Coming up, I'll tell you where quiet quitting came from, and why are we even tolerating
this nonsense, and then new news on Amazon, and how they continue to treat their workers
terribly.
I'll fill you in next.
Helping you win at work so that you win in life, in other words, I want you to go from
exhausted by work to energize to work.
So let's talk about quiet quitting, the term quiet quitting skyrocketed in the United
States in July 2022 after TikTok posts from a 24-year-old engineer by the name of Zaheed
Khan.
Now, let's talk about what quiet quitting is with a lot of definitions out there, but it's
a form of passive-aggressive protesting that normalizes doing the bare minimum.
Now, it's being discussed as, well, I'm only going to do what is required of me, and
not another Iota more, as if that's honorable.
But what it really is is doing the bare minimum and bare minimum thinking and bare minimum
working is average to below average.
It is settling, and it will absolutely suck the soul out of your body.
So why are young people in the United States adopting this mindset?
The anti-work movement is another exploding movement in the dark corners of social media.
These young people, and dare I say, people my age, middle age, they don't believe that
going above and beyond has any return on investment.
Why?
They've seen their own family members come home, exhausted, burned out, depleted, diminished,
and they've watched what was the American dream become a nightmare.
They don't feel the American dream is attainable.
They don't feel that the American dream is all that great.
Dare I say a lot of these young people come from middle class or upper middle class or even
upper class environments where their life is a freaking dream.
So why would they need anything else?
For all of our country's ills, we're still the greatest country in the world.
We're still the wealthiest country in the world.
So why work hard when everything has been given to you?
That's what's going on.
Why work hard when a desired future seems impossible?
The quiet quitting is a way of protesting the system, sticking it to the man.
You're boss didn't have anything to do with your situation, but yet because they represent
authority, because you're angry, because you're vengeful, we're going to stick it to the
man and not do a good job.
But see, this mindset didn't start with American young people.
It's not even an American idea, a very similar movement rose up in China two years earlier
called Tang Ping.
In other words, line flat.
Line flat was a protest movement that rose to prominence in China in April of 2021,
when a post on social media titled line flat is justice went viral.
The author was a 20 something Chinese adult who had been jobless for two years.
The young man blogged about taking himself out of this rat race.
He was doing odd jobs, anything he could do just to get by.
He was foregoing relational goals like marriage and children because he didn't believe he
could afford to do so.
Some young adults in China have taken this a step further and now a new term out of China.
I've talked about on the show adult children instead of working odd jobs to get by instead
of forging their own path, they've now decided to just stay at home and they work for
their parents as housekeepers, caretakers, errand runners.
And in some cases, they're actually paid money by their parents.
In other cases, they get room and port.
Why have they chosen this path?
Well, a couple reasons.
Number one, they don't like the idea of the stress of moving forward on their own professional
journey.
They don't want the culture of the Chinese workplace.
So this has become a revolutionary movement, a protest, a resistance to the Chinese work
culture.
Line flat is about saying, I'm not going to go into a world where I work 12 hour days from
nine to nine, six days a week, nine, nine, six is a very normal rhythm in China.
Why?
Because the Communist Party puts that authoritarian pressure on every member of their society.
Why China needs to be dominant?
There is an unhealthy focus on work in China and in America, an unhealthy focus on not working.
So this trend came from China.
And what I believe is a legitimate protest to say, this is wrong.
While human beings were created to work, we were created to work like that.
And yet here we are in the greatest country in the world where we have more freedom than
any other country.
And we've glorified average.
We've glorified the bare minimum.
We aren't facing communism in this country.
What's our excuse?
I'll tell you what it is.
The excuse is, I'm soft because I've been handed everything in my life.
I'm soft because I see great wealth in this country and I feel like I deserve it just
because they have it.
High unemployment and slow economic growth is now happening in China.
Chinese college grads are posting pictures of themselves literally lying flat.
A record of 11.6 billion people have just graduated from college and entered a workforce
with very few openings.
People are burning out.
Chinese youth are facing a very uncertain future.
And I think the Chinese economy is going to pay the price.
What's their excuse?
They've got an excuse.
They aren't living a life that is worthy of living.
What's our excuse, Americans?
We have seven million working men.
Excuse me.
Seven million working able men who aren't working.
Why?
Because our view of work has been so skewed and so broken that now we operate in a world
where I don't want to work because I don't like the conditions.
And because I don't like the conditions, I'm just not going to work at all because someone
can support me.
They can support me.
So I'm just going to do it.
And so what happens?
We've got this gap in our economy where we have more and more jobs becoming available.
Most people willing to actually get out and work and because less people are willing
to work, we don't have options to fill it.
Why do I bring all of this up?
