Lizzy and Lissa break down the hidden costs – financial and otherwise – of quiet vacationing. Quiet vacationing is a modern trend in which workers rebel against their employers by taking vacations without telling them. Some find it unethical, while others consider it an empowered act of rebellion against a toxic work culture. Is quiet vacationing worth it?
Lizzy and Lissa break down the hidden costs – financial and otherwise – of quiet vacationing. Quiet vacationing is a modern trend in which workers rebel against their employers by taking vacations without telling them. Some find it unethical, while others consider it an empowered act of rebellion against a toxic work culture. Is quiet vacationing worth it?
Main Topics
00:00 What is Quiet Vacationing?
01:45 Running The Numbers Segment
03:27 Quiet Quitting vs. Quiet Vacationing
07:23 The Evolution of Work Culture
21:35 Ethics and Implications
26:44 Navigating Micromanagement
30:50 Remote Work and Quiet Vacationing
32:48 Unlimited Vacation
36:02 The Future of Work with AI
46:56 20 Cents Segment
References for Statistics
https://theharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/OOO-Culture-Report-May-2023.pdf
Lissa: You've heard of quiet quitting, but today we are talking about quiet vacationing, AKA, pretending to work while taking time off and not reporting it to your boss.
Lizzy: Have you ever faked work while you were out there living it up? Was it worth it?
Lissa: Is quiet vacationing worth it? Let's talk about it. Welcome to Net Net with Lizzy and Lissa, where we analyze hidden costs and empower you to make your own damn decisions in life. Each episode covers a different facet of life, and at the end of each episode, we each give our takes on whether we think something is net positive or net negative.
Lizzy: I'm Lizzy, a Strategist and Consultant with over 17 years of experience in finance and investing.
Lissa: And I'm Lissa, a Personal Finance Expert and accredited Financial Counselor. We're best friends who talk about money.
Lizzy: And everything else.
Lissa: So is quiet vacationing worth it?
Lizzy: All right, first up, we got to get this out of the way for y'all that are watching the video.
Lissa: We got to get this out of the way, yeah.
Lizzy: If you're not watching, we got a little business on top, party on the bottom. What's going on?
Lissa: More like casual on the bottom, we got basketball shorts.
Lizzy: Basketball shorts, got some slippers on.
Lissa: Yeah. But Zoom ready.
Lizzy: Zoom ready.
Lissa: Zoom on the top.
Lizzy: Buttoned up and professional as far as anyone knows.
Lissa: We're not the only ones that do this, for sure.
Lizzy: No, it's common now, yeah.
Lissa: Yeah, everyone does this these days.
Lizzy: All right, before we get into it, running the numbers on quiet vacationing.
Lissa: A Harris poll coined the term Quiet Vacationing in a recent survey about out of office culture, which found that four in 10 people were taking time off without telling their bosses.
Lizzy: Damn. Okay, and 38% of the millennial survey said they had moved their mouse to make it appear to colleagues like they were working.
Lissa: Like go run to your desk, just move the mouse, leave for another 30 minutes, it'll be fine. Now to give the impression of working long hours, 37% of millennials surveyed, said that they schedule emails to send outside of traditional working hours. So purposely scheduling to send outside of working hours.
Lizzy: Wow. This is especially interesting because 78% of employees do not use the maximum amount of paid time off allowed by their employer. In fact, the average American worker took 15 paid days off last year, despite half being allowed more than that by their employer.
Lissa: So you get more than 15 days vacation time, but you're just taking vacation.
Lizzy: So you're not using it.
Lissa: You're not using it.
Lizzy: You could just use your PTO.
Lissa: Yeah. Well, we'll get into it.
Lizzy: Interesting.
Lissa: We'll get into it. We know that there's more to life than statistics and numbers, so let's talk about it.
Lizzy: Quiet vacationing.
Lissa: Yeah, so this is a new term.
Lizzy: Yeah. I got to admit, I didn't know this term, you explained this to me. But I was familiar with the idea because I've seen it happen.
Lissa: Yeah. So quiet quitting, just to differentiate it from quiet vacationing, is more so when you've kind of already checked out. So you're not really doing all your work, but you are still working there. You're not going to write your two weeks notice, you're just going to keep the job for as long as you can to keep getting the paycheck.
Lizzy: And quite vacationing is I'm out, I'm in Aruba, I'm in Miami, I'm wherever I want to be.
Lissa: But I'm still keeping this job because I get pay and benefits. And I'm still-
Lizzy: And I'm not telling you that I'm going.
Lissa: Yeah.
Lizzy: Right. I think that's a distinction I think of, I have a remote work policy, I can work from anywhere. And I'm being transparent that I'm going to be wherever, for the next week.
