Quiet Quitting

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Gen Z workers demand flexibility and don't want to be
stuffed in a cubicle. Now, don't call them lazy snowflakes,
or they'll quiet quit on you. I'll explain what that
term me to quit to quiet quit? Oh, I want
to hear that you are a child. Go to something else.
So they start with the inevitable example of a real

(00:22):
human being. There's this young woman who moved San Francisco
twenty three years old. The boutique public relations firm she
works for, I'm already gagging a little bit, follows a
hybrid schedule of three days in the office per week,
meaning she no longer has to nervously message people on
Slack that she's never met in person, Which is great
because I have young kids or young adult kids, and

(00:44):
that's really tough stock. That's an inter office communications networker
inter company. Most importantly, being in the office has helped
her transition from working from her parents home to life
as working adult. I actually love going into the office.
It feels more or, she said. But I don't know
how anyone went into the office every day. I don't

(01:04):
know if we were cut out to work in a
pre COVID world that we raised them. Keep that in mind,
Oh devastating. Stevenson, that's her name. Represents a generation entering
the labor market at a time when business and employees
are redefining work and workplace after the pandemic hit. Unlike

(01:26):
the generations that came before, one of the biggest struggles
for the new crop of professionals is interpersonal connections and
relationships in the workplace. And this is a good point
after the pandemic left them isolated during pivotal years of development.
I look at the years between, you know, and it's
a different range for different people, obviously depending on where

(01:46):
they were in life, but like learning how to deal
with people on a business level between say ages twenty
two and twenty four, Man, that was critical for me.
That was everything. Yeah, you know, you make the point
that there there really wasn't a good two years to lose.
Maybe if you're one to three, but anything older than that.

(02:10):
I mean, it was horrible for your kindergarteners, it was
horrible for high schoolers, it was holder for college kids,
and it's horrible for older people. Like you're just saying, right,
and the capacity to bounce back is unknown. I mean,
if you would like to take a young man and say,
all right, you're gonna be held like a real calf
with no physical activity from puberty to two years after puberty.

(02:31):
They would never recover the muscle mass or it would
be incredibly different, difficult because of that period in their life.
It's like when you cut off five six seven year
olds from learning in person, which was an incredibly cruel mistake. Um,
they will never make up for that. You can try
like crazy, and they'll make up to some extent, but
you denied them the chance to learn at the time.

(02:52):
Their brains are made to learn like crazy, learn like
you'll never learn again in your life. So I don't
know how it's gonna be like the young adults. But
the point of the story is, uh, money may not
always be the top priority. Instead, their list includes flexibility
to work from the office and remotely, wellness and mental
health initiatives, as well as a meaningful work culture. Many

(03:14):
are willing to job hop to find the best fit.
And you know, it goes back and forth between making
some pretty good points about how devastating the coronavirus was
and how these kids are actually incredibly soft and self indulgent.
But as Jack reminds us we raged and we raised them.
So if your workers are quiet quitting, here's what that means.

(03:35):
Like so many things these days, Jack, it's big on TikTok.
They're not quitting. They are actively disengaged. One of our
favorite terms. It means your employee who not only isn't
very enthusiastic, but they try to screw you when they can,
looking for ways to hurt your company. Yeah. I guess

(03:56):
it's just it's it's a hipster young way to say. Yeah,
the boss and all these things he wants me to do,
and he wants me to work all the time and
come into the office all the time. Yeah, well, let's
see how little I can do and keep my job
because I can get plenty of jobs and quitting. That's true,
you can't get plenty of jobs right right, See how
much foot dragon you can get away with? Oh my god, yes,

(04:20):
before they'd actually fire you because they need employees. So
if you're not doing anything, I'm not sure