Posted Sep 15, 2022, 6:00 PM
“At the end of high school, I decided to start studying communication, from which I graduated. After experiences in two different companies, I joined my current employer last year.
Since joining this company, I feel like I’ve given too much, whether in terms of overtime, skipped lunch breaks, or whatever. Efforts that we make out of total commitment to our employer. After a while, we say to ourselves that our company will, at one time or another, recognize all the work provided, that it will value us. Except that no, not at all: my hierarchy has nothing to do with it. The policy of my group is clear, it is to say that no one is irreplaceable.
This is where my decision to do as little as possible came from. I need it for my self-esteem: since I am not recognized at my fair value, I rebalance things in my own way. I’m angry because on top of that, I landed in a position below my level of experience. It has been eight years since I entered the professional world and I was recruited as if I had just left school. I was told, it doesn’t matter, come take this position and once your probationary period is over, we will upgrade you.
To be upgraded, you can always wait
I believed them…but I shouldn’t have. At the end of my probationary period, I was finally told that unfortunately, for budget reasons, my upgrading would wait until the summer of 2022. At the same time, HR put pressure on me, telling me to prove myself to ‘justify’ even more this upgrading. It’s a vicious method, knowing that it’s just paying me at a level that matches my experiences.
As summer approached, I was finally told that I would have to wait until 2023 to be upgraded. And the day when I adopted this method of silent resignation, my company offered to move me to a more senior position… but without any salary increase, which I obviously did not accept. It was the last straw.
Since that moment, I no longer invest myself as before in my work.
And I am not an isolated case. Most of my parent colleagues are now quitting work earlier without feeling guilty, which they would never have dared to do a few months ago. But very often, doing as little as possible ultimately comes down to respecting the prerogatives of the employment contract, since it was often customary for employers to see their employees stay late at work, answer the telephone in the evening or answer their emails during the holidays.
No more overtime and projects carried out at full speed
Concretely, what has changed for me? First, I no longer work weekends from home as I often did before. Then, I spread the projects for which I am responsible over several weeks, whereas I had previously completed them in a few days. Besides, I take breaks every hour, I no longer react to e-mail requests within a minute, I no longer work overtime, I now always leave at 6 p.m. instead of 7 p.m. Sometimes I get remarks from my colleagues who tell me that they feel that I am no longer as engaged in my work as before.
My N+1 never tells me anything: I think he must have a feeling of guilt, that he realizes that I’m less energetic. Nevertheless, he sometimes plays jokes on me because I arrived late or because I am not at my desk.
In the end, I still do the work that is asked of me, I can’t afford to come to the office and not carry out the tasks that are asked of me. But I’m not involved, I do everything much more slowly.
Currently, I am looking for a new job, which I do during my working hours. Here again, I am not the only one: several colleagues are doing the same. But it is more complicated for those who have children. They are often more afraid of not being able to bounce back elsewhere, which the company’s HR knows, hence the fact that they most often refuse their requests for a raise or career development. »