Lissa: And I'll still get the job done.
Lizzy: And I'll still be working, but I'll be working from Cabo.
Lissa: Right. But then quiet vacationing is like, because I have this freedom to work remotely or work from wherever, why do I need to even bother telling you where I'm at? I'll still do the work, you're not going to notice I'm gone.
Lizzy: Or I will not still do the work and I'll make you think I am still doing the work.
Lissa: Okay, okay.
Lizzy: I think that's a big part of it, I think, is I am going to go do my thing, I'm not going to take the time off, but I'm going to take my vacation. I'm going to get mine and create the illusion that I'm working. All right. First of all, have you ever done this?
Lissa: At first I was going to say no. I might have done it during the pandemic, I just can't remember. Because I haven't worked for a company for over two years now so I could barely remember. I think I was always honest with my direct manager.
Lizzy: Yeah.
Lissa: Yeah, I don't think I ever ended up in another country or anything. I might've gone to visit family and worked remotely, in that way, but we were already working from home, working remotely because of the pandemic that I didn't think that it was being dishonest. I think it was just like, I'm just somewhere else. Actually, it was still in the same time zone. Have you?
Lizzy: I don't think that I have either. For one, I've worked remotely for most of my career to be honest. And this is back in 2007, and I probably was way too conscientious or afraid to be dishonest, it just doesn't seem like anything I would ever do, and not really my style. And then the past several years, there's no need, I'll just say where I'm going. I've either worked for myself or been a co-founder, so I have the freedom to do that. There's no question that I'm getting my stuff done, so either I'm just going to take vacation or I'm working from here this period of time. And my last company that I was at as a co-founder, our whole business was around remote work and travel, was in the hospitality industry. So with my founding team, with the executive team, they'd be like, "Oh, let's go work in Panama this week." So that was the culture of the firm.
Lissa: That was already the culture.
Lizzy: Yeah. Now in this role now, it's back in more traditional finance. And it's interesting, I don't have the quiet vacationing thing, but the concern of, do people know that I'm working? I have definitely felt that. And now most of my team is on East Coast hours, and I would be very aware of, they're up, do they expect me to be up? That kind of feeling. And so the specifics around sending an email after hours, I don't know that I've done that exactly but I think I've deliberately been like, see, I am doing work.
Lissa: Yeah. Well that's interesting because in order to talk about quiet vacation, we have to talk about work culture in general. I think there's a couple layers. One, it's changed over time.
Lizzy: Absolutely.
Lissa: Of what work culture is supposed to be and what's right or wrong, what's a better work culture than not. And then it also varies by, well aligned with that is by generation.
Lizzy: For sure. For sure, yeah. And industry.
Lissa: And industry.
Lizzy: And even geographic location. I feel like employers in California and Silicon Valley tend to be a little more liberal and open-minded in terms of work style.
Lissa: Yeah. So I used to work at Google, I used to work in tech industry for a decade, and so I saw the culture change over time. I felt like when I first started, there was a lot of loyalty to the company. Because for those who don't know, Google for a very, very long time is known as the company that gives these amazing perks, these amazing benefits. And the culture that they try to establish for the workers is like it's collaborative. And the main campus, they have a bowling alley, they have free food. And then in different offices they have massage rooms, they have things like that to help supposed to be to improve the culture and just kind of the loyalty to the company.
Lizzy: Sure, yeah.
Lissa: At least in my time, I found that to have diminished a little over time when I was still there. For many reasons, like the growth of the company, it was harder to sustain that culture. But I think it also depended on who your direct reporting chain was. Because I could tell you, there were probably some managers I had in the past that I would easily lie to them, or not lie, but quiet vacation. Whereas my most recent manager before I left Google, I would just tell her because she would probably be supportive of whatever I was doing.
Lizzy: And I've been I think fortunate to work with people who I don't have to lie, and I wouldn't, you know me, I'm honest to fault so I wouldn't. But I've been in cultures where it was encouraged or understood, fortunately. Or at least in my direct team, the person I reported to, et cetera.
Lissa: Yeah. So have you ever been, I guess disenfranchised, or gotten to the point where you hated the company you worked for? Because I think that matters too on whether or not you-
Lizzy: Of course it does, yeah. So back to the point about work culture in general, I think a lot of this is what is the expectation of a productive day? And I have always maintained that I am going to give way, way, way beyond my value that you're paying me for, regardless of the time spent, because I am just that person. And so I don't think I've ever been in a role where that was remotely questioned. And so I would have the confidence to be like, I am not going to work eight hours today. I'm going to work four and they're going to be valuable, and that's good enough.
