Odd O'blography

Half-assed History Lesson

Raising kids is both challenging and rewarding. An amusing part of watching them grow up is when they 'discover' things that you'd almost forgotten. Lately, I've been seeing a lot of articles in the newsfeed about 'quiet quitting'. The Millenials seem to think this is a new phenomenon, but it certainly isn't new to me. It isn't even new to Gen-X. The Simpsons brought us this quote from Homer in 1995, "Lisa, if you don't like your job you don't strike, you just go in every day and do it really half-assed - that's the American way."

When I began my career in the Aerospace industry, I was awed by the sheer size of the products and the machinery that made them. The first few weeks, I stood out like a tourist in New York City gawking at the tall buildings. As I walked through the factory one day, a guy grinned at me and said, "Well, I see they issued you your Boeing gloves." I actually looked down before laughing as I realized that my hands were in my pockets. No wonder the place was known as the Lazy B!

I met many hard-working people who put in long hours to make the company a success. I also met a few slackers who made a career out of wearing their Boeing gloves. In my later years, I learned an even better term for what's now being called quiet quitting: retired in place (or simply RIP). This term describes someone who's given up after being in the same position for twenty years without a promotion. They often have little going on for them at home and use work as a social outlet. They chat, drink coffee, surf the web, and occasionally do a little work to alleviate the boredom.

But half-assing it isn't just a work thing. I knew a lot of guys who started doing the bare minimum in kindergarten. We called them football players. But seriously, the upper classes have been passed through university without effort for hundreds of years. Those born to wealth and privilege can receive 'the gentleman's C' in lieu of merit. But that C isn't a mark of shame, even the barely literate can hang an Ivy League degree and go on to achieve great things. And, once the degree is in hand, you merely file a lawsuit to prevent public disclosure of your embarrassing grades. As an infamous con man says, you don't have to be a genius to lie about your IQ.

Half-assing it has been around since the first gatherer said, "You guys go ahead and hunt, I'll hang back and try these roots and berries." In biblical times, Jesus told the parable of the workers in the vineyard (John 20: 1-16). Some workers came in the morning and some in the afternoon, but they all got the same wage. The moral of the story? You can put in a lot of hours and try to impress the boss, or you can do the bare minimum and just scrape by. In the end, it all pays the same.