Want to become a tiktok star but not sure you can survive without eating by joining the “Great Resignation,” and really don’t want to suffer the pain and indignity of being a “spoonie”? Then maybe “quiet quitting” is right for you.
“I recently learned about this term called ‘quiet quitting’ where you’re not outright quitting your job, but you’re quitting the idea of going above and beyond,” says Zaiad Khan, a TikTok user with over 10,000 followers, in a soothing voice, juxtaposed with a video of the New York City subway. “You are still performing your duties, but you are no longer subscribing to the hustle culture mentally that work has to be our life.”
That, of course, is the explanation from the sort of person who uses tiktok. In an op-ed, Laura Vanderkam offers a more “mature” explanation.
This summer, there was much discussion of the concept of “quiet quitting” — meaning, essentially, doing the bare minimum at work. And perhaps that’s not surprising: After more than two years of pandemic uncertainty, employee stress levels are at all-time highs, and people are still languishing. When you’re exhausted and overwhelmed, it feels like something needs to give — and for many, that seems to be the pursuit of excellence at work.
Stress? Languishing? Exhausted? Overwhelmed? Who doesn’t feel sad that young people don’t enjoy the perpetual good times their seniors had as they landed on Omaha Beach. But I digest.
The old aphorism was that anything worth doing was worth doing well. Apparently, a job isn’t anything worth doing, but rather just a means of getting a paycheck (which is inadequate to live in dignity, as is their right) while being as much of a slacker as you can get away with. Work hard? Why bother? It just puts money in the hands of disgusting capitalists who pay you.
Who cares if the buyers of the goods and services are getting screwed by your failing to do any more than the minimum, even if the buyers are pretty much you? Who cares if your goods or services result in other people being hurt, suffering, getting screwed and being miserably, even if the buyers are pretty much you? After all, it’s only about you, and not other people who are just like you but aren’t you so who cares?
Even Vanderkam thinks “quiet quitting” is the wrong answer.
But is taking your foot off the gas the answer? I’d argue it isn’t. As a writer focused on time management, I’ve come to realize that the opposite of burnout isn’t doing nothing, or even scaling back. It’s engagement. As counterintuitive as that seems, adding energizing activities to your schedule just might make life feel more doable.
It was once a joke that millennials being expected to show up for work on time was too hard, too stressful, too demanding. It’s now the crux of a New York Times op-ed about how to feed one’s narcissism as a cure for the “burnout” of ordinary existence. Don’t do it for others. Don’t do it for your boss. Don’t do it for honor, pride, self-respect, accomplishment or even success. Give yourself more “me time.”
But instead of asking them to scale things back or draw stricter boundaries between work and life, most of the strategies I taught people were additive. I had them build in regular physical activity. I had them make space for little adventures. And when it came to leisure activities, I asked them to put “effortful before effortless” — to choose those that require action over those that are passive (even something as simple as reading a novel instead of binge-watching a TV show).
If this doesn’t compel the slackoisie to work harder for the good of society, nothing will.
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