Quiet Quitting And Doing "Just Enough" At Work

00:00:00.000 | All right, so I'm looking at our show notes here.

00:00:03.300 | We got two good blocks of questions.

00:00:07.820 | Looks like later on, I'm also going to introduce a case study, try and do more of those, actually

00:00:12.220 | hear about someone who has applied some of this advice that we talked about and what

00:00:16.300 | it looked like.

00:00:18.160 | As always, I encourage you to submit your own questions.

00:00:20.540 | There's links right in the show notes.

00:00:22.560 | You go to a survey, boom, type it in, comes right to us.

00:00:26.800 | We appreciate any and all questions that you send in.

00:00:29.960 | All right, so before we get going with those questions, I want to start today as I often

00:00:34.380 | do with a deep dive.

00:00:39.080 | Many of you have been sending me notes and messages and articles about the current workplace

00:00:45.920 | related internet trend, de jure, which is quiet quitting.

00:00:51.760 | I then went relatively deep on this topic over the weekend for a writing project, something

00:00:57.920 | I was writing for a book chapter for my slow productivity book.

00:01:00.600 | I went deep on this topic and did some research about where it started from and how it's being

00:01:05.960 | covered and what it's really all about.

00:01:07.840 | So I figured this was a good excuse today's episode to actually talk about quiet quitting.

00:01:15.300 | So if you haven't heard of this, this is the timeline I was able to excavate through my

00:01:19.600 | research.

00:01:20.880 | This trend starts on TikTok.

00:01:22.640 | It starts in July.

00:01:24.880 | So there is a TikTok username at the time, ZKChillin.

00:01:31.000 | He has since changed his username, but his name was ZKChillin.

00:01:35.920 | He posted a 17 second video on TikTok that featured soft piano music playing over a montage

00:01:44.400 | of videos.

00:01:45.400 | There's one of it's him on the subway, and then you see a downtown New York City street

00:01:50.240 | and then a residential street.

00:01:51.720 | And then for some reason, a child's automated bubble machine.

00:01:56.600 | So it has this montage and you hear his voice and I wrote down what he says in that video.

00:02:01.680 | So he says, I recently heard about this idea of quiet quitting where you're not quitting

00:02:07.000 | your job, but quitting the idea of going above and beyond in your work.

00:02:12.160 | Then he goes on a little bit.

00:02:13.160 | I won't read the whole thing to reject hustle culture, to reject the idea that hustle culture

00:02:18.200 | demands, which is that your work is your life.

00:02:20.160 | And he says, the reality is that it's not, and your worth as a person is not defined

00:02:24.520 | by your labor.

00:02:26.480 | So that TikTok video becomes popular.

00:02:29.640 | Other TikTok users start posting videos about quiet quitting, in particular, lots of profession

00:02:35.720 | specific videos.

00:02:36.920 | So there's a well-known one now that's a teacher talking about the demands of teaching and

00:02:42.400 | et cetera.

00:02:43.400 | Right.

00:02:44.400 | So it becomes a TikTok phenomenon.

00:02:45.800 | The mainstream media picks it up as far as I can tell, early August, they pick this up

00:02:51.240 | and it has now been covered extensively in the mainstream media and other types of media

00:02:55.640 | since then.

00:02:56.640 | So it jumped from TikTok into mainstream discussion.

00:02:59.800 | So I'm loading up here on the screen.

00:03:01.360 | So for those of you who are watching this episode or segment on YouTube, you can actually

00:03:05.200 | see the article, but I'll narrate for those who are just listening.

00:03:08.640 | There is this article from the Guardian on August 6th, which I believe as far as I can

00:03:15.160 | tell is one of the first actual old school media sources to tackle the topic.

00:03:21.160 | So it was titled "Quiet quitting while doing the bare minimum at work has gone global"

00:03:27.760 | and it was written by James Tapper.

00:03:29.480 | I just want to point out a couple of things from this article and then what I want to

00:03:33.160 | do is give you my thoughts on all this.

00:03:35.960 | So this article opens, I just want to point this out by saying Bartleby is back, although

00:03:41.360 | no doubt he would prefer not to be.