Sometimes I would be a little more concerned about that or get a little bit guilty. But that definitely evolved over time to where now I don't doubt it or question it. And so I think even when I was a little more disenfranchised with a company, like maybe before I left, I wasn't going above and beyond and that was my version. Because my default is like, I'm going to go ham for you. And so doing what for most people is probably the normal amount, was my version of quite quitting I guess.
Lissa: I'd say I had a similar journey. I had my ups and downs with work where when I was bright-eyed and bushy tailed, just excited, I would overwork. Not because people asked me to, but because I felt like I wanted to do that for myself, and I wanted to do that to show that I'm worth the promotion or worth the whatever, before that discussion even happened. So sometimes I think it helped me out overall, but it was also shooting myself in the foot because it creates this bar of expectation for all those. Not just my direct manager, but everyone around me, it was like everyone would always ask me for things. So an example was I started my career as an administrative assistant, and then I became a coordinator and then a manager later. But even when I was at these other roles, people would still come to me with the administrative questions because they knew I knew the answer. And they could get it from me more quickly than any other source. And it was-
Lizzy: It's a pet peeve of mine.
Lissa: Yeah. Some people I liked, so I would want to help them, but other people I'd just be like, oh my God, why are you still asking me? It's not my job anymore. But I think I partially created that culture around me and because I overworked. And then I had phases later on where I felt like I was doing the most to try to get that promotion and raise, but not getting any credit for it. So I did kind of fall into the more, I wouldn't say quiet quitting, quiet vacationing, but caring less about the company altogether.
Lizzy: That resonates with me so much. I've definitely felt that same experience of, I am doing everything, I am giving it my all, and that actually backfires on me. And it's something that you help me with and coach me on because that's my default and my therapist has heard about it. It's like I want to give everything, I'll do anything, and that's not necessarily my place. The interesting thing though is, now as a business owner and having had employees and gone through that experience, or hired and managed a team, I can kind of see things both ways. I can see as an employee, give me my money or this is what you're paying me for. And then I can also see as an employer how challenging it is, especially a small business owner. To build a business with people who aren't bought in, who don't take initiative, who aren't reliable. So I can understand why you want that person to go above and beyond, not you want to exploit them, because you're building something and you need a partner because it is lonely.
And I saw that with my stepdad who's a business owner, I saw that my whole life, and so I've always had empathy for it. Granted, it's a little different when you're talking about huge corporations, but there's both sides of it. And one specific example, I'll never forget this. I interned for the Clippers when I was in college, and I remember going there and thinking like, oh, this is a world-class organization. Everyone knows the NBA team. And everyone was just sitting there on YouTube or whatever, bullshitting. And then the woman who I worked for there, she was my boss, she later started an agency. And is an amazing businesswoman, we still chat. And I remember her telling me about people being on social media while they're working, and she said, "They're stealing from me." And that was like, oh wow, I'd never thought about it that way. If you are considering you're paying someone for their time and they're wasting that time, they're stealing money out of your pocket. But it does come back to, do you expect someone to be productive for the exact hours that they're working, or is it value-based output?
Lissa: Well, that's the thing. So I think many of us are not privileged to have come from money. So when you get into adulthood, there is an element of life, a phase of life where I think you have to earn, you have to provide value, a service, your time, your energy in exchange for pay. And then what you do with that pay later, maybe you could set up your own businesses and investments later. But I think most people have to go through a period or even a lifetime of earning. And what earning looks like I think is evolved to all right, clocking in and clocking out, versus what is my output that I'm sharing. And the tricky part there is, I think even big organizations or your boss or your department head, I think even they can't quantify what is supposed to be done in this amount of time.
Lizzy: Absolutely.
Lissa: That's why so many people are caught overworking, caught up in a cycle of overworking, because no one can actually define what is the proper amount of-
Lizzy: What's reasonable.
Lissa: Yeah, what's reasonable. And over time, I think in some sectors, let's say finance and tech, many sectors, people are overworked because of that, because of poor management on the top and in the middle of companies.
Lizzy: Absolutely.
Lissa: And so which leads me to the topic of this episode of, why would someone actually end up quiet vacationing?
Lizzy: I think there's some element of distrust or disenfranchisement with their specific employer or businesses in general. Like capitalism, like F them, I'm not participating.
Lissa: I'm going to take from them.
Lizzy: I'm going to take from them, yeah. I understand that mindset fully despite being a capitalist myself, I totally get it. And so I think it can be that. And so just on principle, I'm going to do my own thing and I'm going to get mine and look out for myself first. And there's some level of that that's probably healthy, everything in moderation, so it's finding the right balance. And then I also think there's the situation where the role itself is just so unsustainable and someone is burnt out, and they feel like they have no other recourse.
