Quiet quitting: Healthy boundary setting, or trendy work fad?

Let’s be honest: jobs suck. No matter how much you like your boss, your co-workers, the various projects you’re working on, or your day-to-day activities, it still sucks to get out of bed to face all the negatives of our careers and day jobs; and, all of that is assuming that you have a supportive supervisor, co-workers that do their share of the work, and patrons that don’t demand to speak to managers or throw coffee in your face. 

Being frustrated with your workplace is a real struggle for workers today, and work culture is beginning to shift in mindset. Previous generations put in long hours and more effort than necessary because they believed that it would lead to promotions, raises, and opportunities. Not to mention, many workers did, and still do, put up with abuse from co-workers, supervisors, and patrons in order to avoid punishments they might receive from speaking out.

A new generation of workers is emerging, however—one that is less tolerant of workplace chicanery, and with this new generation comes a new term: quiet quitting. 

“Quiet quitting” is when a worker does exactly the work required of them, nothing more, nothing less. Quiet quitters don’t take on any extra projects or stay late, and use more vacation time. They take longer breaks, work at a more manageable pace, and they don’t check their work email off the clock.

Work culture can be incredibly toxic sometimes, and toxic work culture encourages employees to put more into their jobs than they are getting out of them. Many workers today are just simply not having that mentality anymore, opting for a more balanced lifestyle that prioritizes their own wellbeing over the wellbeing of their work. 

Is this just a trendy work fad made popular by TikTok that will go away as our society falls back into old habits, or are we as a nation learning to establish healthy boundaries around work?

I certainly hope it is the latter. I personally really love doing the work that I choose to do (usually), and often find myself dedicating a lot of time and effort towards it. Yet while I love my work, I can’t necessarily dedicate every second of the day to it. Establishing healthy boundaries with my co-workers and my employers prevents me from being taken advantage of in the workplace. Whether it is doing more than my fair share of the work or being scheduled on days I’m not available, it’s important to make it clear what you are willing or not willing to do as part of your role. 

In addition, the term “quiet quitting” in and of itself is toxic, as it portrays people having healthy work habits as “quitting.” We need to acknowledge some of the ways that our culture has encouraged work habits that do not prioritize the workers who do that work. We, as a culture and a society, have to stop gaslighting workers into giving up 40 years of their lives for a desk job that doesn’t care about them, or anyone else for that matter. On top of that, when you consider minimum wage jobs, which are dying to find workers, it’s easy to find a new job with better benefits out there. To be honest, knowing you’re replaceable at your work makes it so much easier to leave and find somewhere where you aren’t replaceable. 

So, friends, as you clock into work today, just remember: if you want respect, you have to take it.