It feels like every employer and corporate manager weighed in on the “quiet quitting” trend promoted by Gen Z employees seeking an alternative to working long hours and hustling as much as possible at their 9-to-5s. First, quiet quitting sounds more ominous than its true outcome. An employee who quiet quits completely performs their job description as advertised in a job posting or outlined in their employer’s roles and responsibilities. That same employee simply does not perform additional tasks, work additional hours, or go above the job description without additional compensation. Quiet quitting means doing your job exactly as written.
Quiet quitting is a new term for an old concept. While I have never lived a day without a computer hooked up to the Internet in my home*, it was not long ago that you quite literally could not bring work home with you in most jobs. Your boss could not email you at 8 p.m. forty years ago because your boss did not have email. This means everyone who arrived at work on time and left work on time was automatically fulfilling the no-additional-hours portion of quiet quitting just by existing in a world without hyper-connectivity.
There still are some folks who can complete more work in regular work hours than their peers. Those that stuck to their regular hours and did not go above the responsibilities of their job description were all quiet quitters before the term existed. Sure, there have always been folks working to climb a corporate ladder by exuding the most energy possible each work day. But there used to be a lot more folks who worked for the same company for their entire careers, arriving at 9 a.m., leaving at 5 p.m., and putting in precisely the amount of work required by the job description. Most of the workforce has historically been composed of quiet quitters.
Why Discuss Quiet Quitting Now?
Despite quiet quitting existing for generations, the concept deserves a name and resurgence in this moment because just doing your job as written slowly became perceived more negatively due to today’s hyperconnected hustle culture. In my opinion, the speedy advancement of technology and the current obsession with working longer hours to expedite career advancement are inseparable. (Remember you do not need to work long hours to advance your career quickly. Just job hop your way to your ideal job and maybe even make your ideal job!)
I cannot go to a rugby practice without someone checking their phone during a water break and receiving an upsetting email from their boss. I have a friend who used to ask her employer if it was okay for her to go to sleep for the evening because work was still happening. I know more folks who bring their computers on vacation than leave them behind, and many that leave them behind still check emails to stay abreast of ongoing issues. This level of connectivity to work is unhealthy.
As someone who draws firm lines with work regarding expectations surrounding my time, the Gen Zers who are rebelling against the work-centered life are refreshing. Employees need to understand that putting their career first 24/7 will leave them with stress and regret, and generally will not result in higher paychecks or a better job title. Quiet quitting has energized a conversation regarding whether this work-obsessed culture is sustainable or optimal for quality of life. We need to have this conversation, and we need to have it now.
“But I Don’t Think I Can Quiet Quit”
If the idea of prioritizing your life over your job sounds great but you do not know where to begin to attempt to quiet quit, you are the person who needs the quiet quitting conversation the most. Folks who do not believe they can quiet quite usually have an excuse similar to:
But if I do not go above my job description, these tasks will not get done on time!
But if I work 60 hours/week instead of 40 hours/week, I will get a promotion next year!
But my area of work has deadlines, so we have to work overtime to meet them!
This is not a comprehensive list of excuses—and I mean excuses because none of these are good reasons—but here are my tough-love responses:
But if I do not go above my job description, these tasks will not get done on time!
Then your employer should hire another employee, and that is not your problem because you are putting your life before your job.
But if I work 60 hours/week instead of 40 hours/week, I will get a promotion next year!
Great, how much is the pay increase on that promotion? Is it worth the 1,000 unpaid hours you are working this year to secure it? I have never received a pay increase worth anywhere close to 1,000 unpaid hours, and I only leave jobs for $20k-plus salary increases.
But my area of work has deadlines, so we have to work overtime to meet them!
If you need to work overtime to meet deadlines, that is a planning problem. Plan better, or let your supervisor know that whomever is responsible for planning needs to plan better and communicate those plans clearly.
