Quit Quiet Quitting! The subtle double standards of workplace 'buzzwords'

'Quiet Quitting', 'Rage Applying', 'Quiet Cracking'; there's a new buzzword every week to describe a thing employees do that higher ups don't like. But the attention they get is very revealing.

Photo by Yan Krukau

Because my job consists of writing in detail about a very wide range of subjects, and often from bizarre or oblique angles, my search history is all over the place. Accordingly, the algorithms charged with suggesting stuff for me based on my online activity tend to get rather… confused.

Most of the time, the ‘for you’ suggestions I get seem to be the algorithms just rolling the dice and hoping for the best. Which is presumably why I got this article presented to me today, from The Hill, a site I’m not sure I’ve ever visited before.

‘Quiet cracking’ is the newest term for a workplace problem — and it’s ‘pretty pervasive,’ expert says

Apparently, ‘Quiet Cracking’ is the latest workplace problem serious enough to acquire its own buzzword. Looking closely, Quiet Cracking apparently means… employees are unfulfilled or unhappy at work.

There’s a lot to consider with this, but I’d argue the most ridiculous part is the notion that this is a new or modern phenomenon. Because it definitely isn’t.

Almost a decade ago, I wrote my second book The Happy Brain, which includes a chapter on Work-Life balance and the role that plays in happiness, and how work and jobs impacts on our happiness and wellbeing. And even back then, the data showed that barely one in three employees, across all fields, were even actively engaging with their work, let alone happy and fulfilled about it.

I don’t recall seeing any mainstream news stories about this at the time. And believe me, I was looking. So, why is employees being unhappy and unfulfilled at work suddenly such a big deal?

Presumably it’s because younger people have come up with a ‘cool’ new term for it, and that seems to really rile up the higher-ups who set the news agenda.

Photo by Marcus Aurelius

Rise of the buzzwords

As most everyone will be aware, ‘Quiet Cracking’ is just the latest in a seemingly endless sequence of ‘workplace trends’ that are defined by a succinct, sometimes alliterative label.

The most well-known of which is probably ‘Quiet Quitting’. But there’s also ‘Rage Applying’, ‘Quiet Firing’, ‘Bare Minimum Monday’, ‘micro retirement’, and lord knows what else.

These things are typically presented to the casual newsreader as some new phenomenon, one invariably pinned on young ‘Generation Z’ employees, which threatens to disrupt and undermine the norms and expectations of the workplace, in harmful ways.

However, a closer look usually reveals that they’re referring to what many would consider normal human behaviour. ‘Quiet Quitting’, for instance, is usually defined as ‘doing only what your job demands’. As many have pointed out (particularly iconic online comic Scott Seiss), how is this unusual? How is this even wrong, in any way? How did we get to the point where literally doing your job is considered a form of ‘quitting’?

Then there’s ‘Rage Applying’, which means applying for multiple new jobs when your current one is proving too much to handle, for whatever reason. Because nobody ever did that before the 2020s.

‘Bare Minimum Monday’, insofar as I can tell my research, is exactly the same as Quiet Quitting, but specifically on a Monday. Because of course, Monday is usually everyone’s favourite working day. That’s why we have cliches like “Roll on Monday” or “I like Mondays”.

You see what I’m getting at. Basically, while there may be some exceptions, all these trendy ‘new’ phenomena are ultimately just normal human behaviour in the workplace context. But given specific labels. And that means they’re a problem now.

In the interest of transparency, I do find this trend annoying. Attaching ‘cool’ and simple new labels to established human behaviour isn’t something that sits right with me, for various reasons.

But then, I’m a straight white male in his forties, who’s self-employed at a job that most people would give their back teeth to be able to do. So, maybe I should just shut up and let younger people do whatever they need to to get by.

Because this stuff is, as mentioned, usually pinned on younger workers, particularly Gen Z, and social media, particularly TikTok.

And you know what? That’s fine. These normal behaviours are still new to those who’ve just arrived in the workplace, and if that’s a generation that’s accustomed to sharing their lives and observations online, then coming up with a pithy label for their experiences, that’s easily recognised and spread, is to be expected.

What’s intriguing, and arguably far more annoying, is how the older generations, those with more power in both the workplace and the media, react to this sort of thing.

