I don’t know if you have noticed over the last few years that there has been a whole new vocabulary develop around workplace behaviours. Much of it has arisen as Gen-Z and millennial (Gen Y) workers try to battle with the people management failures of the Gen-Y and Gen-X management class. Much of the vocabulary stems from the cocept of “quiet quitting”.
Well educated Gen-Z and Gen-Y (Millenials) employees want meaningful work; the flexibility they gained during COVID; affirmation of their value; and a wage that will allow them to buy somewhere to live in the inflated market of Australian cities. They are ambitious, have worked hard to educate themselves and got themselves good jobs. They justifiably feel entitled to be treated well.
As the Baby Boomer generation leave the workplace the managerial class is being replaced with Gen X and Gen Y. Baby Boomer’s had learnt their craft in the hypercompetitive 1980s and 1990s when there was high unemployment and to get ahead you needed to have strong people skills to win promotion. Gen X and moreso Gen Y appear to be managers who are very good at spreadsheet calculations and toadying up to their bosses and have been given charge of other humans for which they have no empathy or concern.
This workforce dichotomy has generated a whole new vocabulary that hints at the depth of this divide.
Quiet quitting
Quiet quitting is a term that is a masterpiece of modern understatement—nobody actually quits—they just stop doing the tasks that aren’t in their job description. We used to call this “coasting” or “working to rule” but quiet quitting has lost the negative moral judgement because the lack of motivation comes from being undervalued and under-appreciated by the organisation.
Act your wage
Based on the expression acting your age, act your wage means that you perform within the narrow range of your pay grade. If an employee’s value in the workplace is treated as a transactional exchange of salary or wage for job outputs then there is little incentive to do more. We might have called this “cynicism” previously but now it is framed as a response to an uncaring management.
Productivity theatre
Productivity theatre is a term that captures the need to not just do your work but be SEEN to perform your work. If you are working from home or indeed being suspected of quiet quitting you need to send late-night emails, turn up an on line meetings that you are not needed at, and post regular in work chat rooms.
Coffee badging
Coffee badging is a bit of new one to me but I like it. It means to appear at the office, swipe your attendance card, have a short black, talk to a few people and then disappear. You get the badge and now you can get on with your life.
Bare minimum Mondays
Bare minimum Mondays was coined in 2022 by Marisa Jo Mayes on TikTok it signals a response to work burnout from the Sunday scaries (anxiety at having to go back to work on Monday) and perceived worker exploitation. It can be seen not as a form of quiet quitting but about preserving yourself from burnout.
Presenteeism
Presenteeism has two different meanings: originally coined as the opposite of absenteeism when people would turn up to work sick; but now changed to mean present in body but absent in motivation. It is an older version of quiet quitting. There is a suggestion that allowing workers to turn up and work while they really should be home sick helps build engagement, but the downside is everyone then gets infected.
Resenteeism
I love how people use language and from “presenteeism” we get resenteeism (coined by SaaS cloud provider, RotaCloud and popularized in 2023 on TikTok). It is the dissatisfaction that occurs when you choose to remain in an unfulfilling job that creates resentment and a sense of entrapment (another form of quiet quitting).
Leaveism
Leavism is a term for using annual leave to catch up on your work. Answering emails from the beach; taking your laptop to the restaurant; and answering the phone in the toilet cubicle may once have been called dedication but now just sounds sad and tragic.
Pleasanteeism
Pleasanteeism is another favourite—it refers to compulsory cheerfulness in preference to straight-faced stoicism. Radiate positivity and smile in the team photo while wanting to get out of there as soon as possible.
Unretiring
While many of my peers are retiring quite a few are coming back into the workforce signalling financial realities, better health and longer lives, and perhaps boredom and spousal encouragement. They are unretiring.
These words are amusing, clever and using them helps us to deal with difficulties in our workplace. However, the rise of this cynical vocabulary in popular culture perhaps indicates that a little more effort needs to be put into looking after the younger generation (and the rest of us) who perceive their workplaces as exploitative, and un-engaging.