I'm so glad this has been called out. The amount of watercooler convos and sanctimonious linkedin posts was doing my head in. I wasn't aware of the lack of research, but I was aware of the lack of real point to any of the articles. As a manager of people, every single person I've lead over the last 2 years had periods of time where they just performed the basics of their roles to free up energy for caring for love ones, being sick with covid, focusing on their mental wellbeing, fuck, doing literally anything to break the monotony. That's NORMAL and FINE. People love to judge others so much. How about you just focus on your job and life so you don't end up quiet fired and quiet divorced.
I had completely ignored the phenomenon of quiet quitting for two reasons:
1. Doing as little as possible to earn your money is what most anyone who has ever worked in a bullshit job called work at some point or another. The lesser relative of Noah responsible for shovelling out the hippo shit, probably did so with a palpable lack of enthusiasm and vigor.
2. Its the internet!
I shall continue to ignore it in the comfortable knowledge I now have third reason:
I interpreted the motivation behind those articles is because big corporations WANT to construct “quiet quitting” as a thing, it benefits them to call it that.. rather than when workers and unions would call it which is working to your job description, protecting life balance and not giving free labour. To me it seems like the people who benefit from “quiet quitting” being a recognized phenomenon are those who want an vocabulary that demonizes workers setting clear boundaries around what their work and time are worth . I never doubted it was made up but I think I just assumed, like far right latch onto buzz words to sell a narrative, it has been latched on to as a way to reinforce the narrative that overworking should be the norm.
The internet is just such a weird, weird place where things get picked up and roll at an avalanche like place. Like, earlier this year I posted a dumb TikTok about finding skulls in our new back yard, and within three days 3 million people had seen it, Newsweek had called, and I had to talk to my therapist about how I’d inadvertently put our backyard all over the internet and my mom’s coworkers were emailing her about it. What a ride.
This!- "We’re becoming adrift in a bottomless sea of content generated by content; media human centipedes with someone like Khan at their head, and Psychology Today burbling about John Mayer at the end of a tube of increasingly diluted shit."
Also, I've always been impressed with people that create strong work/life boundaries. Isn't that essentially what "quiet quitting" is? Standing firm and doing what is within your job description and that's all can be the healthier option. I've certainly been on the other end of this spectrum, and it always does lead to burn out.
Haha! Quiet quitting? Adorable. Gen X'er here, they called us 'slackers' and we just embraced it. Older generations will always find the younger kids lazy and find new ways to describe that laziness.
I can see where we as a culture are starting to realize that working 9-5 corporate jobs isn't exactly healthy for everyone. Growing up I remember there being such an emphasis on going to college and persuing a career that made a lot of money. I look back now and realize that as an eighteen year old I had no freaking clue what I actually wanted to do with my life. I changed my major three times over 5 years and accumulated over 120 credits but not in a particular field of study. I was offered a job as a dispatcher for an electrical company and decided to do that because it was a solid paycheck. I eventually worked my way up and am now the service manager making 6 figures. My point being that I really didn't need a college education to become successful in the eyes of society. However, my job is super stressful and soul-sucking but it's how I survive so I stay. I feel like as a society we should try harder to help kids figure out what they really want to do as a career or with their life. I also feel like we shouldn't make college the only option for becoming successful. There are plenty of vocations where a lot of money can be made but society doesn't push these other options as a viable option for a successful career. I can relate to the definition of what quiet quitting is because even though I make good money I am not happy or stimulated by what I do. While my company isn't the worst company to work for they definitely take advantage of their employees by putting more work on us than we can handle which leads to burnout and resentment. Corporate culture needs an overhaul or quiet quitting could definitely become a thing.
Lol I saw the headline for quiet firing yesterday assuming it was a joke?? Have journalists never heard of the term “constructive dismissal”? I hope any business who tries to “quietly fire” their staff gets huge fines to pay the employment court and large settlements to pay their unjustifiably dismissed employee.
