hop every year or so. So you end up paying the same money, actually likely more, than what your old programmer was asking, and instead of having a good code base, instead you have garbage spaghetti code that takes forever to work on because it’s such a mess, since nobody whose worked on it for a decade has had an incentive to give a fuck.
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u/Acrobatic_Dinner309 2d ago
I've been making sure that at my current job, which I've been at for more than a decade, my bosses expect very little of me and that they joke about seeing me working. It makes my life so much easier and as I've been there so long I can't be easily fired (unions are strong in my country). I am also one of the more knowledgeable workers at my workplace so I can just get by by my bosses knowing that most customers that I interact with will be at least neutral about the interaction but most love it. Also clean a lot, that seems to make at least my bosses think that I'm always doing something!
Tl:dr: Set expectations low and become very knowledgeable about what you work with, look busy and the bosses will basically think "They might not be our best worker, but we know they'll do the job well enough that we don't have to micromanage them"!
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u/AdneyNorthWest 2d ago
I wonder if anyone who reads this post works with the payroll and can verify what is generally thought about nepotism being given regular bumps in salary?
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u/JiveTurkeyII 2d ago
I did my time in HR for a while. It is the place the gossip goes to and comes from.
Everyday people with too much power.
I could wreck the lives of people with more seniority than me. Better educated than me. in better tax brackets than me - but they find ways to keep you in line - trust me.
HR is a hive of scum an villainy in business casual.
It's gossip and small talk and getting giddy before a shaming. It's eye-rolls at real problems you want to go away and snickers and chuckles after somebody you have shamed walks out without signing their disciplinary form.
It is the most cynical place in an office I've ever worked.
We didn't give a fuck about the nepotism. We were as much a part of that system as any officer in the company.
There is a reason I work from home now and have gotten as far away from corporate anything that I possibly can.
Modern day corporate is the disease that is rotting this country inside out.
Fucking High School 2.0 for the most part.
It's all so crass and cynical and sad.
Best advice I can ever give - It is much more important to be liked than to be productive.
All of you "I'm not here to make friends" types may as well go hop off a corporate cliff - because knowing what ass to kiss and how, what secrets to keep and when to narc or drop an "anonymous" tip... If you aren't playing the friends games, you aren't doing it right.
Ugh. So many bad memories.
Gonna go gag myself.
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u/imperialfragments 2d ago
We called the do nothings biscuits. They just sat there and soaked up the gravy. While anyone who they new could get the job done was given more workload and more responsibility.
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u/Zealousideal_Low_774 2d ago
I recently transitioned into my "I don't give a fuck" era and have never known such peace. Still get paid the same amount as before only I log off on time and have evenings to myself again
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u/Remote_War_313 2d ago
Employer and employee interests will always be conflicting.
The employer would prefer you go above and beyond without a raise for minimum wages.
The employee would prefer raises and minimum effort.
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u/Selgeron 2d ago
The only job I ever really tried at was commission based, and I mostly didn't listen to the managers there either- I just read my Commission Contract and did what made me the most money.
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u/Tzokal 2d ago
The reward for being productive and doing work is MORE work. And then that becomes the new expectation going forward. It’s a vicious cycle and the only way to really handle it is to do just enough to not get fired and just enough to not create extra work for your coworkers, but never more than that.
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u/jaxdogg94 2d ago
See it all the time, I work in customer service as a technician and go into customers homes. One of our technicians was in a home, customer overheard a phone call that he was one and mistook his conversation about the customer that was present . The customer began to argue with the technician and had physical altercation. Technician was fired, won his job back (union) and was promoted. It’s obvious he can’t work with customers any longer, I’ve done everything right and have been working with the public since I was 12yrs old and am 50yrs old now. Told my supervisor the other day I’m burned out, the public suck. All the bums get promoted. I now follow in their footsteps.
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u/marretter 2d ago
And chances are in order to get these new people to accept the job, they probably have to pay them more than what the current staff is making. It’s a big eff you to the employees who have been loyal and productive. It’s no wonder people are “job hopping” and leaving companies after 2 years or less because it’s the only way you can get a promotion or a raise.
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u/RaisedByBooksNTV 2d ago
One thing I've thought of doing in the future is post my job description right in front of me so every day I remind myself to only do what I've been hired to do. And maybe it'll be passive aggressive for my manager.
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u/playinginthedarks 2d ago edited 19h ago
It's ok to quiet quit, just before you go tell everyone how much you make and if you get a raise at your new job then tell others too, pay won't change till we force change, hostile environments won't change until we force change. When we get hurt at work the minimum is done for us because they don't want us suing them, But want us to go above and beyond.
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u/csstew55 2d ago
I found out last night after receiving my paystub that the $2 an hr promotion I received 3 weeks ago to help out a department that lost 5 people in 2 days due to them leaving for new management. Meanwhile the company promoted 3 under qualified people to lead positions in which 2 of them refuse to work with each other to make their jobs easier and the other 1 doesn’t even follow safety rules and over produces everything so he doesn’t have to work as hard the next day (even though he struggles and needs help to finish his task while managing to stay on the clock a few extra hours every day.
Meanwhile I’ve been busting ass every day not only doing my work but helping other areas out because i thought i got a raise in income. Well now im using my weekend to look at job opportunities and to give the middle finger to this company as i throw everyone under the bus when i leave
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u/Booboo-Dog874 7h ago
I'm sorry I didn't quite understand did you not get the two dollar an hour raise? Not that its a huge amount but everybit helps!
