If you have been on social media within the last month, you have probably come across the concept of “quiet quitting.” The basic idea is that instead of going above and beyond for your employer in anticipation for a promotion or raise that you have no guarantee of receiving, you simply do the tasks assigned to you as they relate to your job description and leave your workspace at the end of the workday.
The one issue with this is that the term is meaningless. No one is quitting anything. “Quiet quitting” is just doing your job.
For a lot of people, finding the right balance between their work lives and personal lives can be a struggle, but is still something they want to achieve. No one wants to spend the majority of their time working, especially when there is no guarantee of proportional compensation. However, these people are often described as “lazy” or that “they just don’t want to work anymore” which is just a plain lie.
The cost of living right now is so high that most people cannot afford to cut back out on working as much as possible. A lot of people do work longer and they do pick up those extra hours to go above and beyond, yet for many of them, particularly women and people of color, their compensation, both monetarily and professionally, does not reflect that.
Perhaps the best example of quiet quitting being used as a buzzword to describe people as “lazy” is in the case of Shark Tank investor Kevin O’Leary. O’Leary went viral on social media for posting a controversial video to Tik Tok.
“Quiet quitting is a really bad idea” said O’Leary. “If you’re a quiet quitter, you’re a loser.”
Soon after, he posted several follow-up videos to expand on his point. While some of his points sound genuine with explaining that people should work as a team and that they should not have disjointed hours for that reason, he completely lost me when he said that he hopes those who want the work-life balance do not work for him, but rather his competitors. Maybe I am missing something, but to me, it just seems like some rich guy who is so out of touch with the working class and just how difficult it is for a lot of people to get by.
I think this is why those are not putting in those extra hours anymore (at least those can afford to do so). It is because, if they are not getting compensated properly for going above their job description and cutting out their free time, they may as well just take the free time instead since it is very difficult to achieve financial freedom on your own, but it is even more so when it comes to working for someone else.
Nobody should have to cut out their personal lives to work those extra hours with nothing to show for it. Nobody should be labeled as “lazy” for wanting to find that balance or for not wanting to go above and beyond just because there is a very unlikely chance they will get that promotion or raise. For a lot of people, this idea of working harder will get you noticed is just not a reality.