Are You Being Exploited?

If You're Miserable at Work, Probably.

What is Exploitation?

One time, I was sitting in a café with a perfectly reasonable human being who had left our shared employer for a role at another company. She knew perfectly well what I did and how much money I made. And she knew perfectly well what she now did and how much money she now made.

“Snailboat, I think they’re exploiting you.”

Honestly, I felt a little shocked. That word carries a lot of emotional weight. Sometimes, I still hesitate before using it, fearing that I would be laughed off as hyperbolic or a radical. I see the term most often used in emotionally wrought conversations from the working class about some bald, blasé CEO.

But now I was curious — what does it actually mean, in this modern day, to be exploited¹?

Through my studies and conversations with other workers (most of them hushed and far away from the office), I collected some insight on what is meant by, “I’m being exploited.”

• I am not receiving a fair share of what I contribute.

• I am being asked to sacrifice too much for too little reward.

• I don’t have the ability to negotiate any meaningful change in my workplace conditions or pay.

• My employer is taking advantage of vulnerability or desperation, either mine or the situation’s (e.g., staying late to care for sick patients so they don’t die).

And from the office at the top of the tower, the argument is, “What? You’re not slaves. I pay you, I give you benefits, tuition reimbursement, etc… how could I possibly be accused of exploitation?”

And often they roll their eyes and laugh off their workers’ anger as ingratitude and greed. “You agreed to work here for these conditions. If you don’t like it, just leave.”

But it’s really not that simple, and it doesn’t quite get to the root of the question.

Our Underdeveloped Understanding of Exploitation

What we think of as exploitation is often extreme — slavery, human trafficking, forced labor, being physically kept from leaving.

Yes, that is absolutely exploitation in its worst forms. And it often stops us from exploring the concept any further. We think, “Oh, I don’t have it that bad. I should stop whining.” Our elders may even reinforce it. And we keep working a job that is slowly destroying us. And we direct our frustration in all the wrong directions, blinding us to the reality that we, too, may be exploited.

Modern Signs of Exploitation

I’ll start by identifying key signs of workplace exploitation, explaining realistic situations, and common executive/corporate responses to such. Then, I’ll give an example of what a healthy relationship between employer and employee would look like.

It’s up to you to ask yourself in which camp you currently fall.

1. Your compensation has little relationship to the value you create.

Your contributions are generating enormous revenue or savings, but your pay has remained stagnant.

What this looks like: Not getting a raise or promotion despite your clear increased value to the company. The CEO makes 500x what you do. Favoritism. Performing life-changing work with little pay (teaching, caregiving, etc.)

How the corporation responds: Kudos boards, free recognition (a callout slide in a meeting), pizza parties, useless benefits or “perks” programs, promotion systems designed to be unachievable, raise systems that grade people on a bell curve.

The alternative: You are appropriately compensated monetarily (or with extra P.T.O.) for your high impact.

2. You are carrying increasing responsibility without increasing reward.

Many organizations pile more duties onto competent workers because they know they will get the job done. But that rarely translates into more benefits for said workers. Some even do a little homework and find out that junior members are being paid more than they, the tenured employee, are making.

What this looks like: Someone leaves the company, and instead of backfilling the position, the duties are transferred to you. You are given a new title or position with more responsibility or more complex skills. You are kept in the same position with the same title but considered a “team leader”, acting in a supervisory role. In any case, you are not compensated more.

How the corporation responds: Usually not at all.

The alternative: You are allowed to decrease your workload on other tasks to take on new priorities and are not reprimanded or face any retribution for doing so. Or, you are compensated more for your additional time spent.

3. You cannot realistically refuse a request.

A key part of exploitation is power imbalance. If saying “no” means risking your housing, healthcare, immigration status, or livelihood, your freedom to negotiate may be simply theoretical.

What this looks like: You feel like you have no option but to keep going. You feel like you cannot leave. If you do leave without another (likely also exploitative) job lined up, you’ll lose your access to health insurance or lose your visa. You feel like if you took a break or didn’t stay late to work an extra shift, your patients would go without care and die.

How the corporation responds: “We aren’t keeping you here. If you don’t like it, you can always walk out that door.”

The alternative: Management chooses to appropriately staff the department and does not prey on vulnerabilities. Management effectively works with you to meet your needs, like allowing you to reduce to part-time and keep insurance benefits. Alternatively, access to basic needs is guaranteed by social welfare systems, thereby disarming the power of the employer over your livelihood.

4. The organization depends on your commitment while treating you as replaceable.

Many workers experience a strange contradiction: management tells them they are indispensable during crises, but then shows them that they’re actually interchangeable.

What this looks like: Worked to the bone, then laid off — or watching other “indispensable” coworkers get laid off or pushed out.

How the corporation responds: “We are constantly re-evaluating the most efficient structures to leverage key insights on blah blah blah, corporate jargon soup.”

The alternative: Realistic workloads are maintained and employee wellbeing is truly valued in practice, through every day actions, not through vapid buzzwords. There is transparency regarding corporate restructuring and layoffs, like, “We f*cked up the numbers and should be ashamed of ourselves.”

5. You are consuming your future to survive the present.

Most importantly, if the job is damaging your health, relationships, or long-term prospects while providing little ability to build security, that’s a GIANT warning sign. A lit billboard. In the middle of the road. Don’t keep driving.

What this looks like: You are burned out. You are consistently sick. You are constantly stressed out. You’re worried about how your job is affecting your health. Your relationship with your partner is suffering. You have no dating life. You don’t interact with your kids the way you’d like to.

How the corporation responds: “We are now offering a 3-month free membership to the Calm app.”

The alternative: Employers don’t restructure for efficiency and profit; they restructure based on sustainable workloads for their employees. Or, more realistically with the rate at which executives actually make decisions based on employee wellbeing — you choose to not work there anymore.

So What’s All This About Quiet Quitting?

Imagine your employer came to you tomorrow and said, “We’re going to pay you exactly what the market requires to keep you here, and not one penny more.”

This is how most companies already operate.

Now imagine you said, “I’m going to provide exactly the amount of effort required to keep my job, and not one ounce more.”

That makes sense, doesn’t it? Seems like a fair trade.

But if you’re chuckling right now, you know the truth. Most workplaces would view that as a lack of commitment.

And you’re not coming out with a good performance rating that year.

You’re going to get feedback like, “You need to be more of a team player”. You might even get put on a performance improvement plan.

This right here is the line between a healthy job and exploitation.

Quiet quitting isn’t laziness. It’s demanding to be paid for what your contract said you agreed to do. And no more. It’s the refusal to be exploited.

The TL;DR

When we think about exploitation, we think back to stories of children working in mines, women dying from radium paint, and workers collapsing from 14-hour factory shifts.

In the modern world, it looks more like constant availability, unpaid emotional labor, careers that consume evenings and weekends, productivity gains that don’t translate into higher wages, and workers becoming more efficient while the gains flow elsewhere.

Because the lines are blurrier, most people don’t ask if they’re being exploited.

Instead, they just wonder why they’re so tired and angry all the time.

And they go looking for time management hacks and work harder, thinking it will improve the situation.

But exploitation only breeds more exploitation. Only if you let it.

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Snailboat is the moniker of the owner of Half Speed Ahead, LLC, a burnout recovery initiative. To learn more about Snailboat’s services and how they can help you through an exploitative workplace, click below.

1. If you find “exploitation” to be too harsh, use “taking advantage of”. If you don’t feel exploited, you may feel taken advantage of. This may feel more relatable.