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u/Only_Tip9560 1d ago
They reality is that you have to spend lots of time selling how great you are to senior leaders who have little time to actually check. Tell a great story and you are set. This is much easier if other people are doing your work for you.
Appearances are far more important than reality. Getting your punches in first is far more important than actually telling the truth.
Pretty depressing.
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u/Pleasant-Blueberry84 1d ago
Just wait till they find out you're competent - then they'll pile responsibility on you endlessly and your peers will get promotions for basically taking zero initiative or ownership over as little as possible.
The game is not played the way you thought it was. Stop playing the game you want to play and play the game that's in front of you.
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u/Ninja-Panda86 1d ago
This is also the reason massive job hopping is happening. I've only ever gotten a raise when I've left.
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u/vixenlion 2d ago
Training managers about their job sucks
That is me every day.
No manager you can’t do that.
Why ?
Because of this and this and this
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u/Cultural-Answer-321 2d ago
This is why you never have loyalty to any company and millions job hop.
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u/deadinsidelol69 2d ago
Stop putting in the extra effort at work. Strive to be mediocre if not borderline useless. Going above and beyond will get you nothing but more work. I’ve had multiple bosses tell me this to my face.
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u/Ok-Willow-9145 2d ago
Don’t stagnate start a job search. That’s how you get raises and promotions now. The best time to look is while you’re still employed.
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u/chopped_Lettuce434 1d ago
My husband can do hours of work in one hour. Constantly over achieves and goes above and beyond. Up at 7am and stops at 9pm. He has continously been denied a promotion or raise because he is remote. No other reason other than he doesnt want to move to a major city where the 90k salary would move our current living standard of middle class to that of lower class. Being disabled, a woman, and having a small child this can be dangerous because you could be hurt living in high crime areas which is all we could afford especially since 30k of our income alone is given to health insurance. He constantly is told he may be let go because he is remote despite being one of their highest productive team members. He trains people, he flies out without objection to wherever they ask knowing that each time he leaves home he leaves his disabled wife alone with their child, he loses hours of sleep and family time to make sure he does his work perfectly because this job provides us the income in our specific state to keep us middle class, afford amazing healthcare (by the standard of having some of the worst healthcare standards by state yayyyy), and gives the opportunity for us to travel if we budget well and deal with discomfort. But for all this what does he get? No you can't have a senior promotion at all despite being one of our longest employees. No you can't have a raise despite being so good at your job that when our product failed to impress our customers you worked very hard to get them confortable and therefore allowed us to keep our mult million dollar project that even gave us another multi million project in a separate part of the government and they asked specifically for you. Yes we will dangle your job security over your head every day and turn your hairs gray by working you to the bone for us and stressing you out about your job security. (Yes he is desperately trying to move jobs without damaging our finances but unfortunately with the new economic depression tech jobs are few and far between. He is also older and they are trending towards younger employees even when slightly older ones can out perform them easily, not to say young people shouldnt get the job he literally has been training them for his job but he still performs better)
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u/CincyLog 2d ago
Do I get paid more if I do more? That is the answer to the question about quiet quitting. If I get rewarded for my extra effort then maybe I will put in the extra effort
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u/one_step_beyond2121 2d ago
I just quite a place that promoted all their managers to another location and more pay to run a plant that has been struggling for a decade, they are going to make it worse. They had no effect at the plant we worked at and started doing all those bad things we see here in this sub. Favoritism, no planning, more paperwork, bad hires, no respect for people woth experience and not pushing new people to get adjusted to the job.
What are the CEO's doing now? Seems like everyone on salary just take care of themselves and fuck everyone below them.
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u/Fabulous_Progress820 2d ago
Sounds like it's time to move on to something different if you're not already job hunting. I guarantee you'd be able to make more money elsewhere if it's been 4 years since you last got a raise.
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u/ScaryGarry_SG1 2d ago
It's not my job to work hard. My actual job is collecting the check while not helping. I encourage all the "we are family" employers to do something about it here in 2026 and see how it works out for you
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u/rocket_beer 2d ago
Exactly
Capitalism is why we are anti-work
We need a different economic and social model
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u/wovenbasket69 1d ago
i worked remote for my last company. when i went in for a team building event, a coworker asked how many of our locations i had on my roster currently (accounting), i answered and immediately everyone in our circle went quiet. turns out i was doing 2x the amount of work anyone else who was being nice to me was doing. the other workhorses were really nice after finding that out though and helped me when i needed it 🤜🤛
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u/JumpingThruHoopz 1d ago
Productivity is bullshit.
Don’t knock yourself out working hard. You’ve seen for yourself that it doesn’t get you anything extra.
Employers are expecting more and more from us, while giving back less and less.
Do the things you agreed to do, to the best of your ability. But don’t go above and beyond, since you’ve now seen that you won’t be rewarded for it.
And don’t measure your worth or self-esteem by your job. Work is not who you are. You would have inherent value as a human being even if you never did another work task for the rest of your life.
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u/JaySpunPDX 2d ago
You seem to have a lot of contempt for the place you work at. And rightfully so. However, you should deeply consider going somewhere else and working somewhere that brings you happiness and joy because life is too fucking long to be dealing with people that bum you out all the time. I know that’s easier said than done but the long-term it will be rewarding.
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u/24_August_1814 2d ago
Real super helpful advice, champ. "Just go down to the job store, where good jobs grow on trees! There's an unlimited number of jobs out there where you'll be paid well and treated with respect, nobody can possibly ever be trapped in a shitty job for any reason!"
I can pretty much guarantee OP, and everyone else you'd share this "wisdom" with, is actively looking for a better job.
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u/tango_41 2d ago