This tough love is not to minimize the difficulty of extracting yourself from the hyperconnected hustle culture that has become routine for so many. Quiet quitting—in other words, prioritizing your life and yourself above your job—is a difficult mental switch. It is also worth the reflection time and slow behavior shift it demands to prevent burnout, the regret of missing life events, poor health, and even untimely death.
Quiet Quitting and FIRE
Quiet quitting may be to Gen Z what FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) is to Millennials. Both are a rejection of the pervasive hyperconnected hustle culture. With FIRE, Millennials decided to subscribe to the hustle early but reject the consumerist, keeping-up-with-the-Joneses lifestyle inflation to instead use the money earned from their hustle to leave the corporate world at exceedingly young ages. With quiet quitting, Gen Z is saying they want to prioritize their life first from day one rather than wait ten years to reap the benefits. As a tradeoff, they can deal with having a career for a bit longer to live a full life from the beginning.
Quiet quitting is a natural progression from changes within the FIRE community and the way younger Millennials have embraced FIRE. While the original FIRE enthusiasts tended to work long hours to retire as soon as possible, usually in under ten years, they came dangerously close to burnout and had almost no joy in their lives. They made every sacrifice to retire as early as possible.
Now, the suggested FIRE path is a bit more relaxed, in large part because the younger Gen Xers and older Millennials who almost burned out to achieve FIRE advised the next cohort to adjust. Instead of putting 100% of time and energy into their jobs, the next FIRE generation is dabbling in a bit of career hacking but expediting its FIRE path with side hustles that sometimes lead to full time entrepreneurship.
Our path has followed the more relaxed FIRE path. Having multiple side hustles supplement our full-time work allowed Patrick to leave his job when the demands became unsatisfactory for him. It will also still allow me to retire in my 30s. The cool thing about the “slow” FIRE path is that consistently investing half your income without serious lifestyle inflation will get you to your FI Number in 15 years. If you start investing half at age 22, that means retiring at age 37. The slow path is still pretty fast.
My personal path aligns with the quiet quitting tenets while still slowly working towards FIRE. I have never worked more than 40 hours/week at my full-time job, and I never will. This allows me to pursue my favorite unpaid activities while also providing time to generate income through side hustles including an Etsy shop, resume consulting, and writing articles like this one! However, I have not always abided by the quiet quitting tenet of putting forth minimal energy at a job: Career hacking, particularly creating my own position, required teasing skills beyond my job description to fully sell their worth. The key to this deviation from limiting my energy towards my job had some key qualities. I did this over a short amount of time with a specific goal, packaged that goal thoughtfully, achieved it, and then resumed a quiet-quitting approach where I was now compensated extraordinarily well for that extra energy.
Why Quiet Quitting is a Positive Approach
Quiet quitting involves two basic themes:
Working only the hours for which you are paid to work.
Giving your job only the energy for which you are paid to give towards your job.
Following these two ideas opens up that time and energy for anything else in your life. This time and energy may go towards side hustles to achieve FIRE through multiple streams of income, and it may involve spending time with your family now while you can make the most important memories in your life. Either way, it will not involve giving away your time or energy for free to help a company’s bottom line.
One extra note on the energy portion of this: It is easier for folks to understand the need for boundaries around working extra hours than providing extra energy towards work. As I said, I have compromised on the energy portion of this boundary, but only for a specific time with a specific purpose. Only putting forth the required energy at your job most of the time is important for your wellbeing. If you stick to your hours but come home exhausted without any energy to play with your kids or play tennis with a friend, that is still a symptom of putting your work above your life.
Quiet quitting’s emphasis that only the required amount of energy should be given at a job is a positive emphasis that most of us can learn. Even when we physically attend every obligation on our calendar, we have a finite amount of energy to approach each day. Quiet quitting minimizes the amount of this energy given towards work so it can be reallocated to our passions and priorities outside of work. If you are not yet quiet quitting, you are still neglecting the other areas of your life.
* That is right—while I am in the middle of the millennial generation, my parents decided to get the Internet in their home in the 1980s before bringing me into the world. Look at Mom and Dad being technologically savvy!
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