Photo by Lukas

Does not meet (unrealistic) expectations

Why would ‘Quiet Quitting’ and its associated ‘new work trends’ be deemed worthy of so much attention from employers and traditional media?

Well, various reasons.

One is, it thwarts ‘established’ expectations about employees and work that, if we’re being brutally honest, have been unreasonable from day one.

For decades now, there’s been a preoccupation with keeping employees ‘happy’. Because happy workers are more motivated, more productive, and therefore more profitable. There’s even data to back this up.

However, there are also a lot of other research which suggests that a workforce that is 100% happy at all times could well be a bad thing. Because workers are humans. And humans are complicated enough by themselves. Randomly put a bunch of them together and make it so they have to cooperate, and they become exponentially more complex again. That’s just how we are. We contain multitudes.

But this is an unhelpful fact if you want to effectively control people, to maximise profits. “If I make them all happy, they’ll make me more money” is a much easier worldview to adhere to. And the prevalence of team building exercises, employee of the month awards, wellbeing workshops, motivational posters etc. suggests that employers expect that employees will be happy and engaged, by default.

In reality, this was always a very unlikely outcome. Because ultimately, most jobs are worked by those wanting to earn a living, not because it makes them happy on a fundamental level. Why would it? Our brains make us crave autonomy, security, proportional rewards for our efforts, positive feedback, meaningful connections, status, and more.

By contrast, under capitalism, many modern jobs involve working under someone else’s authority for someone else’s benefit, with people you don’t know/like, in a role you don’t want to do, for barely enough money to survive. Why would anyone be happy and engaged with such a situation?

But employers still expect it. Presumably because the alternative suggests they’re not doing their jobs very well? For all that their jobs are often nigh-on impossible. And maybe they’ve internalised this too much? Because, like I said, many seem to genuinely believe that employees and workers being happy, and thus willing to do more than they’re paid to do, is the default norm¹.

‘Quiet Quitting’ becoming prevalent as a thing reveals the harsh reality. That workers aren’t uniformly happy. That they aren’t instinctively loyal to their employer. That they won’t put the company’s success ahead of their own happiness and wellbeing.

Quiet Quitting and other phenomena basically reveal, and propagate, a shift in many an established power dynamic, by encouraging (younger) people to put themselves before their employer, when usually it’s only the employers who would expect to have any control in this relationship, and can chew people up and spit them out as they see fit.

Photo by cottonbro studio

The cherry picking of young people’s self-determination

One final point, and it’s slightly off-kilter, but hey, this is my blog, so here we go.

If these new buzzwords and terms are just describing well-established behaviours and trends, why are they only being deemed a problem now?

Presumably, it’s because it’s usually young people defining and spreading them. And “the youngsters are ruining everything!” is centuries old stance for older types, particularly when money and work and ‘the economy’ are involved.

But what’s revealing to me is this.

Countless younger people say “I’m quiet quitting”, “I’m rage applying” etc. on TikTok and the like? Older types in the media, the usual suspects, immediately accept that it’s a widespread and serious issue, and something must be done about it.

Countless younger people say “I’m mentally unwell”, “I’m neurodivergent”, “I’m genderfluid” etc. on TikTok and the like? Older types in the media, the usual suspects, immediately dismiss it as attention seeking, or some fiction created by clueless, credulous youngsters.

One wonders what’s behind such different responses to, ostensibly, the same thing. Why are younger people’s claims about Quiet Quitting definitely an urgent problem, and their claims about neurodivergence so easily dismissed? Because the prevalence of both over many decades, and beyond, is well established in the data.

Is it simply that established authority figures default to believing whichever possibility costs more? Ignoring mental health and related problems is the cheaper option. Ignoring ‘Quiet Quitting’, which is essentially young people refusing to work for free, is the expensive option.

I don’t really have an answer here, I just find it intriguing how the importance of ‘Some youngsters are saying this on TikTok’ varies so wildly for the older members of society.

It’s almost like humans are inherently complicated, and no ‘one size fits all’ approach can ever really work when trying to define them. Funny that.

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The impact of TikTok on younger people and more can be explored further in my latest book, Why Your Parents Are Hung-Up on Your Phone and What To Do About It

1. That this is something sustained by industrialists, executives etc. mostly interacting with each other, leading to a groupthink-powered distorted worldview, is also a possibility worth considering.