By Saffron Geyle

Content Warning: Mental Health, Sexual Harassment

In a cost-of-living crisis, students are facing greater financial hardship than ever. Many students are struggling to meet basic affordabilities such as rent prices, medical appointments, and even the weekly grocery shop. 

To keep up with their essentials amidst rising costs of living, many students are working one to two jobs alongside their studies. Employers can be essential in our darkest hours, but what happens when they don’t pull through? 

Quiet firing occurs when an employer essentially ceases contact with a casual employee, slowly removing them from the workplace’s roster. A mystery to most, Observer takes on students’ quiet firing stories and the reasons as to why this phenomenon occurs.

Sophia*, a fifth-year student at the ANU, worked as a casual bartender at a lawn bowls club in Sydney over the summer break, at the age of 20. In the beginning, she was given a stable number of hours, her and her coworkers were getting along, and “everything was going seemingly well”.

“One of the coworkers who I got along with is actually the reason why I got quiet fired.” 

Sophia often worked with 56-year-old coworker, Andrew. Despite their age gap, the two “had good banter, and we did work well as a team and got along quite well”. One day over this period, Andrew added Sophia on Facebook, which she “didn’t think anything of. And then he started messaging me”.

“It was fairly innocent in the sense that nothing was overtly inappropriate, it was just like how was your day, etc. It was odd, but at the same time I just thought he was a very lonely man who just kind of found some comfort in talking to me, and it didn’t make me super uncomfortable.”

Responding in minimal, polite responses, Sophia “wasn’t too concerned about it at the start”. Eventually, the Christmas holidays came around, and she was busy spending time with her family when Sophia received a call at dinner with her family on Christmas Eve.

“At that moment I realised that it was actually not normal and Andrew had the wrong impression. Obviously I didn’t pick up the phone call, and while I was freaked out at least it did show me there was something off about his behaviour.”

In response, Sophia messaged Andrew to let him know she wasn’t comfortable with their communication outside of work. Andrew replied telling her to no longer approach him at work. When she eventually returned to her workplace two weeks later, she was only given one to two shifts a week. 

“All my coworkers my age were surprised I was back. I asked them why and they said my manager, Greg, had told them I had quit and gone back to Canberra.”

Sophia then messaged her manager, confirming that she would still be in Sydney for five weeks as they had previously discussed. She was met with no response, and barely any more shifts.

“I wasn’t fully cut from the roster, but I went from working 38-45 hours a week to then scraping 8 hours. This was my main source of income, so I quickly started looking for a new job.”

Sophia’s parents advised her to report this to upper management on the basis of sexual harassment, but she eventually decided not to “because I thought it wasn’t worth it for a minimum wage job”. 

A year later, Sophia found herself talking to another young woman who had worked there, and told this woman about her experience with Andrew. In conversation with this woman, she found out that she wasn’t the only one with this experience.

“So there was basically a string of young women who worked hard who were getting pushed out by this 56 year old man who was kept on because he worked full time and knew the ins and outs of the bar basically.”

Sophia said that quiet firing in “those industries is actually such a scourge, and this is not the only time this has happened to me, I was also pushed out of another bar job last year where I was quite well liked, simply because I wouldn’t accept poor treatment from a coworker”.

“I went quietly from the first job, but last year I basically refused to resign until my manager agreed to give me a glowing reference because I was actually a good worker.”

“But yeah basically that’s the essence of casual work, there’s not really much to fall back on. If you’re hired by a place for 6 months, you do have rights under the fair work commission, so yeah definitely that’s a good avenue to look into in the future.”

Fourth-year student Jessica* had experienced being quiet fired “two or three times”. One of these jobs involved her working at a laboratory, which she did for over two and a half years. 

“I actually even moved house up really close to where that job was, and if I can be honest it really was one of the main reasons I moved to where I am now.”

Her main source of income, and an enjoyable job in which she had rapport with the staff and her managers, Jessica stated that out of the blue, “they just stopped sending me texts”.

“I sent them some messages asking if there was any more work, and they just didn’t reply. The message was pretty clear from there.”

Jessica reported that the quiet firing experience was both “financially” and “mentally” draining. During this time, she found that her studies were greatly affected by the experience.

“You’re running down money…and you feel guilty for every full meal you eat because you know you’ll have to make that money back later. 

“You feel guilty for every moment you spend on your studies because you have this even more pressing issue that you ought to be working on. On top of it all, you feel this eating dread at every job you apply to, knowing they can do exactly the same thing to you with no repercussions.”

For students struggling to afford their essential living costs, ANUSA offers a range of financial support programs, including a newly introduced Union Pantry, which runs every Friday from 2pm – 4pm and offers free pantry and essential items. Other useful programs provided by ANUSA include their grocery voucher program, transport voucher program, accommodation assistance, and more. 

Finally, Observer spoke to third-year exchange student Will*, who worked at a popular cafe in Braddon, and returned from his approved summer holiday to find little to no shifts left for him. Will was messaging his manager, asking for more shifts, until eventually he was removed from the roster. After getting a new job, Will ran into an old coworker from his job.

“I found out that the cafe had actually shut down. The boss didn’t tell any of the members of staff, my old colleague only knew because she worked next door and her manager knew.”

While Will was paid his due amount, he stated that “some of [his] old colleagues didn’t get paid for their final shifts”. 

The ANU also offers financial support for accommodation costs, including both an ANU residential scholarship, and an emergency accommodation bursary. For students facing further difficulties during their studies as a result of unemployment, the ANU also offers wellbeing, academic and student experience support.

*Names have been changed to protect the anonymity of students.

Graphics by Shé Chani

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