Opinion: The trend of quiet quitting concerns me. We should have the conversation about what your work actually requires for your salary, but it feels like people aren’t pushing their job away from their life enough.
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Two days ago, I was deep in the coal mines and my unpaid overtime shift of digging out rocks and ducking collapsing debris for $2 a day. Abruptly, my co-worker handed me the daily paper. It talked about “quiet quitting,” some avant-garde trend of uppity workers wanting to actually have a life.  I scoffed — coughed — then scolded my co-worker for reading while they were on the clock. “People just don’t want to work these days,” I said. “I hope my foreman doesn’t think I’m only doing my job and not someone else’s, too.”
If I understand this concept correctly, quiet quitting is exclusively doing your job in what fits your job description and only what you are paid to do. This could look like leaving work immediately after clocking out, only communicating with co-workers about the job when on the clock or not helping out on a task if it isn’t your position.

So, the trend is… just doing your job? It’s only doing the things you’re paid for? You know, like what a job is?

I’m struggling to believe this is the absurd concept that is frightening bosses and causing older generations to worry about the work ethic of the youths.

The idea is to further isolate your work behavior to your job, to disassociate with your profession just enough. Work essentially is a necessity in today’s climate. The money garnered from a job is used for the actual bare necessities like water, shelter, food and Wizard101 subscriptions. Even so, that doesn’t mean your source of life is that job. We cannot allow ourselves to get caught in a cycle of living to work. Working to live is already bad enough.

Still, rich CEOs and their children (inheritance beneficiaries) will agree (because they have to) that quiet quitting is a bad idea. Even renowned-Shark Kevin O’Leary called people who do this “losers.” That quote seems a bit harsh, but it may be out of personal vendetta. After all, he had to experience his hair quietly quitting from being on the top of his head for years.

That stance is also hypocritical from O’Leary, who stated in May of this year, “If all you do is worry about your job and where you are on the pecking order, spend 25 hours a day working, you will be a less productive person.” In the same interview he also claims: “Great entrepreneurs, great managers, great employees have balance in their life. Those are the people I want to hire.” He then, like an honest and whimsical millionaire, states the exact opposite when his grip over workers is threatened.  

This sounds like the exact point quiet quitting is making and is quite fraudulent from O’Leary. Almost like that one time he said he had never heard of two companies investigated for a predatory fraud scheme, even though he had mentioned both of them by name in multiple promotional videos. He quietly quit that lawsuit, but I digress.
I do take an issue with this movement –– not in its motives or goals, but in its tepidness. My issue is that it had to be a movement in the first place for people to realize there were things they didn’t have to put up with at work. 

I quit my seasonal job the day before writing this. I felt my co-workers and I were repeatedly disrespected and misused. I didn’t cut back hours or my effort; one day I had enough and told them I was done. I knew what our labor was worth, and my paycheck didn’t reflect that. Perhaps if this was a career job I would be more eager to go above my station, but not for this company and this time.

Of course, I had thought it through and was in a firm enough position to quit when I did, and I’m not telling you to quit at the first inconvenience. I’m telling you to do what you’re paid to do and ignore what you’re not being paid for on the job. If your job interferes with your time and livelihood, go find another job, not another life.

At some point, the onus is on the workers to force employers into suitable conditions and financial agreements or to otherwise be met with resignations. I recognize that not all workers have this freedom of expression; some people need any job they can land. That’s why it’s even more essential for those that can find work elsewhere to leverage themselves for the benefits of the job so that their co-workers receive a fair reward as well.

If you choose to help off the clock, that’s your call, but consider whether or not your employers would help you.
Still, my grief with this trend is how superficial and subdued it is. If the workplace isn’t treating you right or invading your personal time, just quit. These passive-aggressive, petty gestures aren’t sending the message as strongly as you think. Not cleaning your desk isn’t going to get your boss to actually pay you overtime when you work past your shift.

You have to think of bolder, more surefire ways to gain respect at work. Luckily for you, I already thought of some, and they’re all completely ethical. Say you have a dentist appointment, and they’re only open during your shifts. Do that twice a month; your gums really need a lookover. Wear your coolest clothes instead of your uniform: get a fit pic off while on the clock. Date your boss’s ex. In the middle of your next shift, go home. Say you quit. Clock in the next day pretending you have amnesia.

There’s my final stance: quiet quitting isn’t enough. Gaslight your employer.