Is it a new thing, the Quiet Quitting?

Have you heard about quiet quitting?

Seems like it is catching the trend among late millennials and Gen-Z in TikTok and Instagram. Basically you work for what you get paid to do - nothing more nothing else. Hey but this sounds totally okay. Whats wrong in that? And why actually it came up? Most importantly why is it not catching the trend in India - I can think of two broad reasons which I will share later in the post.

What is Quiet Quitting?

It is not actually quitting the job but doing the bare minimum and ignoring the motto of going extra mile for performance. That is if work says working 10-5 that mean following the clock to the point where people have stopped replying to mails after 5 to the point where they switch off the work phone at 5pm. “Quiet Quitting” is the term coined by the late Millennials and the Gen-Z. What they are actually doing is quitting the Hustle culture when the employees go above and beyond to perform and make an impact.

Why is it coming?

But the question is why it reached this point? What was the reasons behind this?

It all can go back to the Covid lockdown phase.

• People never had the experience and understanding of how to work from home
• Distinguishing about the work time and family time
• Spilling over work
• With nothing to do apart from work, being available all the time
• Companies taking advantage and assigning more and more work

People started to focus more on “Living to Work” to Working to Live”. This motto led to the Great Resignation. Once the covid lockdowns were lifted partially people still were in half mode of being available all the time and this started impacting a lot with burnouts, health issues both mental and physical. Not able to get time for the family even being most of the time at home.

Good, Bad or Ugly

But is it Quiet Quitting everywhere. I don’t think so such things can happen in European countries. Simple reason, the culture and laws have made it very clear on the boundaries of work.

People in US works longer with average 7hrs/day compared to European countries where people work 4-5 hrs/day. Not only that people tend to reply to work emails after work hours which is actually frowned upon in their European counterparts.
Same goes to vacations from 2 weeks paid leaves to 4-5 weeks paid leaves per year.

Not, don’t even thing about comparing those data with an Indian Employee. There is no such things as working hour. You are supposed to be available all the time. Your work schedule from 9-5 and also in your colleagues if they happen to reside in some other timezones. Not always but at least 2-3 days a week. As per research people tend to work at least 3-5% more annually compared to people in US.

But does that mean it is bad and everywhere it is the same.

I don’t thing so.

• People are doing such things only to avoid burnouts
• They are undervalued in their work
• They hate their job
• Lower pay due to the market dynamics
• Repetitive work

So basically it is an avoidance behaviour.

Why it is bad:

• It stops you from being creative.
• Reduces the opportunity to get something new.
• Blocks you from up-skilling.
• Not only that, in times like now, you will be the first one who will be showed the door. Just like Newton’s third law: What you give is what you get.

Hidden Fact

Just as promised, the hidden fact about my life. When I started my job in a service based company. I didn’t work more than what was required no matter what because you are not gonna get any extra benefit in terms of salary or promotion in a large enterprise. I worked fixed hours and for the minimal tasks that was assigned. Never missed any deadline but never took additional tasks. I came in at 10 left at 5 with few exceptions. Never attended any calls after hours or worked late. Now that sounds like Quiet Quitting. I never knew what I was doing until recently because back then that term was not even coine

Why it did not catch trend in India?

As promised two broad reasons why it is never catching a trend in India:

• Long before the corporate culture of capitalism came here people mostly used to work either as Govt employee, farmers or factory workers. Factory workers and farmers were mainly of labourer category and the Govt employees - Forget about quite quitting, they don’t even use to work. All Indians will have a story or two to tell specially from Govt Banks. If you haven’t heard I will be sharing couple of eye catching pictures now on how the employees used to deal with customers. You can still experience these things if you go to any remote location in India in a Govt bank or Administrative office.
  So what I want to say that people here are already habituated to such type of things where the employees don’t work at all forget about doing just what you are supposed to do.
• The second point is just true to the point that it feels both good and bad at the same time. Here, your employer takes it by default for you to do more than what you have signed up for. Reason being simple - overpopulation and overqualified people in abundance. This is true. For every job a person works there are at least 4 more who are ready to grab that in same salary. So if you do not work upto your expectation either you are fired or you are forced to leave.

If you really feel like going for it. Talk to yourself, friends and family and to your colleagues on why actually are you feeling like this. Try to resolve the issue whether it is work related, time management or pay related. If it get sorted out, Great. If not, you should actually prepare and quite your job. In either case you should always work with your full potentially. Also stop personalising work helps. This reduces the stress of not getting a promotion you had thought about or having a bad day at work. It will increase your self esteem and increases your productivity.