[lcnPylGDnU4H9OF]

Putting in effort, especially when it's perceived that the effort goes unrewarded, is stressful. If it's unpredictable how and when I'll be rewarded and it's predictable that I'll be stressed from effort, the calculus is to not be effortful for my own mental health.

One might put effort into learning how to do their job better but I would argue that it's folly to put effort into doing everything one's employer tells them to. I will challenge myself to do a job "right" but if it's a lot of effort (read: anything akin to "staying late") then I'm not afraid to say "it will be done eventually" or "here are the steps we'll need to take".

[gdulli]

But you have control over your perception. If you tell yourself only futility is possible, yes you'll experience futility.

Some amount of stress is something we need to be able to deal with, not avoid altogether. It's not cyanide. There are workplaces toxic enough to be worth leaving, but not giving immediate rewards for doing more than the bare minimum isn't toxicity.

At a certain point, if you need a salary and benefits, doesn't it become stressful if you don't distinguish yourself over others such that you're less likely to be one of the first who'd be laid off if/when it came to that?

[faeriechangling]

>But you have control over your perception.

Only if you are clinically insane. Otherwise ones perception is influenced by the reality of the world around you.

Mental health is on the decline as more and more people go to mental health specialists to help them change their perceptions, yet their lives get worse, and their mental health declines, because they live in more and more adverse circumstances. The parenting movement to make children successful by raising their self-esteem similarly failed. The idea that if you changed your Childs self-perception that they would be wonderfully successful in the future did not work.

If a situation is futile, and you tell yourself it is not so, you will only injure yourself in wasted effort and quiet desperation and end up greatly embarrassed. Changing your perception in an attempt to cheer yourself up will only result in your abuse and exploitation, and a later harrowing realisation you want to deny that you played the fool. What "quiet quitters" do is direct their optimism is a more realistic and grounded direction, the optimism they can maintain the same salary with less effort, which improves their quality of life much more than just changing their perception and waiting for the universe to deliver a fat paycheque and a big promotion.

If you have a good opportunity for advancement and extra pay if you work hard, by all means work hard, but many people are not in such a position.

[lcnPylGDnU4H9OF]

For what it's worth, I oversimplified. The calculus is not so simple as that but that certainly goes into it (I believe to your point: "There are workplaces toxic enough to be worth leaving"). If I need to work extra hard to distinguish myself for a hope at receiving some benevolence -- simply being able to keep my job is considered benevolence in this case -- I'll understand that I am in a workplace that is toxic enough to be worth leaving.

Not being laid-off is still a hope which doesn't do anything to alleviate the unpredictability of a return for my effort. But I can make my own return. I will do my job well enough that I can tell someone with a straight face that I can do what they need me to do. I can predict that return. That is my security for the potential that I need to find a new job.