Thank you!!! Jesus! I have been reading about this and I am like, quiet quitting is NOT a thing! It is literally just doing an average job which is basically where 68% of workers fall on a perfect bell curve! If you have ever worked anywhere that uses metrics to measure work performance, then 68% of your workforce is “quiet quitting”. Most of us go to work, keep our head down, do the job necessary to get a check, and then start all over the next pay period. That’s not quiet quitting. That is surviving to the next pay day and doing what is necessary to pay the bills, have a place to live, and eat. The end.
Great piece. Nodded my head so much at this part that I think I hurt my neck haha: “A slow untethering is taking place, where less and less of what we debate and consume can be traced back to observable reality.”
I had this argument with my MILs partner on Saturday. He had been to a HR conference (in Ireland) and they covered quiet quitting and the great resignation and he was wanting to tell us all about it. He just wouldn't accept it wasn't a real thing. My 70 year old dad thinks anyone who works less than a 70 hour week is 'lazy' so I can see why Baby Boomers and Gen X think this is real perhaps but for those of us (elder Millenial here) with Millenials and Gen Z people in our teams, even if this was a thing, it would just be people doing what they are paid to and frankly what they should. You can be sure that most companies loyalty to you stops at the legally required so why should you do more than what they are paying you for? Next hysteria is going to be about remote working/hybrid working/working remotely. I can't even with that conversation!
Thanks for this take on quiet quitting and quiet firing. I am an HR Professional and first heard about it on TikTok. I thought it was just satirical jesting from Gen Z who, from my experience, are looking for something different from the workplace than what was built by the generations that came before them, and good on them! There is a company I have worked with who are trying to measure ‘presenteeism’ through surveying staff. They have been working on these measures for over a year now. If I recall correctly, It basically looks at times when people go to work even though they are sick, or are distracted by family issues, or have other priorities that aren’t they work while they are at work. I’m not sure I am a huge fan of it, because we are not robots after all, or in the TV Show Severance!
I'm so glad this has been called out. The amount of watercooler convos and sanctimonious linkedin posts was doing my head in. I wasn't aware of the lack of research, but I was aware of the lack of real point to any of the articles. As a manager of people, every single person I've lead over the last 2 years had periods of time where they just performed the basics of their roles to free up energy for caring for love ones, being sick with covid, focusing on their mental wellbeing, fuck, doing literally anything to break the monotony. That's NORMAL and FINE. People love to judge others so much. How about you just focus on your job and life so you don't end up quiet fired and quiet divorced.
I had completely ignored the phenomenon of quiet quitting for two reasons:
1. Doing as little as possible to earn your money is what most anyone who has ever worked in a bullshit job called work at some point or another. The lesser relative of Noah responsible for shovelling out the hippo shit, probably did so with a palpable lack of enthusiasm and vigor.
2. Its the internet!
I shall continue to ignore it in the comfortable knowledge I now have third reason:
3. It’s not a thing.
Thank you for the validation
Can we be the first generation that doesn't treat the next one as if they are weaker and lazier?
Or should we leave that for them to sort out too
I interpreted the motivation behind those articles is because big corporations WANT to construct “quiet quitting” as a thing, it benefits them to call it that.. rather than when workers and unions would call it which is working to your job description, protecting life balance and not giving free labour. To me it seems like the people who benefit from “quiet quitting” being a recognized phenomenon are those who want an vocabulary that demonizes workers setting clear boundaries around what their work and time are worth . I never doubted it was made up but I think I just assumed, like far right latch onto buzz words to sell a narrative, it has been latched on to as a way to reinforce the narrative that overworking should be the norm.
The internet is just such a weird, weird place where things get picked up and roll at an avalanche like place. Like, earlier this year I posted a dumb TikTok about finding skulls in our new back yard, and within three days 3 million people had seen it, Newsweek had called, and I had to talk to my therapist about how I’d inadvertently put our backyard all over the internet and my mom’s coworkers were emailing her about it. What a ride.
This!- "We’re becoming adrift in a bottomless sea of content generated by content; media human centipedes with someone like Khan at their head, and Psychology Today burbling about John Mayer at the end of a tube of increasingly diluted shit."
