Employees Say 'Quiet Quitting' Is Just Setting Boundaries. Companies Fear Long-Term Effects:
Maggie Perkins, a Georgia-based teaching advocate, had been working as a teacher for nearly half a decade before she decided to "quiet quit" her job. The decision didn't mean she'd leave her position, but rather limit her work to her contract hours. Nothing more, nothing less.
"No matter how much I hustle as a teacher, there isn't a growth system or recognition incentive," Perkins told TIME. "If I didn't quiet quit my teaching job, I would burn out."
Perkins joins a larger online community of workers who have been sharing their experiences on TikTok, taking a "quiet quitting" mentality—the concept of no longer going above and beyond, and instead doing what their job description requires of them and only that.
The movement comes in the wake of a global pandemic that caused employees to reimagine what work could look like, considering the potentials of extending remote work, not working much on Fridays, or in some cases, amid the Great Resignation, not working at all. Arianna Huffington, founder of the Huffington Post and CEO at Thrive, wrote in a viral LinkedIn post, "Quiet quitting isn't just about quitting on a job, it's a step toward quitting on life."
As "quiet quitters" defend their choice to take a step back from work, company executives and workplace experts argue that although doing less might feel good in the short-term, it could harm your career—and your company—in the long run.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Immerman on Wednesday August 31 2022, @03:20PM (19 children)
Hmm - you want your employees to go above and beyond the responsibilities you agreed on when you hired them? Are you going above and beyond your own responsibilities to them in kind?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 31 2022, @03:31PM (5 children)
They want devotees. You're supposed to see them as a boss, guru and life-coach all in one. They want to mold you into the best version of yourself, like some bastard did to them. Welcome to the codified narcissism of the corporate world - Steve Jobs is the deity.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Opportunist on Wednesday August 31 2022, @03:45PM (2 children)
I sell you my workforce. You pay money for this. This is a business transaction. Not a relationship.
As a boss, you are entitled to using my workforce as you see fit within the conditions laid out in the contract we have. You want more, you pay more.
Worship is extra.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 31 2022, @04:19PM (1 child)
Good luck holding out - you'll be the lone renegade in the bunch of Kool Aid slurping narcissists-in-training!
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Thursday September 01 2022, @01:37PM
Hey, I get a free show at work!
Job perks have never been sweeter.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 31 2022, @07:30PM (1 child)
Jerbs was a prick.
I'm happy he's worm food after he sent several Apple people I knew into therapy.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 31 2022, @07:46PM
Ultimately, it's not Jobs' fault. You are responsible for not falling for conmen and narcissists, who are the apocryphal scorpion riding on the frog's back. It's your own desire for quick success and grandiose self-regard that will get you in trouble.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday August 31 2022, @03:31PM (3 children)
I like how putting in 40 hours a week in America is called quitting!
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 31 2022, @04:31PM
The last place I worked (a well-known university) was basically an asian sweat-shop. Those kids would be there early, stay late, do weekends but - get this - they'd sleep at their desk during the day. Nobody called them out and told them to fuck off home. If the grown-ups don't stamp out this shithole servitude then their culture gradually seeps in and we might as well be in China.
Something tells me this has not gone unnoticed, which is presumably why boatloads of perfectly average Chinese kids arrive everyday - bringing their backward, repressed mindsets that took 20 years corruption and authoritarianism to instill, and who displace the perfectly average American kids that should be complaining what a shithole the workplace is.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bussdriver on Wednesday August 31 2022, @09:43PM
Only corporate PR speak would create such Orwellian labels such as only doing your job as "Quiet Quitting" yet the term likely stemmed from American workers; so conditioned in their ironic "free thought" their own thought works against them and reveals how much like an Uncle Tom they are. Their whole perspective and language unknowingly is self defeating; it's as if advanced psychology was being applied by corporations to the masses...
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Sunday September 04 2022, @08:56PM
Yeah, there are better ways to really do it right [dilbert.com].
(Score: 5, Insightful) by pTamok on Wednesday August 31 2022, @08:33PM (8 children)
Burning-out harms your career. When you are young, you don't think you can burn out. As you get older, you think "just a bit more, and I'll get over the hump" - which never happens. Overworking is great for the company - free work! - but terrible for you. If 'working to rule' harms the company, it means the company's business plan is no good. If it needs employees to provide unremunerated work, the plan is a lie.
