“Enough” is not in the vocabulary of corporate vampires. Doing your job to the requirements should be acceptable, and that only works if your org is run by empathetic, reasonable leadership, you don’t tolerate the abuse of being squeezed, or you have a union. If the bar is never enough, you’re being gaslit, and that’s psychological abuse.

That's exactly why most performance reviews are a scam. "Always room for improvement."

And I think that's exactly the original commenter's point: if the company he works for ever decides that "enough" isn't sufficient to satisfy his boss, he's he'll move on.

Working to rule is the first labor action unions start doing ahead of a strike.

If you want to do piecework/hourly work, you should be a contractor.

Working to rule involves malicious compliance, which may very well be harder work than actually being productive. Just being unenthusiastic is not the same thing.