00:03:44.180 | This is a very British way to open an article like that.

00:03:47.240 | There is a book, Melville wrote a short story, I think it's a novella short story, I think

00:03:52.320 | it's a short story, maybe novella, called Bartleby the Scrivener.

00:03:55.960 | And it's actually one of the first, as far as I can tell, books about knowledge work

00:04:01.440 | on Wii.

00:04:02.600 | So check out that book if you haven't seen it.

00:04:04.200 | But anyways, that's very British.

00:04:06.180 | The number of American TikTok users who would know that reference I'm going to assume is

00:04:09.520 | low.

00:04:10.520 | All right, so let me jump ahead here.

00:04:13.160 | Here's another key quote.

00:04:15.160 | "Instead, they are doing just enough in the office to keep up," so this is talking about

00:04:19.640 | the "quiet quitters," "then leaving work on time and muting Slack."

00:04:24.880 | The writer then adds kind of snarkily, "then posting about it on social media."

00:04:28.680 | So here's the summary of quiet quitting that this Guardian article gave.

00:04:32.140 | They're doing just enough in the office to keep up, then leaving work on time and muting

00:04:36.520 | Slack.

00:04:37.520 | Now, there's some good analysis in this piece trying to understand this trend.

00:04:42.540 | So here's a quote from an expert.

00:04:44.080 | "Since the pandemic, people's relationship with work has been studied in many ways, and

00:04:48.640 | the literature typically across professions would argue that, yes, people's way of relating

00:04:52.640 | to their work has changed."

00:04:54.640 | We talk about that often on the show, the impact of the pandemic on people stepping

00:04:58.460 | back and saying, "Wait a second.

00:05:01.040 | What's going on with my life?

00:05:02.040 | What's going on with my work?

00:05:03.040 | Is it a good time to regroup?"

00:05:05.840 | Another quote from this expert, "The search for meaning has become far more apparent.

00:05:10.080 | There's a sense of our own mortality during the pandemic, something quite existential

00:05:13.340 | around people thinking, 'What should work mean for me?

00:05:17.240 | What can I do in a role?

00:05:18.900 | How can I do a role that's more aligned to my values?'"

00:05:22.920 | And finally, we have another quote here from a Harvard Business School professor who introduced

00:05:28.420 | this term, "The great rethink" as a better way of describing the current moment in knowledge

00:05:35.540 | worked in something like the great resignation.

00:05:37.420 | There's a lot of rethinking happening.

00:05:40.100 | All right.

00:05:41.500 | So I want to give, let me give some thoughts here.

00:05:45.540 | First of all, I should go on to say this article, which was one of the first, was one of the

00:05:49.180 | better articles on this topic.

00:05:51.600 | They defined what quite quitting was and then gave this psychological context, what's going

00:05:56.000 | on in the workplace, why might this trend have emerged?

00:05:59.580 | Since then, things have been going downhill.

00:06:02.560 | I do not necessarily suggest getting, looking at the online coverage of this topic as I

00:06:10.260 | went into it for my, the chapter I was writing.

00:06:13.760 | In the months since this, this idea first arose, I think online discussion and coverage

00:06:19.260 | has become a pile on of superficial criticality.

00:06:25.420 | The online commentators are seeing this issue mainly as a chance to prove their sophistication

00:06:31.460 | and bona fides by trying to one-up whoever talked about it last by pointing out what

00:06:35.180 | they missed.

00:06:36.180 | You thought this is wrong, but you're the problem because you missed out on this problem

00:06:39.180 | and then someone else comes in.

00:06:40.180 | And I find it to be completely non-useful.

00:06:42.940 | So you have the original quiet quitters on TikTok, and then you get the reaction that's

00:06:46.300 | like kids are lazy.

00:06:47.740 | This is just called having a job.

00:06:49.020 | What are you talking about?

00:06:50.620 | And then you have the crew that comes in and says, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, you both are wrong

00:06:53.780 | because what neither of you are doing is cataloging every single identity group and trying to

00:06:58.220 | argue which identity groups will have an easier time than worse.

00:07:01.000 | You have to have a huge appendix trying to rank order the ease with which different groups

00:07:05.880 | can do quiet quitting.

