Photo: Sorbis / Shutterstock & TikTok
She shows up five seconds before her shift starts and takes ten minutes to put on her apron.
By NyRee Ausler — Written on May 19, 2023
Many employees are starting to realize that more effort at work doesn’t necessarily equal more pay or appreciation from the job. Workers are more than willing to walk away when they feel their workplace is not conducive to their personal well-being.
A woman named ‘Grace’ recently recorded her own declaration for TikTok where she realized that her check is the same amount every week, no matter how much effort she puts into the job.
When she picked up her check she realized it hadn’t changed at all, even though she put in maximum effort.
Photo: TikTok
Grace told viewers, “It finally hit me that no matter what I do—if I give amazing effort, great effort, okay effort, or ‘p-ss poor’ effort, I’m getting paid the same. So, I’m [going to] go with p-ss poor effort.”
People in the comments wholeheartedly agreed with her. The first person to give their feedback said, “People need to learn to work their wage. if I'm making as much as the new guy... I'm acting like I'm new”.
A second commenter added, “If hard work isn't rewarded or acknowledged, people will stop and start doing the minimum”. From there, commenter after commenter supported only doing, the bare minimum required at work, something known as ‘quiet quitting.’
The employee kept her word and proceeded to start her quiet-quitting process at work the very next week.
In another video she uploaded, Grace detailed the ways in which she was doing exactly what was needed in order to not get fired. She documented her way of quiet-quitting her job at Starbucks.
The caption in the video read, “So, every day this week, I walked in to work five seconds before my shift began and took ten minutes to put on my apron and my microphone.”
Grace also said she moved slowly when cleaning the counters and the cases. During team meetings, she did not offer any input, but simply nodded her head in agreement.
When it came to making coffee for customers, according to her, she did exactly what the stickers on the drinks said, though she knew from experience that some of the orders had mistakes in them.
She ended that video that proved she was living up to her promise of not overextending herself by saying, “When I got off work every single day, I went back to the best book on quiet quitting, and steamy times I’ve ever read (Two Weeks Notice) and decided to put in my ‘two weeks’ notice.’”
The battle between employees over pay vs. performance is similar to the age-old question, ‘What came first, the chicken or the egg?’
Should companies pay people bigger salaries upfront and hope they will rise to the occasion, or should workers need to prove their worth before being paid appropriately?
Though that question will likely never have a definitive answer, salaries should always align with the expectations of the work at hand. When employees go above and beyond their job descriptions to the company’s benefit, they should absolutely be compensated and promoted accordingly.
At the same time, anything that any of us do in life should be done with the intention of doing the right thing and giving our best efforts, even when no one is watching. If employees and employers create a culture of respect and transparency, no one will feel the need to quit quietly.
NyRee Ausler is a writer and author from Seattle. She covers issues navigating the workplace using the experience garnered over two decades of working in Human Resources & Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.