The term ‘quiet quitting’ has been getting a lot of media attention lately. It is a term to describe doing the bare minimum required at one’s job.
I am reposting this article because I think it speaks to the key issues that I believe are at the source of the recent phenomenon: stress, employee burnout and conflating one’s whole identity, status and meaning in life with their job title.
I do believe that work can provide you with purpose, but it becomes problematic when it subsumes all other areas of one’s life including one’s relationships, hobbies and passion projects.
What do you think about this trend of ‘quiet quitting’? Let me know in the comments
In the modern world, our job titles tend to be the centerpiece of our identities. When you meet someone new at a social gathering, the first piece of information that they will likely disclose to the question ‘what do you do?’ is the details of your chosen profession.
Your answer to this question will dictate how you will be perceived by others.
If you tell your new acquaintance that you have a senior or executive level position at a high performing business, you will be met with praise and admiration. You are someone who went to elite universities, wears trendy suits, sleeps in posh hotels and works late hours – the epitome of a success story. People will flock towards you with great interest and enthusiasm. You are seen to have high status, and in their eyes, your efforts should be celebrated.
On the other hand, if you tell this…
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A Life of Virtue: Philosophy as a Way of Life 
‘voices that may drown out the faint sounds emitted by our souls’ 😭 Great post, I’m glad you reposted. So many great lines, and your own are more inspiring than Alain de Botton’s! Like ‘there are many paths towards contentment’ and ‘Rather than merely accepting the social expectations placed on you by others, we can always make the decision about what goals, values and ambitions, we would like to achieve’
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“Lying flat” (Chinese “tang ping”) got started in China as a protest by young people who were being forced to work harder and longer without recognition or reward. Since then it has gotten worse and the new meme is “let it rot.” (Chinese “bai lan”) Interestingly, those terms are now banned on Chinese social media.
When you have as many people in their 60s as you do in their twenties, China’s theory was just to make the workers work twice as hard to compensate. Push the mouse to run in its cage too hard and it quits because it cannot keep up with the demand and still have a life worth living.
The movement quickly spread to the US and became known as “quiet quitting.”
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I think people have been quiet quitting – and being villified for it – for quite a while – and if being diligent in doing their actual job, but not continuously doing more, it’s the perception that is the problem. The current attention to this is just a new way of framing it. From an article I recently read “quiet quitting is a rational response to a fundamental failure of leadership” – this is what I see and experience.
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