Lissa: Yeah. Well, interestingly though, there was that stat about half of the people did not use the maximum amount of paid time. So people get vacation days or PTO paid time off but don't use it. I think there's an element, and I had this, of a scarcity mindset around it. Where you earn this vacation time and then if you use some of it or all of it and you're back down to zero or almost none, you almost feel trapped.
Lizzy: It's like pressure.
Lissa: Right?
Lizzy: Yeah.
Lissa: Like, oh no, I'm not going to be able to take a vacation for another year if I use it now. So I think that contributes to why some people might take some vacations without using that PTO. For me, I think for the first couple of years of my career at Google, I did not take any vacation. So I hit the max, there's a max amount that you can accumulate before you stop accumulating, and obviously I'm not going to let that go to waste. So I would always be at the max, then take a little bit, then hit the max and take a little bit, and I'd be in that cycle. I think part of it for me too, it was like, okay, if I ever leave the company, their policy was to pay it out.
Lizzy: They'll pay it out, yeah.
Lissa: And so I was like, cool, I'll get that paid out. I stayed there for 11 years so it was like I was always pushing out the payout anyway, I think in hindsight, I should have just used the vacation time. Because I did burn out in my career there, and that's because partially, I overworked. Partially I was overworked, and partially I mismanaged my PTO, I didn't use it in the way that would actually help me relax.
Lizzy: Yeah, absolutely, I see that all the time. I am a big advocate for using all of it, use every bit. I actually haven't had very many roles. I think I've only had one job in my life that I had PTO, like official number of days. Before it was unlimited, but it was a small company so it was just like, I'm going here. But even then, because I was an executive, I still had someone I reported to but she would be like, "Yeah, just go."
Lissa: Just go.
Lizzy: So I never totally had to deal with that myself, but I think that's a big part of it. And then I think the other piece is, this feeling of, but I can't take time off. It won't get approved or it's just too crazy right now or I don't want to deal with the drama of it. Or even my job is so stressful that it's not even worth it to actually take a vacation, because it's going to be that much worse if I come back. And that's where it gets really toxic.
Lissa: Yeah. I think very toxic to, especially when you have a good lead time, we're talking like month or months. And I want to take this week or weekend off and you get denied. Who are you to have a control over my life? What if I have to go visit family, or it doesn't matter what it is.
Lizzy: It don't matter what I have to do, it's my time.
Lissa: It doesn't matter, right. So if that happens enough, then yeah, I think that's a valid reason for someone to just say, you know what, if I'm able to, I'm just going to.
Lizzy: I'm going to do me.
Lissa: I'm going to do me, I'm going to take that vacation. And not only am I going to not tell you, but I'm not going to use up my own PTO.
Lizzy: Right. So this brings me to the question of is it ethical?
Lissa: It depends. I don't think there's a straight answer either way, because I think someone who's a total workaholic, loves the system, loves capitalism, loves everything, is going to say no it's not ethical, you're stealing from the company. But if you take the perspective of someone who's over worked, underpaid, not heard, never granted enough vacation time, never granted a break, who's burnt out.
Lizzy: Right.
Lissa: And they got no other recourse but to do it, then the complete opposite end, no, it's not unethical, it is ethical, do it.
Lizzy: Right. I think it comes down to holding up your end of the bargain. What is your expectation as an employer to have a healthy, safe work environment? And are you setting clear expectations of what I'm supposed to be doing to meet whatever goals or to fulfill my role? Because if the expectations are not set, that's on the responsibility of the employer.
Lissa: Yeah.
Lizzy: And so if they're holding up their end of the bargain, then I think it's unethical for an employee to go dip out.
Lissa: Because you as an employee, it's a contract, yeah.
Lizzy: Yeah, exactly. And you've made this commitment, you have responsibilities. But if they messing around and if they're overworking you, or even to some extent, if you're vastly underpaid. And not just I feel like I'm underpaid, everyone thinks they're underpaid. But if you are legitimately underpaid, sure, I'll get mine in time off. I think there's some element to that, but it comes back to that kind of balance of power, and I don't think any one side should have too much power in the equation.
Lissa: Right. I think at least for me, in the time that I was starting my career, so my early twenties, and this was early 2010s. I feel like in that era of mine, and having been a daughter of working class immigrants, it was very much in my head that my job was my boss. They influence my schedule, my life because without them I can't pay for my living expenses or anything like that. But that was before I knew about investing, other sources of income, this was when I relied on that one source of income. They had so much power over my life and my time that yeah, I wasn't going to be dishonest and risk it all just because I wanted to have this fun little vacation. I think the more people have options and aren't reliant on that one source of income, and most people are, let's be honest. But for those who aren't, and the more financially free more people are, the less power and control their job is going to have over them. And that might worry these big corporations.
