People are taking a page out of Kim K's book that says everyone should work harder, and burn it.
I’m not questioning the concept, merely the term; but the concept might not be what you think. When workers of colour have to “work twice as hard”, can they afford such a thing?
It’s a viral phrase, generating millions of views on TikTok and creating an increasingly divisive debate on the Internet. From LA Times to Washington Post to CNN, the BBC to The Guardian, everyone is jumping on the “quiet quitting” bandwagon not so quietly. Maybe it’s more dramatic than Taylor Swift releasing a whole new album on Kim K’s birthday tbh.
It’s not the age-old and cliched Instagram caption “working hard or hardly working?”, because either is incorrect. It’s kind of both but it’s also neither. Is it just a new name for an old reality? Is it simply coasting and slacking off at work rebranded by those zany Gen Zers? Or is it really the new revolution following the Great Resignation last year? Get pen and paper ready because you need notes to keep up. “I’ll never quit I’ll just sweep it under the rug” sounds like a Real Housewives tagline to me!
Forget going above and beyond, some say it means doing the bare minimum at work. Tiktoker zaidleppelin said in his video – which then became viral and got picked up by mainstream media outlets – that it means “you’re not outright quitting your job, you’re quitting the idea of going above and beyond. You’re still performing your duties but you’re no longer subscribing to the hustle culture mentality that work has to be your life.” Of course I am bringing this up again but I am sure Molly Mae is shaking. Some say that quiet quitting means setting healthy boundaries at work and embracing work-life balance – not buying into the presenteeism at work, not answering emails after working hours, or muting Slack after 5pm, or 6pm. If that is the case – it does beg the question – why are people so fussy about it?
The Guardian pointed out that “the rise in quiet quitting is linked to a noticeable fall in job satisfaction”. According to survey data from Gallup, after trending up in recent years, employee engagement in the U.S. saw its first annual decline in a decade — dropping from 36% engaged employees in 2020 to 34% in 2021; meanwhile, in the UK, only 9% of workers were engaged or enthusiastic about their work. It begs another question: if people are unhappy with their work, why are they staying? When it comes to promotions and pay rises, will the workers who are less engaged get the bonuses? It could even hurt their long-term career.
It’s not always that simple. A recent BBC article argued the trend “has captured the zeitgeist that employees feel overworked and underpaid in the wake of the pandemic and amid the rising cost of living.” The term is making it seem like employees are the ones to blame – they must be doing something wrong. If people are acting their wages, fulfilling their job responsibilities, and doing their job, how can it be “quitting”? Some might argue that there is no reason to do extra work if the company won’t validate your work through either pay rises or promotions. So it’s not fair to blame one party, it’s a matter of all stakeholders in the organisation – leaders, managers and employees. When the matter of employee engagement is not always in the hand of employees themselves, but in fact, the opposite is true. As the winter of discontent looms, “quiet quitting” is booming. Wondering if Brooklyn Beckham the ultimate nepo baby has ever gone through and navigated such a thing? I mean if it didn’t work out as a footballer, I could just loudly quit and become an art photographer, then a published monograph author, a model and a chef. But who am I to say without my parents’ combined £380 million net worth!
The phenomenon has also been triggered by the increased conversations around mental health. People are redrawing boundaries after the pandemic and “taking action to stave off burnout”. In PR specifically, 90 per cent of PR professionals have struggled with their mental wellbeing to an extent, compared with 65 per cent of UK workers overall, but 61 per cent of those taking time off due to mental health problems have felt guilty for doing so, according to the research from the CIPR and PRCA.
But this is where things get interesting. After a few hours of scrolling through all countless numbers of TikTok videos about the topic (and still wondering why my screen time is up 183% last week, for an average of 26 hours, 8 minutes a day), I only came across a few videos from workers of colour who agree quiet quitting works for them. Stephanie Perry housesitterschool explains in her video that quiet quitting simply doesn’t work for Black women. “People are trained and taught from a very early age to heavily lean on Black women for labour and support. Black women internalised this to the point that they are no longer able to reject that and can not not do more”, which is why the whole idea of quiet quitting doesn’t serve Black women. When just 11 out of 1,099 positions in the UK’s most powerful institutions are held by women of colour, and the number of Black and minority ethnic women on boards in FTSE 100 companies is just 3.8%, doing bare minimum is simply not the option. I lost count of how many times I’ve heard “if you’re from an ethnic background, you are told to work twice as hard”. The double standards in the workplace are real, the need to constantly prove yourself is pressing – that feeling is palpable. This also rings even truer when it comes to the intersectionality of race, gender, sexuality, nationality, religion and so on. People notice. When we do the bare minimum, people question. If it’s hard to get a foot in the door, it will be 10 times harder for the journey after that. Making oneself prone to getting fired for doing little is a luxury that workers of colour can not afford.
When the world is constantly changing, there’s always a new fancy and shiny term for an old reality. Swag and slay? Yeet and yaaas? Cheugy and basic? You name it. One thing is for certain, Leonardo DiCaprio will also quit his girlfriends when they turn 25.