00:07:07.200 | And until you acknowledge that you're the problem, then someone else comes in and says,

00:07:09.780 | "No, all of you guys are the problem because what you don't realize is that you're bougie

00:07:13.540 | stooges and the key here is to rebuild capitalism and replace it with something better."

00:07:18.820 | This discussion in general is just part of the superstructure that is upholding this

00:07:23.660 | economic exploitation.

00:07:25.380 | Everyone trying to one-up everyone else, everyone else trying to make everyone else seem dumber

00:07:29.140 | than them.

00:07:30.780 | It's a mess.

00:07:31.780 | It's a pile on.

00:07:32.780 | Ignore it.

00:07:35.060 | So let's push that aside.

00:07:36.060 | Let's get rid of the posture and get back to the original issue here of quiet quitting

00:07:39.780 | and this context that I think the Guardian provided, which I think is quite good.

00:07:45.140 | So I think there is something important here.

00:07:47.500 | What we're seeing in that TikTok discussion is a new generation.

00:07:52.820 | We'll call it this pandemic generation, the generation that had the pandemic disruptions

00:07:56.960 | hit early in their adulthood.

00:08:00.420 | Meaning for lack of a better word, lifestyle design.

00:08:04.880 | The idea that work is one of the factors that you can intentionally deploy as part of a

00:08:11.460 | larger plan to construct a life that is meaningful or deep.

00:08:15.260 | So it's an intentional approach to life in which you are designing your life to meet

00:08:19.180 | whatever criteria you have for meaning and depth.

00:08:23.140 | So it is good to see a new generation discovering this.

00:08:26.360 | The frustration is, is they're starting from scratch.

00:08:29.780 | I mean, quiet quitting is a simplistic and crude first step towards trying to understand,

00:08:35.500 | well, wait a second.

00:08:37.220 | What role does work have in my life?

00:08:41.140 | I'm working too much.

00:08:42.140 | I don't know why.

00:08:43.140 | Probably because someone's being evil.

00:08:44.140 | I think I'm going to work less.

00:08:46.940 | It's a very simplistic first step towards a deeper, more necessary conversation.

00:08:51.620 | This is a topic that has been covered every single generation going back quite a few generations.

00:08:58.440 | Go back to the 19th century, read Walden by Thoreau, jump forward to the 20th century,

00:09:04.220 | read the seven story mountain, jump forward another 20 years, read Zen and the Art of

00:09:07.860 | Motorcycle Maintenance, jump forward to the 21st century.

00:09:11.700 | You can start with Eat, Pray, Love, then go onwards to the four hour work week, which

00:09:15.880 | by the way, was covering this exact issue the last time we went through this, which

00:09:19.600 | was the post 9/11 recession.

00:09:23.080 | And my generation, the early millennials entering the working world and trying to find their

00:09:28.160 | way, we had Tim Ferriss's version of lifestyle design.

00:09:32.520 | It's also covered by us here on the show and in my writing extensively when we talk about

00:09:37.520 | the deep life and lifestyle centric career planning and career capital and the method

00:09:42.780 | of intentionally trying to construct a life that is deep and how you have to be systematic

00:09:47.080 | and deploy lots of different angles at it.

00:09:48.680 | So it's not a topic we're starting from scratch.

00:09:52.020 | The TikTok crew kind of is.

00:09:54.160 | So I think this is the good news, bad news.

00:09:55.960 | The good news is what a topic.

00:09:59.200 | And I'm glad I think it's a serious topic and I'm glad it's getting attention with this

00:10:02.760 | particular group.

00:10:03.760 | The bad news is, look, if you start from scratch, I don't think you're going to catch up to

00:10:06.680 | Thoreau anytime soon.

00:10:08.400 | Like people have thought about this.

00:10:09.780 | So you should pull from what is already out there.

00:10:14.600 | So I think this is an important topic.

00:10:17.640 | I'm glad it's being looked at.

00:10:20.000 | This pandemic generation probably has had the most impetus to look at this topic that

00:10:25.200 | we've seen since, I don't know, maybe the Zen of the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,

00:10:30.600 | sort of 1960s, early 70s.