Because we aren't in an authoritarian society.
We are in a free society here in the United States.
Very, very different than what is happening in China.
Those young people are fighting for their lives.
American young people are angry because they want everything handed to them.
And they want it, how they want it, where they want it.
America isn't working and we've better figured out quickly.
You've stuck it out in your okay job for long enough, but you're still stuck.
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Okay, Amazon back in the news, so wired magazine article here.
This is a reputable magazine and this is a fascinating I, I, I, I, I, I'm going to reveal
this to you, but, but it is mind blowing to me that a company this big, a company that
has had a wild amount of success can literally attempt to shoot themselves in the foot over
and over and over again.
And I've said on the show in a very popular video on this channel, why Amazon will fall,
you can go check that out in great depth.
I'm not going to review that, but I will reiterate they will fall and this is another example
of why they will fall.
Jennifer Crane is featured in this story.
She's an outbound packer, which simply means order, I buy something right here on my computer
and it makes its way to the warehouse and she is an outbound packer.
She's putting my product into a box and sending it out.
Now the standard from Amazon is 37 seconds to assemble the box, retrieve the product,
stuff it, seal it, slap on a tracking label and then pick it up and put it on the conveyor
belt.
Well, she was lifting a case recently doing this very process and she felt pain down her
left arm into her fingertips.
She then went to the Amazon on site, first a clinic known as Amcare, where the staff told
her she had a small sprain, she'd be fine and they gave her an ice pack.
Well the next morning she got in her car to drive to work and she couldn't grip the
steering wheel with her left hand.
Well, she goes into work anyway and the clinic staffer again tells her you need to go back
to work, you'll be fine.
This time Crane pushed back, demanded to see a doctor, the doctor prescribed work restrictions.
The Amcare staff then took the doctor's orders and put them in an Amazon software tool that
digested the doctor's orders and then suggest a different job that was suitable based on
the doctor's orders.
Now all this sounds brilliant, doesn't it?
Wait for it.
A company safety director wrote in 2019 in an email that has been reported by Reveal
that shifting injured employees into restricted roles could cut company's workers compensation
costs.
So Amazon has any company does, workers comp is an expense, it's a cost for the company.
So this company safety director, are you catching the irony here?
The company safety director at Amazon comes up with a nifty idea.
Let's take people that are injured and let's put them in a role that the injury doesn't
nag them as much.
Nothing says safety like that.
Thanks for looking out for me.
Clyde, I don't know if the guy's name is Clyde, I don't know if it's a woman.
Anyway, so this email probably turned into the process I just talked about.
Poor Jennifer, wait for the rest of the story folks, it gets better.
Or should I say worse?
The Jennifer goes to the doctor, the doctor gives Jennifer orders Amazon puts the doctor's
orders in the thing and comes up with some kind of algorithm that says, oh, you can go
over and do this.
Are you ready for what this was?
Instead of picking things up and placing it in a box and using her left arm and wrist,
which is where the pain was, they gave her a job walking around the 855,000 square foot
warehouse 10 hours a day with her throbbing left hand slung over her shoulder for relief.
Now, if those of you watching me, she takes her left her left hand and somehow here she
is with the right hand with the swiffer and she's just got now, let me tell you, I'm just
doing this sitting in the studio.
I play a lot of pickleball and golf, I'm pretty decent shit.
I work out and this is a little irritating for me just trying to hold it here.
I got a little burn right here, I'm not gonna lie to you and I don't have an injury.
So she's walking around the warehouse with her arm over her shoulder just to try to relieve
the throbbing pain.
It was more in this story.
When she finally got an appointment for an MRI, guess what the MRI discovered?
Jennifer had a torn ligament in her wrist.
Now, I'm gonna tell you something.
I've never torn a ligament in my wrist, but I did tear a ligament in my left thumb and
you can't see it on the camera because the scar has now since begun to fade.
But Nathan, you'll appreciate this playing church league softball many, many years ago,
slid into third base on what was a successful triple I want to point out.
But I went in so hard and fast that when I slid left side, you know, and my hand, I didn't
get my hand up and I jammed my thumb into the ground and just tore the thumb ligament.
You just cannot imagine the pain.
That's my thumb.
So my point is I empathize with Jennifer.
Now, I gotta give the other side of the story here.
Amazon spokesperson, Marine Lynch Vogel, disputes this characterization that Amazon is trying
to put injured people back in different roles.
She says any suggestion that we intentionally or systematically delay or discourage employees
from seeking needed medical care is false.
Well, again, you can, you look at these statements and you look how that's worded and this
got political speak all over it.
Did you or did you not have a company safety director, sit an email out saying, let's do
this.