The company does not care about you. Every worker's benefit is only their because employer's have been compelled to provide them, either by legislation or by a 'free market' where other employers have offered benefits to retain people and gain advantage on the competition. All benefits are costed down to the last penny by accountants - if it is not cost effective, it stops. You get the occasional manager who treats subordinates well, but if they go too far as determined by their superiors, they are reined in.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 31 2022, @08:46PM (2 children)
Truth! They are making them-problem a you/us-problem. If there is too much work for your employees, either get more employees or reduce the work; or as they like to tell their employees: do more with less... where less is "less demands of your employees".
Similarly, be weary of employers offering minimum wage, because that means they would pay even less if it wasn't illegal.
All too often, the sense of undeserved entitlement by companies is mind-boggling. They behave as if their flimsy, ill-conceived, and unsustainable business-models have some kind divine-given right to exist regardless of whether they work, they demand on top of that a promise of hand-outs if things go pear-shaped.
We should have a name for these types of organizations, we could call them Millennials Cry-Corps...
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2022, @02:14AM
> We should have a name for these types of organizations
They're called universities. They only survive with a supply of cheap labor from foreigners on 1-2 year contracts. Nobody has noticed it produces utter shit.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Sunday September 04 2022, @09:13PM
Makes you wonder, if when working-to-rule points out flaws in the business plan, that maybe it's less about money and more about preventing total disclosure of management incompetence. Money, it's a few numbers on a spreadsheet that people don't really grasp intuitively. Exposing the C-suite's difficulty in operating a company ... different story.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by legont on Wednesday August 31 2022, @11:12PM (4 children)
It was theorised long ago - during Adam Smith times - that in true market conditions workers would not be able to even procreate. See, business would pay only enough for them to survive, but not to have wifes and children. Anything on top of survival is market limitations. Since early 80s those institutions were slowly dismissed so an American men did not have any salary rise since then. They made women to work without increasing family pay and soon there will be no children simply because they can't be aforded.
What will happen? A crisis, off course, a bloody war and if we survive it a new worker's protection schema.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Thursday September 01 2022, @01:31PM
Not only since the 80s. In the 60s, population started to stagnate and we're reaching the point where these Boomers retire. The next generation is a far smaller one, meaning that fewer people are available to the work pool.
Stagnating population grown also means a stagnating workforce pool. A stagnating workforce pool with an economy that has eternal and perpetual growth as its unwavering gospel means that we're heading towards a shift in the employer/employee power situation.
(Score: 2) by mr_bad_influence on Thursday September 01 2022, @08:52PM
"soon there will be no children simply because they can't be aforded"
Now you know why they are so anxious to outlaw abortion.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Sunday September 04 2022, @09:06PM (1 child)
George Bernard Shaw said, "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." Squinting and adjusting that a bit, we could get "The economically rational man adapts himself to his working conditions; the irrational one occasionally has an accident and is forced into improving his economic situation [youtu.be]. Hence, the economic evolution of the worker and his progeny over time."
(Score: 2) by legont on Sunday September 04 2022, @11:36PM
Let me have a different quote "One man can change the World with a bullet in the right place".
No, I don't support terrorism, but the WW epoch started exactly like this; and still going.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Opportunist on Wednesday August 31 2022, @03:27PM (3 children)
You know how they told you to "work hard, climb the ladder"? I guess people finally noticed that there isn't a ladder to climb and no matter how hard you work and how much time you waste on your employer, promotions only happen when you change jobs.
(Score: 5, Funny) by mhajicek on Wednesday August 31 2022, @05:13PM (1 child)
I made my own ladder. It's only got one rung, but I'm on top.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2022, @05:19AM
Well.... the 40 year old kid in his mama's basement got you beat... he has no ladder and is also at the top.. in his basement of course.
(Score: 2) by pvanhoof on Thursday September 01 2022, @12:52PM
Damned, you work slaves are figuring out why we became freelancers. That's not good. Like with all things, when something becomes mainstream it simultaneously becomes bad.
Can't you guys stay at your jobs and continue being work slaves who believe there is a promotion-ladder? This is better for us.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 31 2022, @03:39PM (2 children)
"...it could harm your career—and your company ..."
And the company? Why exactly am I supposed to give a shit about the company? They've never given a shit about me?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday August 31 2022, @04:40PM (1 child)
Many a time they gave a shit about you. No less but no more than a shit.
(oh, wait... am I that much luckier than others? grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 4, Funny) by Opportunist on Wednesday August 31 2022, @05:18PM
Stand by thyself, come not near to me, for I am shittier than thou.
Wait ... that didn't come out right...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ElizabethGreene on Wednesday August 31 2022, @04:32PM (6 children)
If your measuring "Above and beyond" impact based on the number of hours someone works you have a management problem, not a "quiet quitting" problem.