Also, I've always been impressed with people that create strong work/life boundaries. Isn't that essentially what "quiet quitting" is? Standing firm and doing what is within your job description and that's all can be the healthier option. I've certainly been on the other end of this spectrum, and it always does lead to burn out.
Haha! Quiet quitting? Adorable. Gen X'er here, they called us 'slackers' and we just embraced it. Older generations will always find the younger kids lazy and find new ways to describe that laziness.
We have fallen upon evil times
and the world has waxed very old and wicked.
Politics are very corrupt.
Children are no longer respectful to their parents (attributed to King Naram Sin of Chaldea, 3800 years B.C)
Plus ça change...
I can see where we as a culture are starting to realize that working 9-5 corporate jobs isn't exactly healthy for everyone. Growing up I remember there being such an emphasis on going to college and persuing a career that made a lot of money. I look back now and realize that as an eighteen year old I had no freaking clue what I actually wanted to do with my life. I changed my major three times over 5 years and accumulated over 120 credits but not in a particular field of study. I was offered a job as a dispatcher for an electrical company and decided to do that because it was a solid paycheck. I eventually worked my way up and am now the service manager making 6 figures. My point being that I really didn't need a college education to become successful in the eyes of society. However, my job is super stressful and soul-sucking but it's how I survive so I stay. I feel like as a society we should try harder to help kids figure out what they really want to do as a career or with their life. I also feel like we shouldn't make college the only option for becoming successful. There are plenty of vocations where a lot of money can be made but society doesn't push these other options as a viable option for a successful career. I can relate to the definition of what quiet quitting is because even though I make good money I am not happy or stimulated by what I do. While my company isn't the worst company to work for they definitely take advantage of their employees by putting more work on us than we can handle which leads to burnout and resentment. Corporate culture needs an overhaul or quiet quitting could definitely become a thing.
Lol I saw the headline for quiet firing yesterday assuming it was a joke?? Have journalists never heard of the term “constructive dismissal”? I hope any business who tries to “quietly fire” their staff gets huge fines to pay the employment court and large settlements to pay their unjustifiably dismissed employee.
Nearing 40, just after the cat and piece of artwork hanging on the wall really...
Thank you!!! Jesus! I have been reading about this and I am like, quiet quitting is NOT a thing! It is literally just doing an average job which is basically where 68% of workers fall on a perfect bell curve! If you have ever worked anywhere that uses metrics to measure work performance, then 68% of your workforce is “quiet quitting”. Most of us go to work, keep our head down, do the job necessary to get a check, and then start all over the next pay period. That’s not quiet quitting. That is surviving to the next pay day and doing what is necessary to pay the bills, have a place to live, and eat. The end.
I loved the shit out of this - so so many chefs kiss perfection moments !
Great piece. Nodded my head so much at this part that I think I hurt my neck haha: “A slow untethering is taking place, where less and less of what we debate and consume can be traced back to observable reality.”
I had this argument with my MILs partner on Saturday. He had been to a HR conference (in Ireland) and they covered quiet quitting and the great resignation and he was wanting to tell us all about it. He just wouldn't accept it wasn't a real thing. My 70 year old dad thinks anyone who works less than a 70 hour week is 'lazy' so I can see why Baby Boomers and Gen X think this is real perhaps but for those of us (elder Millenial here) with Millenials and Gen Z people in our teams, even if this was a thing, it would just be people doing what they are paid to and frankly what they should. You can be sure that most companies loyalty to you stops at the legally required so why should you do more than what they are paying you for? Next hysteria is going to be about remote working/hybrid working/working remotely. I can't even with that conversation!
Thanks for this take on quiet quitting and quiet firing. I am an HR Professional and first heard about it on TikTok. I thought it was just satirical jesting from Gen Z who, from my experience, are looking for something different from the workplace than what was built by the generations that came before them, and good on them! There is a company I have worked with who are trying to measure ‘presenteeism’ through surveying staff. They have been working on these measures for over a year now. If I recall correctly, It basically looks at times when people go to work even though they are sick, or are distracted by family issues, or have other priorities that aren’t they work while they are at work. I’m not sure I am a huge fan of it, because we are not robots after all, or in the TV Show Severance!