Did you or did you not put this woman back out on the floor with a swiffer?
Did you or did you not see her with her left hand over her shoulder?
I was born at night, but I wasn't born last night.
Am Care staff are not qualified to diagnose a treat injuries.
They do follow product protocols written for a dot written by a doctor, but they're not
working under physicians supervision.
It's the equivalent of me trying to diagnose things because I slept at a holiday in last
night.
Or I guess holiday and express, I got the brand role.
It's nuts.
I'm not a doctor.
I played one in high school in a, in a, in a, in a play.
Come on.
What are we doing here?
They're basically first a trained in the spring of 2022, a fulfillment center in Salt Lake
City, Utah.
And Amazon Salt Lake City, Utah location was sending five to six employees to the workers
comp doctors every week.
Now there are the facts.
Now I'm going to give you my opinion.
Why do I tell you this stuff?
Some of you probably think I hate Amazon.
I don't.
In fact, every time I talk about this stuff, I worry they're going to cancel my prime account
because I really like Jack Ryan.
I like Jack Reacher.
You know, I really do.
If you like the prime discount, I get stuff delivered to my house all the time.
Why do I talk?
Do I hate Amazon?
No.
But I am talking about the culture in this country that's getting worse and worse and worse
and the culture is that my leadership, my boss, the man doesn't care about me.
And it's because of this kind of stuff.
This is one of the largest companies in America.
If not the largest company in America, the largest companies in the world.
And their own memos from two years ago said they were running out of people to hire
in locations.
Why?
Because they treat people like this.
So I'm no organizational management genius, but I'll tell you this.
If you're sending five to six people a week to the doctor, maybe we should look at how
fast we're making people work and slow that down.
Now let me just tell you something.
As a customer, I'm thrilled that you're getting my package put together in 37 seconds.
But I'd be okay if it was 67 seconds.
I know that when I do stuff quickly around the house, I get injured and my wife rolls
her eyes at me.
She says, slow down, Ken, so maybe we should think about people over profit, just a thought.
Justin joins us in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Justin, you were on the Ken Coleman show.
How can I help?
Hey, Ken.
How are you?
I'm living the dream.
What are you doing?
I'm hanging in here.
I appreciate you taking my call.
Of course.
What's up?
Okay.
I'm going to give you a little back story.
I'm 34 years old, I had a wife and three kids, so we're a single income household.
I took Weldon in high school because just to get out of class and out of high school,
I took into the Weldon career and been doing that ever since.
I've been at the current job of that now for about eight years.
I'm grossing about 55,000 a year, but I just feel like I'm unappreciated, not heard, and
I feel like I'm just a number.
Just to kind of give you a back story, a couple of weeks ago, I left the workplace in
tears on a Thursday, around one o'clock, and then didn't come back till Monday.
What happened?
Well, some things happened.
I'm over a robotic welding division at work, and some things happened with some of the
welds.
We kind of got chewed out about it, and I tried to bring forth some kind of resolve to
the issue.
It was kind of brushed off, and there was some more chewing out and stuff like that, and
then there was some things that happened that I felt like was done in secrecy, and I
kind of asked them about it, and I was told it was my fault that we were in the shape
that we're in, and that they were just basically a taken action due to my error.
What did you agree with this, or do you agree that you made an error?
No, just to kind of give you a back story, I had one employee that was under me.
He shows up to work every day late, so I spoke with my supervisor, and he and I agreed
that we were going to ride him up for being late every day, and that he wasn't going
to be receiving any further training on the robotic with a system, and he and I agreed
with that, and in the next day, he went back on his word and said that I shouldn't have
done that because I was running off, I was going to run off, get help, and I explained
to him, how is it good help if he doesn't show up on time every day, and then this gentleman
that the employee that's under me is now being sent to Chicago for training, but was told
not to tell me, and then when I asked about that, they said it was my fault because I should
have already trained him, and I brought up the fact that we had agreed, and I thought
that we weren't going to train him until his attendance improved, and basically I was
told that I had people train, they wouldn't have to step in and send people to training.
Yes, so they ignored the fact that the kids showing up late every day, they just completely
ignored it.
Yep, they said they didn't care, the owner is exactly right, he didn't care.
Unbelievable, yep, I mean, it's truly unbelievable, but why does anybody come in on time then?
Well, I didn't say it, but that's what I was thinking.
Well, what's so special about this kid?
I'm not sure, he told me that that was just the world we live in nowadays, that it's kind
of hard to find help, and that you can't run off, get help, and all this stuff.
I see, okay, I see what's going on, nothing special about this kid.