A person can create more impact by working more hours or by being clever. The latter is far more sustainable than the former.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday August 31 2022, @04:43PM
Oh, so more than just two ways of creating an impact, even a lasting one.
For instance, one can use a bigger hammer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by Username on Wednesday August 31 2022, @04:46PM (4 children)
I can understand being more favorable to the guy that volunteers for overtime and comes in when called, but i don't think that's the sole criteria. Rather have the guy who is good at running the machine as well.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by ElizabethGreene on Wednesday August 31 2022, @06:25PM (3 children)
For hourly employees volunteering for overtime is a compensated activity. For salaried employees, it's not. The problem that QQs are squawking is that working for free is now "normal" for many hourly and salaried employees. They feel, and I can't say I disagree, that's not sustainable. The root question for each of us is: "Are you getting a square deal?" If you aren't, then something needs to change. If "I won't work for free" is a revolutionary act, then something REALLY needs to change.
I'm happy with my current deal, but I won't poo-poo those who aren't.
(Score: 2) by Username on Thursday September 01 2022, @01:25AM (2 children)
Hum. Maybe they should pay teachers hourly if it's that big of a problem.
(Score: 3, Touché) by fliptop on Thursday September 01 2022, @03:33AM (1 child)
Fine, so long as during summer and winter/spring break they don't get a paycheck at all. Unless they teach summer school.
To be oneself, and unafraid whether right or wrong, is more admirable than the easy cowardice of surrender to conformity
(Score: 3, Informative) by ElizabethGreene on Thursday September 01 2022, @03:47AM
An interesting bit of trivia here: In Tennessee, when you are hired as a teacher, you get to choose if you want to be paid for the summer months or only for the months school is in session. The net dollars per year is the same, they just give the option of spreading it out.
They also have a traditional pension plan which scares the jimmies out of me. Imagine being three years from retirement, getting a new principal, and living in fear that they'll get rid of you, and cost your pension. I know two school employees that faced that exact situation and took early retirement to avoid it.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Wednesday August 31 2022, @04:47PM (3 children)
I don't like the quantized duality, there's a continuum between the two.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 31 2022, @04:55PM (2 children)
As long as this doesn't turn into a back-stabbing police state culture, where workers rag on eachother to gain
brown nosebrownie points from the overlord.(Score: 4, Insightful) by Opportunist on Wednesday August 31 2022, @05:16PM
What points should I try to score? I hope it's not really a corporate secret anymore that no amount of brown nosing will ever earn you a promotion. Nobody gets promoted anymore. You get hired for a job. If another one opens up, someone with the relevant skill set is chosen. If you had that skill set, you would not have gotten the job you have now. So why should you get promoted?
And to avoid getting fired? Are you kidding? In this economy? Fire me. I dare you.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Wednesday August 31 2022, @06:01PM
My direct experience tells me the Millennials don't practice it. Maybe the TikTok-level attention span can't fit a backstabbing campaign? (large grin)
Seriously speaking, I saw them switching jobs far quicker than the older gens if they aren't pleased with the employer's culture. After all, what do they have to lose? They can't get a mortgage anyway at the home prices on the market (at least not Downunder), so why would they take any shit the bosses throw at them?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday August 31 2022, @05:50PM (4 children)
Well, I am burned out on being worked over with fearmongering, bullying, and threats. Being stuck in a toxic workplace, with scared and desperate coworkers all trying to cut each others' throats in a vicious game of Survivor, trying not to be among those voted off the job. Too many corporations are dictatorships that cheat employees and actively discourage "joyful joining", feeling threatened themselves. So, you go above and beyond, only to be told your great idea is crap, and criticized, mocked, shut down, and silenced, then, a week or two later, some manager dresses up that very same idea with a slightly different look, and presents it as a great one he came up with on his own. You meanwhile are in danger of being fired, any moment now, for your supposed poor performance. It's more than unfair, it's also implosive, and insulting and demeaning, talking down to responsible adults as if they're naughty children.
Huffington pulled out the slippery slope argument. If you "quiet quit", it could Harm Your Career! OOooo! Be afraid, be very afraid. That's a nice career you have there, be a shame if anything bad happened to it.
Look, you stupid C-suites! You don't want your workers demoralized by financial indentureship and infantilization? Then stop being so contemptuous, controlling, slave-driving, and devious. You could take a long step towards that by allowing US health care to be run sanely. Medicare for All. Poor health is a huge productivity killer. You could also revert to what salary used to mean, and stop the bean counting of the minutes. "9 to 5" somehow got turned into "8 to 5", because lunch breaks shouldn't count as time on the job.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 31 2022, @07:44PM (1 child)
I'm sorry you are being burned out. That sucks beyond words.
