Not Your Fault, Not My Fault but You Want Me to Find the Solution? Fine, Let Me Resign

In 2021, more than 47 million workers voluntarily quit their jobs, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

People believed that this historic event, which has been called The Great Resignation, is among the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

However, according to experts, the Great Resignation is not a short-term event that began with the COVID 19 crisis. It’s long been observed that there’s been a continual rise in quit rates for more than 10 years. From 2009 to 2019, the monthly quit rate increased by 0.10% annually.

When COVID-19 was declared a pandemic in 2020, the quit rate slowed down due to the uncertainty that everyone felt. Economies worldwide were in chaos, and many businesses were shutting down. However, the downward trend of the quit rate regained momentum in 2021 when people started receiving stimulus checks, vaccination programs improved, and their worries started to subside.

Indeed, by 2021, the Great Resignation hit industries really hard, with a quit rate of more than 2.5%. The 5 factors that have influenced these changes in the labor market, according to Harvard Business Review, are as follows:

• Retirement. Many older workers retired at younger ages in 2021, to focus on enjoying life beyond work with their loved ones, avoid COVID-19 risks, and explore bigger opportunities.
• Relocation. There’s been a decline in this trend.
• Reconsideration. Fear of the pandemic and other illnesses have made many people, particularly women and individuals of young age, reconsider their work and opt for safer workplaces or online jobs. Among the frontliners, burnout was the major problem that influenced the decision to leave.



• Reshuffling. The hospitality industry suffered the highest quit rate, such as food and accommodation services and leisure. But many of these lower-wage workers didn’t permanently leave the labor market; instead they looked for jobs that offered higher wages.
• Reluctance. Many workers were hesitant to return to their offices out of fear of getting infected by COVID-19. A large percentage of these employees preferred to work from home.

Meanwhile, according to a survey of the Pew Research Center, the following were the reasons behind the unprecedented turbulence in the US labor market in 2021:

• low pay (63%)
• no opportunities for advancement (63%)
• feeling disrespected at work (57%)

In a way, this story of Original Poster with the username u/ExplanationGlobal349 is among the sad realities of the Great Resignation that’s been going on for more than a decade. Published on Reddit’s r/MaliciousCompliance, OP related: “When I was in college, I got a second job during the summer at a restaurant. During my interview, I had told them that I could not work specific days because I was working at my other job. On my third week, they scheduled me to work on my off days. I had talked to them, and they gave me a list of numbers of other servers to find someone to take the shift. I was able to get my shift covered.”

However, the following week, the same problem happened again. Due to it, OP started to feel a strong dislike for her new job. She described her job at the said restaurant as the “cry before work, during work, and after work” kind.

OP continued to write in her post, “I told the manager that I had been scheduled for a day that was not in my availability twice now. The manager said, ‘Well, I’m not saying it’s your fault, but it’s not our fault, so you need to find a solution.'”

OP tried to contact every other employee, but nobody could cover either shift. And so she worked on her next shift, and then when she was cashing out, she told her manager that she was through and it was her last shift.

OP wrote the memorable exchange between them: “He goes, ‘So you’re just not doing the two weeks?’ And I said, ‘You told me to find a solution, and I did.'”