The Case for Quiet Quitting

I’ve been “quiet quitting” for decades now. In fact, I’ve quiet quit myself into being self employed and pursuing a creative life. The term “quiet quitting” has recently been birthed into popular culture as a way to describe a response to employee burnout: saying no to tasks beyond a job description that one is not getting paid for. If online support chatter is any indicator, this movement lacks the familiar cries of “in my day we worked hard and didn’t complain” and it looks like it may gain some traction. I don’t love the term — it feels like it pins irresponsibility and passive aggression on the worker. I do love the sentiment, which I interpret as setting boundaries around workplace culture that should never have become normalized in the first place.

The concept of work-life balance has been making its way to the forefront of our worlds over the years, shedding light on the fact that even this pursuit has historically been one enjoyed by those in a place of privilege. Most people may not have the option to say no to the things that will balance out the “life” part of the equation. One of my final jobs years ago was the perfect example of this. After being love-bombed on a Thursday interview, hired on Friday then texted at 8:30 on that Sunday morning to do something outside my job description and outside of working hours, I set a firm boundary that opened the floodgates of retaliation. In no time at all, I had parts of my work divvied out to co-workers with no explanation, only to be held responsible when they fell short from the intentional lack of communication around expectations. I stood up for myself. There were intimidation attempts, scolding me in group emails for dropping the ball when I had — and fired back with — documentation that the ball was changed, cancelled or given to someone else without my knowledge. I continued to stand up for myself. Luckily, I had a team of co-workers who had my back in a culture where the mantra was recited to me on my first day in the office: just keep your head down and hope you’re not the target of the week.

All of the standing up for myself resulted in increasingly aggressive — yet entirely predictable — workplace abuse leading up to the team I successfully led being told that they suddenly no longer existed one day before our weekly meeting. The entire team except for me, that is. After comparing notes, and seeing what was happening, our team decided to hold the meeting anyway — after all, I had no reason to do otherwise. So we kicked off the meeting, I texted the boss to ask where she was and she walked in to a room full of people who she’d just told not to attend. I was let go that week.

I’ve always been flabbergasted by the majority of workplace protocol: I say no to people who are conditioned to hear us say yes. That often feels like a privilege to me. The majority of my team in the example above had families, mortgages — things that I have not gotten around to prioritizing. And that gives me a lot of freedom. Factors beyond the financial — like gender and race to name just a few — add variables to how often one is expected to say yes to extra work. Very few people can say no to their boss with little or zero concern for being let go. This abuse of power leads to an increasingly unhealthy work environment as resentments build, trust is shattered, tension begins to fill the work environment and relationships suffer, becoming toxic and traumatizing for some.

It’s time for this work culture of unwarranted expectations to end. As the concept of “quiet quitting” creeps into our culture we’ll see more and more people become educated on their rights. On the other side will be just as many folks at the top looking to perpetuate a system they likely profit from and telling us why quiet quitting is not the answer. But it is. Like it or not, setting boundaries at work is the ingredient that will give people more personal time which will put us on a path to balance. What we also need is “loud allowing” by workplace leaders who offer scheduled paid mental health days off, flexible schedules and mental health benefits. We need more supervisors and managers respecting boundaries and acknowledging violations not because a rested worker is a productive worker but because being a respected & whole human being living a balanced life is a right.