Some American workers are accepting the concept of “quiet quitting” as they struggle against what some perceive as the suffocating trap of constant connectivity. They are rejecting the 40-hour work week, setting limits on after-hours calls and emails, and generally, if subtly, saying “no” more frequently. Maggie Perkins, a 30-year-old teacher from Athens, Georgia, was routinely clocking 60-hour work weeks until she realized something wasn’t right after the birth of her first kid. “There are photos of me grading papers while flying to my holiday. Although she didn’t have a word for it at the time, Perkins explains in a TikTok video why she made the decision to start “quiet quitting”: “I did not have a work-life balance.”
According to Perkins, who eventually left her work to pursue a Ph.D., she continues to speak out for her former coworkers by creating videos and podcasts with helpful advice on how to fit their workload into their workdays.
She explains that having a “silent quitting” mindset simply entails creating a barrier that allows you to work when you are paid to do so before you can go home and interact with your family like a normal human being.
Work-life balance or procrastination? –
The earliest instance of the keyword appears to be from a TikTok post from July.
According to user @zaidleppelin, “Although you aren’t actually quitting your job, you are giving up the notion of going above and beyond. While you continue to carry out your responsibilities, you no longer adhere to the hustle culture mentality that dictates that work must be your life.”
That post gained a lot of traction and received close to 500,000 likes. Newspaper columnists spent the entire summer spilt ink trying to understand the phenomena as responses bubbled up with a sense of shared indignation.
As a result, a discussion about “silent quitters” quickly arose: Are they simply seeking a fair work-life balance, more in line with a European way of life than the perpetually on-call US workplace culture?
Are they lazy people with a cool new name? Or are they genuinely in danger of burning out and would be better off quitting immediately?
The evidence points to a genuine need for greater balance.
According to Gallup, as Covid-19 upended the workplace, on-the-job stress increased from 38 percent of those surveyed in 2019 to 43 percent the following year, with women in the US and Canada feeling the most pressure.
