ULPT: never give your 100% at a new job as it sets high expectations

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tilldeathdoiparty@reddit

In my area there are no employment protections in the first three months, so kill it for that first bit then take your foot off the gas once you have the protection.

Yes this happens, my work hired four people that started the same day as me and I’m the only one left. Because I went hard, bought in and gave a shit

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SlimmG8r@reddit

This is the same as showing up high for your license pic.

I will disagree though. You gotta build that rep early. Give 110% for 6 months and slide in to obscurity.

It's what's always worked for me

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roflpotato@reddit

No, no, that's a bad idea anyway. It's mathematically impossible. Just give 100%, it's a nice round number.

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savageporkchops@reddit

Not mathematically impossible at all. They pay for 40 hours a week. Extra hours and that's over 100%

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roflpotato@reddit

40, that's a pretty good round number, too. 100% for 40 hours, I like it.

(ok, done roleplaying as Monk from Monk)

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AmimQueMeImporta@reddit

I was working 120%, putting in hours on weekends to catch-up, setting up projects and trying to improve processes and was let go during probation

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Once you establish yourself as a star player, management kind of stops paying attention to you. They just assume you're doing a good job because that's your reputation. Also a lot of jobs have a probationary period. So you got to give it your all.

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dogemaster00@reddit

I would actually say the opposite. First impressions really matter and you can coast for a while off of reputation you build in 3-4 months

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Fireproofspider@reddit

Yeah. If you are diligent and a star player in the first 6 months there are a LOT of things you can get away with afterwards.

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MakeoutPoint@reddit

Can confirm. Kicked ass for my first year, then had a crazy idea to move out of state, knowing they don't allow hybrid or remote positions. Asked anyway. "Oh, for you? Of course, no problem."

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EthanStrayer@reddit

I was gonna say this. I busted my ass for 6 months and haven’t worked nearly that hard since then and everyone at my job likes me and thinks I do amazing work.

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llui@reddit

tips on how to achieve this?

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memeboozled@reddit

Can literally confirm as I busted my ass for the first six months of my current job, constantly stayed late, etc. and then the past 9 months have been showing up late barely doing anything and leaving early, and the managers still say I’m doing a great job.

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T2LV@reddit

This. If you coast at the start then try hard when you want a promotion, you’ll have to rewrite their impression of you. Then when they think you’re awesome confirmation bias will be your friend

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chelsearare@reddit

My goal is always mediocrity lmfao.

My mediocre could be someone elses great, but another persons terrible so blurring those lines has been tricky, but I can for sure say no one knows my full capacity and there's no need for it at the moment.

I'll gladly keep it there unless something motivates me to push past mediocre.

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Shell675@reddit

I dint see this pro too as unethical. I wish someone had told me this decades ago. I might have avoided some burnout and having employers who took advantage of

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Jackol4ntrn@reddit

Eh I did give my 100 percent when I started my current company and when layoffs came a year later I wasn’t let go despite being the new guy. The other guy was let go because his performance was lacking and they were even paying him less. So it all depends.

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Atworkwasalreadytake@reddit

This mentality is great, because it allows ambitious people to shine and get the promotions with less competition.

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Gaeus_@reddit

Either you did not have your first burn out yet, or you're "the kid off" and would have had this promotion regardless

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Atworkwasalreadytake@reddit

Dude, you’re ridiculous. You can give 100%, make a good first impression and still modulate yourself to avoid burnout.

We call those people self starters.

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Gaeus_@reddit

Your own edit is your answer.

"Retired at 40"

Meaning, at minimum, you're 40 now.

So you started working at the latest, in the early 2000.

We had two recessions since then, and the job market is completely the opposite.

Your advice is out of date.

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Atworkwasalreadytake@reddit

I literally worked through those recessions. I lost my career in 2009, and had to start from scratch. I also had a 1.5 year job search in 2019. I’m aware of how hard it can be.

Leadership and effort haven’t changed.

My retirement is, I bought a small business, grew it 4x, and now have a full time manager who runs it for me.

I was able to gain the skills to do that by doing the opposite of the advice in this post, and get the best opportunities, pay raises, etc.

But I’m serious. Do the advice here, it’s not new advice, “quiet quitting” isn’t a new concept, just a new label.

But don’t whine in 15 years when you’ve been passed up over and over by others who didn’t follow it.

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Gaeus_@reddit

That lapsus in your last sentence says it all

"guys like me, can't see right trough you"

You don't know me, you do not know how high up I'm in the food chain and you do not know what I went trough to get there.

Must be a sweet-ass retirement if you're still stuck in management.

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notguiltyaf@reddit

He just sees himself as fundamentally better than working people, even though those are the people whose labor enables his "retirement." He's a leech and an idiot and needs to read a book.

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Atworkwasalreadytake@reddit

You can hate capitalism all you want. But it’s the system we live in. If I could change it, I would.

But I recognize the system I’m in and realized that capital makes more money than labor. Then I worked my ass off to get to participate.

The business I own and grew legitimately saves lives, I have no ethical qualms with the positive impact I’ve made on the world.

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notguiltyaf@reddit

“You can hate slavery all you want, but it’s the system we live in. If I could change it, I would. But I recognized that owning slaves is more profitable than labor. I built a plantation that has saved lives, so I have no ethical qualms.”

See how dumb that is?

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Atworkwasalreadytake@reddit

So you’re saying I should sell my business and go get a job?

What are you proposing, in real life?