Lizzy: Well, I also think not just having options in terms of your income or financial resources. But I think back to the culture of work changing, people used to stay at one company for 30 years, now people stay for a year. The time and commitment is so much less because there's so many more options for employees, employees are probably more empowered now than ever. And so look, you don't want to give me what I want or what I need, I'm out y'all, I'm out. Or I'm going to do what I got to do. And I think that has just shifted, I was very similar to you of follow the rules and I have to live by this for so long. But I think along with my own journey, the culture has really shifted and put more of that power back in the hands of employees.
Lissa: But again, it depends on the actual company itself, it depends on the industry because there still are those companies and industries where it's like, well, if you don't want to do it, we'll find someone else who will.
Lizzy: Right, you're replaceable.
Lissa: Right, you're replaceable. But again, toxic culture, who really wants to be there? But then I guess, some people want to be in that industry so bad that they'll be the ones willing to do it. It doesn't have to be you, find somewhere else where there's that better balance between you and the company.
Lizzy: Right. And it comes down to at the end of the day, what's most important to you? What are your values? And some of that will change depending on where you're at in your life. Like you said, you might be in grind mode, which spoiler alert, that'll be a future episode. But if you're okay with sacrificing some of your free time, maybe not to the extent that it affects your health, but you're okay with being really committed and dug in. Great, but that's not for everyone at every stage in their life.
Lissa: Yeah. So what do you think about... Because there was that stat about how many millennials, assumably people who work from home or remotely, will move their mouse to make it look like they're online, because show them as available or online. Is that unethical, what do think is the cause behind that?
Lizzy: I think it's kind of all a symptom of the same thing. And some of it is micromanaging, and I have a challenging relationship with that because I'm such an initiative person, no one has to tell me to work hard or handle my stuff. And I appreciate and value that in employees, but not everyone is that way. So there are absolutely going to be people trying to milk it and just skate by. And as an employer, I'm mindful of that, that you're devaluing me by doing that. So it's tough, I think it's kind of situational, but I'm pretty much always going to land on the side of honesty and integrity. Do you feel good about that? Do you feel good about yourself doing that? If you do, good for you, I wouldn't.
Lissa: Yeah.
Lizzy: I would just not be online. Let them come ask me about it.
Lissa: Right.
Lizzy: Go ahead, come ask me and I'll tell you all the stuff I'm doing.
Lissa: That's true. But again, that's a privilege because you-
Lizzy: But I've earned it. It's a privilege, but I've earned it.
Lissa: Yeah, a privilege you've earned. Because if you don't have that, and like I said earlier, you're afraid for your job and your livelihood, you're not going to take those. You're not going to do that. This is a little off topic, but it made me remember my first job out of school, my first full-time job. It was one of these places where you had the fingerprint to clock in and out. And then I would get to work early, five minutes, 10 minutes early. And once it hit five o'clock or six o'clock, I would leave my desk, walk downstairs and take a couple minutes, so then I'd clock out. If you take those couple of extra minutes at the beginning of the day and end of the day and add them up, that's like an extra hour or two of work for the week. I got in trouble once for clocking in more than 40 hours, because I didn't do it exact to the time. And that was just one-
Lizzy: So stupid.
Lissa: One element of that work culture that I hated, that if I was still at that place during the pandemic and I was remote worker, I would easily cheat them out of whatever time I could. Because F that, I'm not about that. So I think, yeah, I want to side with you and say that I would always go on the side of honesty. But at the same time, it depends, it depends who's messing with my life and my time.
Lizzy: But if you were a remote worker in that situation, would you fake it or you're just going to do what you want to do?
Lissa: I would clock in and out and get my hours, and probably not work the full eight hours or whatever. Because look at them like, yeah.
Lizzy: Nickel and diming you.
Lissa: Nickel and diming me, whatever. And to be fair, at that job, I was doing more than eight hours of work. However you want to quantify eight hours, I was just doing more. So if I didn't have someone watching me every second... And then the other thing about that story is, we worked in this department, literally like a cave, we had no windows or anything like that. But if we wanted to go out to use the restroom, we had to give our manager a heads-up, just to make sure that there is coverage. Mind you, we are doing desk work, legal work, it's not customer service.
Lizzy: Not like a call center, yeah.
Lissa: It's not a call center. And so those are just a couple of examples of why in that culture, I did not feel any loyalty to the company. And so if no one was watching me, I probably would've taken liberties.
Lizzy: Yeah, I can understand that. That culture would never work for me, you know me, that would not work.
Lissa: Yeah. But I was like 23, 24, I was younger in my career.
Lizzy: Yeah, we got to do what we got to do.