00:10:32.240 | That's probably the last time we had a comparable disruption in culture, evolution of culture

00:10:38.040 | that required a pretty serious re-rethinking.

00:10:41.680 | That eventually, by the way, led to the 1980s.

00:10:44.000 | We talked about this recently, early 1990s notion of passion and following your passion

00:10:48.160 | and the bastardization of Campbell's Follow Your Bliss, which has been the mixed bag.

00:10:52.600 | And we're having another one of these evolutions now.

00:10:54.720 | The great rethink of induced by the pandemic is going on.

00:10:59.680 | We're trying to rethink these things.

00:11:01.360 | So I think quiet quitting is reflecting a good trend.

00:11:06.080 | Even if the details of these TikTok videos are easy to dismiss, I would say let's resist

00:11:11.120 | that urge.

00:11:12.120 | Yes, if you're going to look at 23-year-olds posting 17-second videos, we can make fun,

00:11:17.200 | we can make ourselves feel smarter than everyone else.

00:11:19.240 | But I think what we should do is see this as an opportunity to help a group, a large

00:11:24.640 | group of dissatisfied and earnestly searching people find their way so they don't have to

00:11:30.480 | do this all from scratch.

00:11:32.480 | So that's my thoughts on quiet quitting, Jesse.

00:11:36.120 | It seems like that would be a topic in both books that you're going to work on.

00:11:39.040 | Yeah.

00:11:40.040 | Because this is a slow productivity book, right?

00:11:41.360 | Slow productivity, right.

00:11:42.360 | That seems like it would be even a bigger product topic in your next book.

00:11:45.760 | Yeah, I think the Deep Life book is going to be a big topic, is going to be a good match

00:11:50.800 | for this.

00:11:51.800 | I mean, it's all in the air right now.

00:11:55.680 | And this happens every generation.

00:11:57.840 | You get to a place, economically things are going good, there's other concerns, you don't

00:12:01.880 | really think much about work.

00:12:04.200 | And then once you get going, something happens and you're like, well, what role is work supposed

00:12:09.720 | to have in my life, what's going on here?

00:12:11.800 | And people try to figure this out.

00:12:14.240 | So with slow productivity, how does it relate?

00:12:17.120 | Well, I mean, I think slow productivity is maybe a little bit more narrow in its attack

00:12:24.200 | on this topic, but slow productivity is saying, what even are you going for when you say you

00:12:30.200 | want to be productive?

00:12:31.200 | Like, what is your definition of a working life well executed?

00:12:35.400 | And the argument there is that we have these, we don't think it through.

00:12:39.680 | We have these superficial definitions.

00:12:40.960 | I don't know, busyness is better than less, hustling is better than not hustling.

00:12:45.560 | I want to feel like I'm earning my keep, but it's all very haphazard.

00:12:48.240 | And a lot of what we actually do when we're trying to get after it, quote unquote, in

00:12:53.080 | our work is ironically counterproductive, makes us more miserable.

00:12:58.440 | It's not maximizing useful output.

00:13:00.240 | And so slow productivity is saying, why don't we go back and rethink what we even mean by

00:13:03.520 | productivity, especially when it comes to knowledge work, to try to find something that's

00:13:07.080 | more sustainable, that's going to make life more meaningful, and it ultimately is going

00:13:11.640 | to produce better stuff.

00:13:12.640 | So it's like a narrow first stab at the great rethink.

00:13:17.560 | And then the deep life is much broader.

00:13:19.420 | The deep life is where you say, you know what, we're going to move to Kentucky.

00:13:22.400 | So quiet quitting kind of helps define it.

00:13:24.480 | And then from there you can start.

00:13:25.480 | Yeah.

00:13:26.480 | Yeah.

00:13:27.480 | Quiet quitting or quiet quitting is a response to the same underlying impetus that my books

00:13:30.120 | are coming out of, which is people starting to rethink work, its role in their life, and

00:13:34.560 | what they're trying to do with their life more generally.

00:13:37.560 | [MUSIC]

Quiet Quitting And Doing "Just Enough" At Work

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