There's this fear-based leadership, and so on paper, when you first approached your supervisor,
like of course, write this guy up, but then they started, then word got around, or he
changes mind, or he goes, what if this kid freaks out and gets his feelings hurt, because
he's a young guy, and these young kids don't like being confronted, how did the employee,
how did your guy handle it when you wrote him up?
You took it well, I explained to him that he wasn't going to receive any training until
he has attended some proofs, and you know, that I understand things come up, and you
may be late every now and then, but every day he was unacceptable.
He agreed, and he was, you know, he was civil about it, he didn't seem upset.
Was he all the time the next day?
No.
So, he's, he wouldn't even, he, he's just sat there, and he basically, he didn't,
he, the good news is he didn't get his feelings hurt, he just basically ignored you.
Yeah, he doesn't care.
He doesn't care.
Like, Woody, he, by the way, he just got rewarded.
He's just been told that he's going to get trained anyway.
So you have zero authority over this kid anymore.
Yeah, I don't feel like I ever did.
You didn't?
Your leader's undercut you, because they're scared.
The owner of this company is an absolute weakling.
And see, this was what's wrong with culture, by the way, Justin.
You got leaders that are afraid to lead, because parents have been afraid to parent.
So, because he's not showing up on time, because his kid wasn't parented well, and that's
exactly what happened, and this kid's got no character.
He never had to have a curfew, never had to show up and do what he was told.
And so now he doesn't do it.
And so the leader, instead of allowing you to lead, or maybe the owner sits down with
this kid and go, hey, you got a lot of potential.
I want to say to you, Chicago, you're going to get trained.
You got to show me you could be on time.
The next 10 days, you need to be on time.
And here's what's going to happen.
I'm going to lead you.
I'm not going to let you quit.
Let's say you don't want to do that.
So what does he do?
Your bonehead owner has now literally broken your will.
Yes.
Shattered your confidence, undermined you, and he's going to end up losing an even better
worker than the stupid kid.
So I want you to replace that job as soon as you can.
You are a welder.
You probably have a lot more skills.
I don't know why you called me.
I'm going to get to your question, because we're doing a lot of background.
But I'm going to tell you right now, you're not staying in that place.
Because if you stay in that place, what's left of your soul will see out of your body
in the next 30 days?
That's exactly how I feel.
I know.
I mean, I'm not trying to tube my own horn, but you know, you're not going to the owner.
You know, I've got perfect attendance for the past four years that you know, I try,
you know, I feel like I've been over backwards to do everything.
Hey, Justin, yeah, they don't value you there.
I agree.
They value the wrong thing.
So you know what, screw them.
Yeah, I said it, they don't deserve you.
Now you stay there because I don't want you to lose a paycheck, but you immediately
find your number one job right now is to find another job.
Is that why you called?
Yeah, because that's been my issue.
I've been looking pretty regular for a while now and everything seems to be lower pay
and further away from me.
Well, keep looking.
Don't you dare quit.
You don't have an option.
Right.
You can't stay in this current environment, let your soul see out of your body.
Your your mental physical health is going to be affected.
Your wife and kids will be affected.
There is no option.
So don't get discouraged.
You live in a large metropolitan area, at least close to Charlotte, North Carolina.
Don't tell me that there ain't a better pain, pain welder job or a similar pain
welding job than you have right now.
You have to change.
You don't have an option.
This is serious business.
Your heart is wounded.
Your soul is seeping out of your body.
You don't have an option to go, well, can I been looking?
I'm not being tough on you.
I am, I am coaching you right now.
You feel me?
Absolutely.
You got too much to offer.
You keep looking, shake the relationship tree.
Okay.
Don't just apply.
You got me out.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I've been doing some freelance stuff, man.
Yeah, that's what I was going to say.
I've been doing some side work to, you know, car fender work.
I basically do anything that I can make get money on.
Right.
I thought about just branching out and doing that.
Why not?
But don't do it until you have three months of your current salary
stored away.
Then I would say go for it.
Okay.
Because I don't want you to leave the situation and be scrambling.
Right.
But if you've got three months minimum of your current salary in the bank,
that's not your, it's not an emergency fund.
This is a floating fund.
And you do this with side hustles or anything else.
And you keep busting your butt trying to get a good gig, use your relationships.
Say, hey, man, I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I can do this.
I can do this.
And so what we do is, is then, then you leave after you got three months to
or you don't have to worry about sleep for three months.
You feel me?
Right.
Is you're good.
And we try not to even use that three months, right?
But we got it.
If we need to, so we're not stressed.
And it's going to set you free, brother.
You got to get free of these people.
I wish I could do this.
Dave Ramsay'd never let me do it any shouldn't.
But I wish I could call that boss right now on the phone and fire him.
This is the Ken Coleman show.
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