Lissa: Yeah. So for people who quiet vacation, like we said, this assumes that they are doing work on vacation, because they can't just disappear off the face of the earth.
Lizzy: I think they're doing just enough.
Lissa: Just enough.
Lizzy: To get by and not raise any flags. If have a remote work policy and you're going to go work in a different location, I'm fine with that. Even if the policy doesn't technically allow that, I think if you're going to work, you're going to work, right?
Lissa: Yeah. But more likely than not, your work output will be lower relative to what your usual output is. Because are you really going to stay at your-
Lizzy: Well, you think that's the question, right?
Lissa: Yeah.
Lizzy: But if you're doing it specifically to have a full-on vacation and do the bare minimum to make someone think you're working, to me that's just dishonest. And we've discussed, there might be outlier situations where it's justified, but that's a hard sell for me. How would you feel if you had an employee and you found out they were doing that?
Lissa: So I do own my own business and I pay people hourly, and so if they were cheating me out of those hours, it would suck. I'm a growing business, a small business, I don't have the funds to pay for people's free vacations and stuff like that. So yeah, I would not like that. But if there was something about me and my culture that pushed people to do that, I would also be aware of that. I wouldn't completely blame it on a terrible employee. There were probably terrible employees out there, but it would really come down to what is the culture like?
And so if I were to ever grow my company into a bigger company, I would think long and hard about what I would want the culture to be. Well nowadays, there's companies who offer unlimited vacation, I think on some of them, people-
Lizzy: It's a scam.
Lissa: Well, I think for some of them, people actually feel no, one's going to question anything. But I do think for a lot of them it feels like a scam because people either feel like they can never take it because they're working so much and they can't leave the office. Or they get looked down upon if they take-
Lizzy: Yeah, and it never pays out. So it's a way to offer what appears to be a benefit with actually no cash value. It does not add any actual value to your benefits package, whereas traditional PTO often gets paid out when you leave.
Lissa: And there's the question of, if you do take these vacations with unlimited vacation time, are you actually doing... Let's say you take a two-week vacation, are you actually doing two weeks less work for that year? Or are you cramming that two weeks of work before you leave and when you come back?
Lizzy: Right. And is that going to affect your performance reviews and how everyone looks at you?
Lissa: Right. Then that's the other piece, if you took three of those in a year, people will perceive you to have taken too much time. But then it's like, what's the point of unlimited vacation if you're not going to let me take it.
Lizzy: Exactly. That's why I think it's a scam.
Lissa: Okay, so maybe we don't even need an episode for, is unlimited vacation worth it? But on the work culture thing, maybe unlimited vacation is not it, but I really like the idea. So hear me out for this idea, I don't know financially how it would work. But if I ever run a full company with full-on benefits and stuff like that, I kind of like the idea of not just allowing sabbaticals, but long-term sabbaticals.
Lizzy: Okay.
Lissa: Like if you're going to work and hit your five year or 10 year anniversary, you're off a year off, do whatever you please, and your job will still be here when you get back. I don't know how the financials work out for that.
Lizzy: Oh, that's a tough one.
Lissa: It is. But yeah, it is, it's tough. But I know of some companies who offer sabbaticals, which are great, you work here for a certain amount of time, you get a month off, a month is cool. Let me tell you, when I was burnt out from work and I took an extended period off, it took me months to disconnect from the mindset of having to be productive. It took a year or more since I left that last corporate job, to realize that I don't have to be on every hour, every minute from nine to five o'clock. It's like your brain has to take time to change, and I think even with a month-long sabbatical, which is great, it's not enough to let people experience life as an adult without having to-
Lizzy: I agree. I agree with that.
Lissa: ... report to a company. Again, I don't know, that's not feasible.
Lizzy: Right. The challenge is, does that fall on the employer? It's not that they're a responsibility, that's a wonderful benefit to offer.
Lissa: Yeah. But if you had some things like that that companies were testing out, because people understand more about burnout now and mental health and toxic work cultures. If there are companies doing crazy things like that, I think you can revive the whole loyalty thing with a company. People might want to work at that company for a long time if they know they can have that.
Lizzy: I think some of these things are more feasible in smaller or mid-sized businesses. Because I was just thinking, when you're talking about your first job out of college, that culture sounds absolutely insane, I could not handle it. But at the same time, you are one person, that extra hour or two, multiplied by thousands of employees.
Lissa: Is a lot of money.
Lizzy: Is a lot of money.
Lissa: Yeah.
Lizzy: And especially if you're a public company where you are bound to shareholders, that affects millions of people and their stocks and all these so I can understand that point of view. I still think that's stupid, but I get it. And that's an interesting perspective. And so I think you might have more flexibility and opportunity to have that really, really robust balance in your culture if you're a smaller business. Or that sweet spot where you can afford to do those things, but you're not impacted across thousands of employees.
