Let's talk about....Quiet Quitting

Let’s talk about this trend going around of #quietlyquitting.

I am seeing tons of content on both sides, one discussing the concept of quietly quitting and the other discussing how we need to dip in to our previous generations ideas of work and go the extra mile and push harder. Be the first one in and the last one out.

I think I grew up mostly with this concept. Go where the money is and put in all the extra effort and you will move up, move forward and get all the things you want. And this has been my mindset around work all my life. I have always gone above and beyond and pushed myself and for the most part, I have moved up in my career. I have gotten better positions with higher pay. However, it is typically never with the same company. It has almost always been because I have moved companies and worked my way up again. So I start at the bottom and work my way up each time I move. It is maddening.

Also, discussed recently on a friends post was the concept of salaried employees. This was something to be wanted, to be salaried and always know what my paycheck was going to be. However, it seems like the concept of salaried employees has become working crazy hours all day (and night, sometimes) but only getting paid for the typical forty hour work week. And it is worse now, because we are constantly connected. It is rare to not be connected to work, and for me anyway, it becomes somewhat an obsession with work. No matter where I am or what I am doing I have this insatiable need to check my work emails. As if I was going to anything about an issue on a Saturday at 1am, and it cant wait. This is the culture we have created (or I have, Im not sure).

The working culture is starting to realize that we do not need to push harder and go the extra mile just to move up. We are realizing that work is exactly that and we are starting to value our outside lives even more. Especially I think, with the pandemic, we really started to realize what was most important to us.

We are starting to actually do only what we are hire

d to do (gasp!). And not go above and beyond because we are not being rewarded or compensated for it. As my friend, Shannon, noted this does not pertain to the once-in-a-while things we do for our jobs. It is when we take on work we were not hired to do, and it becomes expected of us even though we are not being compensated for it.

Or a trend develops where we pick up our phones too many times after hours, and it becomes normal to call you at all hours of the day even after our shift has ended.

Quietly quitting means doing exactly what we were hired for, because, well, that is what we were fucking hired to do. I don’t understand why this is even a thing. We should only do what we were hired to do, minus the random one time things we sometimes do on occasion.

Quietly quitting is honestly what we should have been doing the whole time. Working our shifts and when we go on vacation actually turning our phones off.

We are getting so burnt out. We are forgetting what is important and we are having some serious mental health problems and I believe it is all wrapped around work and our constant connection to everything. We rarely take breaks from being connected and it is necessary for mental health.

I learned this quickly when I went back to work way to quickly after having my daughter and had a major mental health crisis around having to go back full time and be depended on and also being a brand new mom and being depended o

n there as well. It was pulling me in two directions and I was losing my mind trying to keep up with everything. It pushed me so much further in to depression and anxiety than if I would have taken the time I needed to be a new mom and integrate all the new things in to my life. I really started to realize what was truly important and my mental health was at the top of that list. Without that, I really couldn’t be a great mom. And I was losing it, big time.

This is what happens when we are expected to “go above and beyond and the extra mile” without being compensated. We end up burnt out, without taking any time away to reset ourselves, and most of all we end up resentful and unhappy. No way to live.

Do what you are paid to do (or do more, but know what you are getting yourself in to). And remember what is most important to you – if that is work, fantastic! If that is something else, make sure to make time for it. Work will replace you if they need to.

Oh, and a reminder – your worth is not tied to your productivity.