Let's say I work in a metal finishing factory. My job is to plate/coat metal components, check them for quality, and ensure they don't get damaged in shipping. If I stick strictly to this, if I just do what they pay me for and don't give it up for free, some people have decided to call that “quiet quitting.”
But let's say I don't even do my job. Let's say I coat things in the wrong solution, I don't check for quality and deliver shitty parts, I pack them haphazard so that they scratch up in transit. I abandon my machine for long stretches of time to dick around. This costs the company lots of money in repeat work, refunds, and lost business. However, they are very shortstaffed and it would cost them even more to fire me. Because what good work I do from time to time is still better than being one operator short.
So my manager says to me “You win for now. I can't make you follow rules. I would fire you, but production would drop even further. So I'll put up with you only for as long as I have to. Once I find someone else, you'll be fired. And you'll know why.”
Is there a name for this?