Boss Accuses Worker of “Quiet Quitting” for Not Working Extra

Employment laws exist for a reason. While there are some people who are ambitious and pride themselves on going above and beyond for their vocations, there are others who are more than happy with working the hours they are contractually and legally obligated to fulfill in the time that’s allotted to them.

And it’s this difference in opinion when it comes to hustling, the idea of “living to work” as opposed to “working to live” that’s the subject of a lot of debates between folks who possess differing ideologies when it comes to human existence. There are some who relish the idea of busting their humps in the pursuit of having a dream job that defines who they are as an individual.

And then there are those who believe that their personal lives are best separated from their jobs: they want to clock in, clock out, and not bring their work home with them.

Redditor @Sol-Blackguy describes themselves as a model employee, just so long as that model doesn’t include picking up extra shifts. Something that recently caused their bosses a lot of frustration.

OP uploaded an interaction they had with their managers in Reddit’s r/antiwork sub, delineating how they were being subtly coerced into working more hours by management after the company were short-handed and the temps that they were bringing on board weren’t cutting it.

OP describes themselves as an “anchor employee” and “more reliable than death and taxes” when it comes to arriving to their shifts on time and getting their work done.

However, due to the labor shortage, the business was experiencing, a number of mainstay workers were either picking up double shifts or were moved to different departments, with fewer people working in these departments than before to help get more coverage.

OP said that after coming back from their lunch break one day, a manager called them over to have a meeting and mentions these “personnel issues” that they were experiencing before transitioning the discussion to “quiet quitting.”

OP wanted to know what that had to do with them before one of the managers began pointing out the fact that they hadn’t been picking up voluntary overtime. The Redditor is part of a worker’s union which, due to overtime favoritism in the past at the job, made any requests for overtime have to be entirely voluntary on the part of the employee.

This means that for management to outright ask a worker to get overtime could potentially get them into a sticky situation. So when OP outright told their managers that if they were suggesting they work overtime hours in addition to their standard shift schedule then they would have to ask outright.

This caused visible frustration and awkwardness because they managers realized that OP wasn’t going to volunteer to take on additional shifts.

And it’s not that the overtime pay isn’t compensated, OP says that they could definitely make more money if they worked overtime, but they have a fairly low standard of living and aren’t really concerned with being ambitious anymore.

Ultimately, OP returned to work while the one manager was left rubbing their temples, not knowing what to do.