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notguiltyaf@reddit

“You can hate slavery all you want, but it’s the system we live in. If I could change it, I would. But I can’t, so I’m going to use that system to my benefit. I built a plantation that has saved lives, so I have no ethical qualms.”

See how dumb that is?

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SlimmG8r@reddit

Feels like landlord behavior.

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Atworkwasalreadytake@reddit

Typos happen. If that is carrying your rebuttal, then the rebuttal is not carrying much.

And yes, I can judge the advice without knowing you. Effort is a muscle. Train yourself to hold back long enough, and holding back becomes what comes naturally. Sandbagging at the start of a job is just skipping the gym and pretending that counts as preparation.

This is still loser advice. The people who move up are usually the ones who build trust early, show range, and make it easy for leadership to picture them with more responsibility. The ones gaming expectations get noticed too, just not as future bets.

Mock my retirement all you want. I spend about 40 hours a quarter mentoring the GM who runs the business I built, and I find that work rewarding. I am glad I still get to do it. The rest of my time goes to remodeling my property, skiing, boating, and actually being there to raise my kids. That arrangement is working out just fine for me. I am just not the kind of person who treats slacking like a virtue.

And since this is ULPT, the funniest part is that this does not even fit the sub. Underperforming at work is not unethical. It is just bad advice. But knowingly dressing up bad advice as wisdom and handing it to naive young people who might actually believe it, that gets a lot closer.

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Gaeus_@reddit

I did not judge. I just responded to your assumption about a "small business owner" being my "manager".

It's insulting to you?

You don't even realize that your own advice, beside being completely outdated on its premise, conclude on "drains profits from the job market while not working yourself".

You're denying an already realized self-fulfilling prophecy.

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Atworkwasalreadytake@reddit

You act like what I do now represents my entire career. I started in the military, I’ve worked in medium businesses, industrial corporate jobs, and finance.

I’m a generalist, I have extensive leadership experience.

Your idea that it’s somehow outdated is frankly laughable.

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Gaeus_@reddit

You're laughing at the reality of the situation rather than remotely attempting to understand it.

"My advice can't possibly be outdated, it's the younger generation who's wrong"

All the while bragging at being one of, although on an infinitely small scale, causes of the problem.

"I live off a business who can, and does, function completely autonomously of me, not only that I do not ever work there, at all, someone is doing the managing for me"

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Atworkwasalreadytake@reddit

You: leadership changed fundamentally in the last 5 years, everywhere except your 50 employee business.

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Gaeus_@reddit

leadership changed fundamentally in the last 5 years

I haven't used this word a single time, and no one put yourself put your management skills in question.

I'd argue the topic was the conditions and mentality of a modern worker, not your management skills.

And the scope was 20, not 5, but sure.

everywhere except your 50 employee business

I'm not going to insult your intelligence by explaining what a confirmation bias is, but don't you think you have tunnel vision?

You can't know how a modern worker feel because you're not a worker in 2026, and your sole point of reference comforts you in your outdated (which I realize, I should mention: never was an insult) visions of what it is to begin on the job market in 26.

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Atworkwasalreadytake@reddit

You keep falling back on a circumstantial ad hominem. “You are not a worker in 2026, so you cannot understand workers in 2026” does not address whether the advice is good. It just claims my current circumstances disqualify me from having a valid opinion.

And the “outdated” point is not much better. That is mostly an appeal to novelty: the assumption that because conditions changed, old lessons must be obsolete. Sometimes they are. This is not one of those cases. The incentives are still obvious. People who build trust early generally do better than people who try to game expectations from day one.

Yes, workers today face different pressures. That can explain why this advice feels appealing. Burnout, cynicism, and frustration are real, and they are not new either. None of that magically turns deliberate underperformance into a strong long term strategy.

Take the advice if you want. I still think handing it to naive young people as wisdom is garbage. And at this point you are not really defending the advice anyway. You are mostly arguing that certain people should be ignored when they criticize it.

That said, I am done going back and forth on this. I have made my point, and I am not interested in repeating it in circles.

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Gaeus_@reddit

Ad hominem is a personal attack.

I didn't used ad hominems.

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notguiltyaf@reddit

So you sit on your ass, not contributing shit, and steal the surplus value from the labor of people who do contribute. Nice.

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bootyholeboogalu@reddit

It took me forever to learn this lesson. I would go full board at any time I work about how crappy it was and I know you're promoted I've never did good reviews nothing. At my last job I just decided to be the most okayest employee they had and suddenly I was getting tons of recognition and promotion offers I don't understand it

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luchoosos@reddit

The office space method

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Russell_W_H@reddit

Depends on the manager.

But yes.

Why is it unethical?

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Bubbly-Trainer-5297@reddit

Dumb advice from someone who has never made it

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ItPutsLotionOnItSkin@reddit

I gave 100%. I'm hired through a temp agency. Right now I'm going through the hiring process. I'm going to be making the same as the other guys that have been here for more than a year. (It's a new department that was created a year ago). Once I get hired on I will have access to company programs that only established employees have. Really quick I'm going to get a crew. If I set it up right I can get everybody to work together and I won't have to do anything.

I talked to a manager and he told me his plan for the company. Him moving up and whoever shows potential also moving up in 5 years.

Short story long. Give 100% then be smart then coast.

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Cool_Interaction_345@reddit

Well the answer to when you have a bad job certainly isn’t “work worst,” it’s find a new job. Do your best at everything and you can aura farm.

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Minute-Unit9904s@reddit

Everyone is a Hero on the first few weeks