Lissa: But on that same note, it goes back to what we were talking about earlier in terms of the time you're giving a company versus the value you're providing. But at what point is work going to shift from time-based to, I don't know, task or project-based or output-based? And how do you actually track that or quantify that?
Lizzy: It's challenging, and obviously it's going to depend on the roles, things that are very executional or assembly line, that's very clear, tangible output-based. Something like a lot of my work is strategic, as in it is ideas, what is the value of the insight that I'm providing? And maybe that has a report associated with it or some research, but is it good or is it not good? And that's really hard to measure. That actually makes me think of AI and all these robots that are coming to take jobs. And how is that going to fit in and is it going to change the relationship of what work means? Is it based on time? Is it based on output?
And at the end of the day, I do think it still comes down to expectations and the employer having very clear goals, very clear milestones, what is expected? And then adapting if those aren't met and aren't realistic, because that's hard, you've project managed, I've project managed, trying to estimate time. How long is something going to take? You don't know. It's challenging, but you have to be good at that in order to be realistic about what you expect from people.
Lissa: Yeah. Which reminds me, I have a good friend, I'm not going to name them. And you also have a good friend, both of whom at some point in their career have had two full-time jobs at the same time.
Lizzy: I have a good friend who has that right now.
Lissa: Currently, yeah.
Lizzy: Currently.
Lissa: And so I saw that happening a lot more during the pandemic and since then because of remote jobs. Where yeah, someone can do enough work to make it look like a full-time job on both ends, not actually working 80 hours a week, you're not doing 40 and 40, but you're making it look like it because maybe they're super efficient and good at what they do. And obviously they're producing the output that is perceived as a forty-hour-week job. So what is your take on that?
Lizzy: Okay, so I have two friends, close friends who've done this, one currently doing it. And their approach was different. So one of them, their approach was like more F you, I'm going to get mine. And I think was kind of trying to hack it. And that's not how I roll, I was like more power to you, do what you got to do. But I do think there's a level of that that's unethical. My friend who's currently doing it, they were working a full-time job, a contract position so that's a little different, not being an employee. A contract position and consistently found that there wasn't enough work filling up their day. And they were on an alternate schedule, like East Coast hours living on the West Coast, so they had tons of time.
And this is a person who is incredibly efficient, that is the premise of their job. And so decided to take on another full-time job, because like, I'm trying to do it, I'm doing all my work and it's just not taking up my full schedule. They've been doing it for at least a year now, I want to say. And it seems to be going well, everyone loves him on both sides. I think the challenge is, I visited this person and they were listening to two meetings at one time, different ears. I was like, that is wild.
Lissa: It's almost impossible.
Lizzy: But their role is more operational, managerial. They're not having to provide input, it's more oversight, so it worked in that scenario.
Lissa: Right. But again, all these things like the quiet quitting, quiet vacationing, working two full-time jobs at the same time, that can only really happen with this flexibility of working remotely and not in an office. So how do you see that changing or staying the same in the next couple of years?
Lizzy: Man, I think it's going to be a wild time because I feel like all of this really came to head with the pandemic of... It was just such a crazy time in life and a reset of expectations. People being forced to work from home and like, oh, so I'm not going back. Oh, actually I can do my job from here, so I think that leapt us forward light years. I really think the influence of technology and AI and robotics, is going to be wild and have a crazy impact on how we perceive work and wages. To the point that it's terrifying to me of, what are people going to do if all of these jobs are replaced. So I can't even imagine what it's going to look like.
Lissa: This is not my prediction but I think what it should happen with more AI and with more technology is, the standard norm shouldn't be 40 hours a week, five days on, two days off. It should either vary or it should change, maybe 30 hours a week, or four days on, three days off. They did a test of that in the UK. And I think there are different models with how we can approach work as a society and as humanity, that it doesn't have to be this standard thing that has been... That's what worked before for the types of jobs before. And with new jobs now, it also needs to shift, it's going to take time to shift. But maybe the shift will be better for people's mental health.
Lizzy: You know what that made me think of? Some of this is somewhat uniquely American, not all of it. I think to some extent it happens everywhere, but we are such a capitalistic activity-driven culture that it's probably exacerbated here. In Europe, you're going to take the month of August off, there's just so slower lifestyle.
Lissa: That's true.
Lizzy: And part of me is like, okay, well we are seeing this shift culturally here. If on average the population changes their expectations to have a shorter work week or shorter hours, these things have happened historically over time, right?
Lissa: Yeah.