Unfortunately, I am sorry to say, what you describe is "by design" and "as intended".
They explicitly want them demoralized like that. Demoralized employees that are continually afraid of falling over the cliff are employees that won't look elsewhere. They effectively are chattel. If you are afraid that switching jobs, or losing your current job, will land you in a worse place, you won't do that and will let management mistreat you as much as they desire because in your mind, the alternative is worse.
A demoralized employee is a malleable employee. I highly recommend reading 1984, especially to the end.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday August 31 2022, @09:45PM
Well, that's one of the big problems of our times, and perhaps in all of history. What does it take to change the minds of people who are convinced that slave driving and force generally are effective? It often seems no literature can do it. Not 1984, nor Uncle Tom's Cabin, The Jungle, Heart of Darkness, The Grapes of Wrath, The Handmaid's Tale, nor any other cautionary tale. Nor that the slave side in the US Civil War lost, as did the fascist side in WWII. Not only did they lose, they started the fights after drinking deep of propaganda about their supposed superiority-- the "Southern Gentleman" and the "Master Race" stuff. Any sober assessment of the military potential of the antagonists showed that the contests were nowhere close to equal. The lying, propagandizing control freaks were badly outnumbered and outgunned. Yet they picked the fights anyway, telling themselves that the other side was wimpy, afraid to fight, and bad at fighting.
Then there's the fate of pretty much every empire ever. They expand, conquering all they can, then suffer a bad case of imperial overstretch, and are forced back and back, until they at last collapse, sometimes into a core homeland, and sometimes completely disappearing altogether. Imperialism has never worked all that well.
Yet many refuse to accept the lessons. Perhaps we can evolve into more enlightened people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 31 2022, @08:04PM
Hey! You worked at the same place I did. Did you also get the daily brainwashing: 10+ leadership emails per day, cringey corporate missions, clowns in waistcoats and bow ties.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Thursday September 01 2022, @08:43PM
Company-Wide Memo:
It has come to our attention that some of our colleagues aren't happy in their roles. As such, per Corporate HR policy, beatings will continue until morale improves*.
Let's make our company the best it can be!
*Managers can pick up their new and improved shillelaghs [wikipedia.org] from their local HR Morale Booster™
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bradley13 on Wednesday August 31 2022, @06:33PM (1 child)
Maybe I've been lucky, but I've only ever had one terrible boss. One neutral. All the rest have been good. I'll put in extra effort for a good boss, because I know I'll get something back in return. Maybe salary, maybe the odd afternoon off, maybe flexibility in the schedule - whatever is possible and makes sense.
If you are working for someone who sucks the soul out of you, then maybe do the minimum. Or maybe not. My first ever full-time boss was like that, and it took me a year or two to realize just how genuinely awful he was. I still did my best, and it paid off. I insisted on an exit interview with his boss, with lots of other colleagues present. The jerk boss was unfireable (civil service, nearing retirement), but he was never allowed to supervise anyone again. If I had been a minimalist, I couldn't have pulled that off, and he would have been able to torment more newbies.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday August 31 2022, @07:05PM
My own informal survey of IT professionals is that about half enjoy a long career with a reasonable employer, and half go through one Dilbertesque experience after another, forced to search for more work every few years when the horrible management finally derails the current project beyond all repair, if indeed there was ever a chance it could start off on track in the first place, what with such embarrassingly bad planning that no one had a clear idea what was wanted, nor even what was possible. The members all futilely point the finger at others as everything is cancelled and everyone let go.
Yes, one of my main regrets is that I didn't more carefully document the managerial malfeasance. As management became more desperate, they resorted to more and more snow jobs, lying, covering up, ducking of responsibility, and blame shifting. Good on you for nailing that jerk boss in the exit interview.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 31 2022, @07:21PM (1 child)
Huffington can suck it.
work != life
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Opportunist on Thursday September 01 2022, @01:34PM
I work so I can live.
I don't live so I can work.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 31 2022, @08:41PM (1 child)
What do the big wigs that write policy expect? Please let me replace you guys and write the policies so we can have public policies that make sense. :)
Inflation adjusted wages go down, so we are paid less. Companies promote on seniority not effort. If your job has a schedule (likely promotion after X years), or you are not entitled to extra pay for working extra, why would you work extra?
When I see incompetent people in senior positions my "go above and beyond" drive hits 0 because I know if the company cared they would have promoted other people instead. Rather, it tells me I should look for another boat because I am on a sinking ship.
