Call it what you want, but ‘quiet quitting’ is not slacking off
There is no guarantee that going above and beyond at work all the time will lead to a promotion. Setting boundaries helps you work smarter — not harder.
The term “quiet quitting” is having a not-so-quiet viral moment in our public discourse about work. What started as a TikTok trend has become the subject of an increasingly divisive debate that sees many employees in favor of the idea and employers against it.
Despite what the misleading name may suggest, quiet quitting, as many have pointed out, has nothing to do with quitting, doing the bare minimum or slacking off at work. It is more a way to set boundaries at work and not do extra work outside one’s scope without fair compensation. Shutting down one’s laptop at 5 p.m. or saying “no” to doing someone else’s job may be how one chooses to quit quietly, but these examples are by no means prescriptive. However, even with this definition, many employers are objecting to the practice.
Despite what the misleading name may suggest, quiet quitting, as many have pointed out, has nothing to do with quitting, doing the bare minimum or slacking off at work.
In the backlash against quiet quitting, many employers are saying that going above and beyond is what moves employees up the career ladder and that not doing so can hurt one’s career. Canadian businessman Kevin O’Leary, of ABC’s “Shark Tank” fame, is one such vocal critic of the idea. He has called quiet quitting everything from “a really bad idea” to “the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard,” claiming it is not conducive to success.
What O’Leary and those like him — who are using this scare-and-shame tactic to dissuade employees from opting out of giving their all to their companies — leave out of their “career advice” is that when it comes to success at work, nothing is guaranteed.
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