Lizzy: The interesting thing though is that, there are always going to be or have always been an influx of immigrants who are so grateful for the opportunity to work and earn American dollars. And maybe not just immigrants, but that's one example of, someone's always going to be willing to do it because it means something different to them than having grown up here or something like that. And that's kind of what you spoke to a little bit with your experience as the child of immigrants. So I wonder if there will ever be a full shift or if the people who have that privilege are going to expect more and then their slots are going to be filled by people who don't have that.
Lissa: And this is a very basic way to look at it, this is not how it actually works. But if a company is going to become more efficient because of technology, efficient in output and finance, like the cost of it. It's going to equate to more profits for the company, but it's not going to get distributed to the workers, that's what to me is the problem.
Lizzy: Well, that's the thing that I've been really reflecting on lately. I was kind of googling this and looking around of, we are in an economy, a society and a world that has monetary value. It's not goods, it's whatever we say a dollar is. And I think on some level, the fundamental concept of that would have to change if there's a huge portion of the population. Or let's say all of our jobs got replaced by robots, people don't work anymore, then what is the economy? What is money? Is it a universal income? That's something that's being discussed. It's a strange thing to embark on.
Lissa: I think there be always things to do, services to provide. But some will go away and there'll be some new ones created, that's what I think. But it's crazy to think about.
Lizzy: It's wild.
Lissa: But yeah, so this whole quiet vacationing thing, I think is actually just a blip on the radar, it's like a phase.
Lizzy: Yeah, it's a symptom of a larger shift, cultural shift in work and labor and money. And the other thing we didn't even touch on is, I am working my ass off at this job and the cost of living is so high that I'm barely getting by. And so my other recourse, if I can't get more money is more time. I get it. I get it.
Lissa: Well, 20 cents.
Lizzy: 20 cents.
Lissa: 20 cents is the segment of the show where both Lizzy and myself Lisa, each get 60 seconds to give our 2 cents on today's topic of quiet vacationing. Whether we think it is a net positive or a net negative, where does 20 cents come from?
Lizzy: You get the opinion of two dimes y'all, two dimes.
Lissa: Well man, we talked a lot about just work culture, which is great.
Lizzy: I know, damn.
Lissa: But on the topic specifically of quiet vacationing, what do you think, is it worth it?
Lizzy: For me personally, quiet vacationing is not worth it. I do not feel good about myself when I have any disconnect between what I'm projecting and what people know to be true. That is just my own personal standard for myself. And I'm also fortunate and have earned a situation where I don't have to do that. I can be honest and say, next week I am going to be working from here, and there's no question of the value I'll be providing. So it's not something I have ever felt the need to do. And I also have the privilege that if I did ever feel the need, I would probably be able to leave that situation. So net negative for me.
Lissa: Net negative. All right.
Lizzy: All right, what about you, Lissa?
Lissa: Okay.
Lizzy: I don't know what you're going to say.
Lissa: You don't? All right, quiet vacationing. If I transport myself back in time when I was younger and certain places I worked and I really felt like they disrespected me and didn't treat me well, I probably would've found the justification to quiet vacation, to quiet quit. To basically not give enough, give all my time and energy to a company that I didn't think deserved it. Today, obviously I work for myself currently, so I don't really have this opportunity to quiet vacation. But even if I did, even if I did work for a place, I think I too am in a privileged position that if I hated where I was so much, I would have other options. So I wouldn't feel the need to have to lie or be dishonest like that. So for me right now, this moment in time, net negative also.
Lizzy: All right. All right. All right. Yeah, okay.
Lissa: Makes sense?
Lizzy: Yeah, makes sense. I got you.
Lissa: I think if I hated it so much, even if I had a boss right now and I hated it so much, I wouldn't feel the need to have to just coast and lie or whatever. I'd just get out of there.
Lizzy: Right. Which absolutely is a privilege.
Lissa: A privilege. A privilege, uh-huh.
Lizzy: Not everyone can do that. And look y'all, we're not judging, you do you.
Lissa: Do you.
Lizzy: You do you.
Lissa: Yeah. So remember, this is what we think right now at this moment in time. If you want to do it, we're not going to tell on you. We're not going to snitch.
Lizzy: No snitches here.
Lissa: Well, yeah.
Lizzy: So hit us up. What do you think, is quiet vacationing worth it? DM us on Instagram at NetNetPodcast, or email us at hi@netnetpodcast.com. And if you want to follow us individually, here's where you can find us.
Lissa: I'm at @wealthforwomenofcolor on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.
Lizzy: And I'm at @Live_Well_Lizzy on Instagram and TikTok.
Lissa: All references, statistics and resources mentioned can be found in our show notes. This podcast is for educational, informational, and entertainment purposes only, and should not be constituted as financial advice. Remember to always do your own research, consult a professional as needed, and feel empowered to make your own damn decisions.