I was wondering if maybe this is the result of a tight labor market. A lot lf what I see kind of lines up with what happens if you have to make do with underskilled or otherwise sloppy staff.

The throughline I think is that there's no consequence for being bad at one's job. Not to say I'm perfect - I am pretty sure I've been a mediocre employee before, but I've also never been sacked.

I have a high work ethic but I mostly keep it to myself.

That is: I don't hold strangers to my standards or expect them to feel the same way about their work that I do about mine.

I've never been sacked for poor performance, but I have been included in mass layoffs and restructurings throughout my career, which always makes one wonder if they were secretly not meeting some metric.