Oh and that diversity thing, equalizing salaries and promoting diversity removes incentives for non-diverse candidates to excel. Why should I, a white male, put in extra effort when I know the budget will be used to promote a black person or other diversity hire? It's not like anything I do will directly impact the budget in a measurable way.
Oh and not to mention the relative earning potential has been dropping like a rock. $100k used to be like 5x hamburger flipper salary, now it has dropped to around 2.5x, i.e. relative earning power for scientists has been halved! Salary did not double!
Turns out if you pay everyone the same people start getting lazy.
Moreover, relative earning potential ratios of different professions should reach a natural equilibrium. Raising the wages of the bottom without an improvement in real relative productivity can only drive inflation and a liquidity crisis (i.e. a depression).
The relative earning power of scientists and engineers should be rising as we industrialize and engineer more efficient solutions to real problems, but it has not.
Would I have gone to college if I knew I could make $22/hr flipping hamburgers? Nope.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 31 2022, @09:00PM
You are not wrong on most of your points, but I do take issue with this one
Are you suggesting that making $22/hr on the unreasonable and ever-changing schedule the burger-joint manager will put you on, is a sustainable life? Do you know any individuals in this position?
Would you mind doing some math first and then come back to us with an explanation of how not-different your life would be compared to having gone to college and living on your current earnings? I feel you've not done too much of that math before penning down your response.
I may also disagree with your complaint about equalizing salaries depending on what you mean by it. If you mean that there should always be a set of jobs that pay 'sustenance-level-or-below' wages, then I seriously disagree with that point as that would imply that a job needs to be done yet does not deserve human-worthy compensation.
If however you mean by that that everyone in position P at company C should all make M ${currency} without any adjustment for contributions, then I rescind my objections...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by donkeyhotay on Wednesday August 31 2022, @08:44PM (3 children)
Nobody at the end of their life ever said, "I really regret not spending more time at the office".
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 31 2022, @09:03PM
You've not met my mother-in-law. Her husband...
(Score: 2) by EEMac on Thursday September 01 2022, @04:42AM
While this is true . . . nobody who expects to live tomorrow says "I really regret being able to pay my mortgage/rent" or "I really regret being able to buy food."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2022, @03:45PM
It depends upon what they did for a living. There are plenty of examples in the research arena where people stick around to the end. It isn't because they need the income security, it is that they love what they do. Some of these people get converted to emeritus status and come around for the intellectual atmosphere, some others retire then are brought back as subject matter experts, again most of them from my observation isn't because they actually need the money, but they enjoy the environment they're in.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by pgc on Wednesday August 31 2022, @11:30PM
' limit her work to her contract hours. Nothing more, nothing less.'
That sounds like she is working the paid hours.
Interesting how American companies take the hours that are being worked for free for granted.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Thursday September 01 2022, @02:50AM (1 child)
Is this story even real? People have probably been telling the fast worker to slow down since bricks were being cast in ancient Mesopotamia. From the time you're in kindergarten all the way in to the adult world, nobody likes the over-productive line worker. Nobody likes to be over-worked at a salaried position either.
It seems like the media is taking a facet of work relations and re-naming it for clicks.
Quit slacking off. Go to a war zone and bring us back some real news.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Thursday September 01 2022, @08:16AM
Perhaps the capitalists should be reminded that Stakhanovite [wikipedia.org] propaganda is part of the philosophy of socialist emulation/competition as espoused in the Soviet Union.
Or perhaps it is an example of the old saw: Under capitalism, man exploits man, under communism it is the other way round. [barrypopik.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2022, @11:10AM
Bullshit. It's more like a step towards having a life outside your job. You can go spend most of your waking hours on your job, if you'd still be satisfied about that on your deathbed then that's great for you. The rest of us have different priorities. Heck to some of us you're the one quitting on life if you just spent all your life on your job (especially if you're just a bean counter or form filler and not some artisan or chef).
There's not that much job security already, so if you're gonna have to work for long hours you're not doing much better than hunter gatherers and medieval farmers who had more free time ( https://www.reuters.com/article/us-column-great-debate-idUKBRE97S0KU20130829 [reuters.com] ). Go look at other omnivore mid-sized land mammals too. They don't have much food etc security but they have free time.
If you have to put in extra hours every day then:
a) The project/job doesn't have enough resources/people or was badly/not planned
b) Something really bad happened (shit happens but if it keeps happening then maybe the real reason is a) )
c) You need more training to do your job better
d) You are not suited for your job
e) You're trying to earn more (you actually get paid extra for those extra hours).
Take your pick.