It seems a new phrase is trending out there in the Twittersphere or Tik Tok world for #quietquitting. I saw it this morning on a Buzzfeed article that popped up in my Apple newsfeed. According to the article, quiet quitting is “where you’re not outright quitting your job but you’re quitting the idea of going above and beyond”.
The older I get, the more it seems there’s really nothing new under the sun. To me this seems like the natural progression of putting in efforts to a job that doesn’t give back and the logical response to the situation. This isn’t really a new idea but the name “quiet quitting” seems like a fair label for the behavior.
If you are career driven and hoping to progress at your job or get decent merit increases it does help to do more than just the bare minimum. But what about when you’ve given years of effort and dedication to a job and the job never gives back? Perhaps it is then time to “quiet quit”.
This really isn’t a new idea. You could call it slacking, phoning it in, putting in minimum effort but doing so is good only if it’s part of a larger plan.
Is Quiet Quitting OK?
Is it ok to NOT put in the maximum effort? I suppose the answer to that depends. Let me share some personal anecdotes. I personally have met people that have worked at a company for over 15 years and stayed in the same position. And this is for a job title that did have a “senior” position. The senior position typically just means a bit more responsibility than when you entered the position with a higher midpoint range of pay ie a decent pay bump. For these people I know, the senior position never arrived.
Now perhaps people are content with never advancing in a company and I can understand that. But if you’re clear that you’ll never get a promotion (which should become clear by year 10), and you know that your salary will remain fairly stagnant with just the regular merit increase/cost of living adjustments, that would seem to take away incentive to really “go the extra mile”. Because if you do what is the reward?
If you’re content with staying put in a position that’s fine. But if you want more, I would certain consider the “quiet quitting” method and dedicate my efforts to a job search to find something better. What’s the worst that could happen? Well if your employer who doesn’t want to give you a chance at advancement decides to let you go, you’ll get unemployment and can dedicate more time to the job search.