Tried that "quiet quitting" thing for two months... backfired hard

I got fed up with my old job in retail management, so I decided to try that whole quiet quitting mindset. Just did the bare minimum, stopped answering emails after hours, took my full lunch breaks. At first it felt great, like I was finally sticking it to the company. But after about six weeks, my district manager pulled me aside and said my numbers were tanking and I was on a performance improvement plan. She literally said "we need the old you back or we'll have to let you go." Thing is, I thought I was being subtle but everyone noticed. Now I'm scared I've burned a bridge and I'm stuck in a job I hate even more. Has anyone else tried scaling back and just had it blow up on them?

3 comments

3 Comments

mark_ward1mo ago

...so they put you on a PIP and now you're worried you burned a bridge? Man, a PIP is just a formal way of saying "we noticed." You didn't torch anything permanent. Everyone zones out at work sometimes. You just did it in a way that got tracked in a spreadsheet. Unless you told your boss to screw off to her face, you're fine. Retail is a revolving door. They aren't going to blacklist you over two months of coasting. Just show back up and do the stuff for a few weeks, make your numbers look okay again, and the PIP goes away. It's more paperwork than a firing.

gavin4691mo ago

Yeah people freak out over paperwork way more than they should.

jamie8041mo ago

Nod along with @mark_ward, I once got a PIP for forgetting my own employee discount code, so yeah, you are fine.