Staying at the office past 5:00 P.M., emails after work, chatting with bosses off the record... Those days are gone. With the Great Resignation, a term coined to describe the massive resignation of Americans since 2021, employees are fed up with stressful workloads and meager paychecks. Now, workers are holding their own rebellion through “quiet quitting”, which refers to the state of satisfaction with fulfilling the bare minimum at a workplace. Although companies definitely are culpable, quiet quitting has its own issues. Workers should be careful in choosing mediums for their self-justified protest. Best intentions are only acknowledged through suited means. 

Growing dissatisfaction with work has been alarming, as verified by the “quitting rate”, which amounted to a 20-year high in November 2021 in the United States (U.S.), according to Pew Research Center. The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has brought quiet quitting to the surface, according to World Economic Forum. As COVID-19 swept the young generation with vulnerability to mental illnesses such as anxiety and depression, a new approach to coping with workplace burnout has garnered recognition. Setting boundaries at work, many members of Generation Z are now declaring that they will strictly work on a par with their salaries. This new phenomenon sparked a discussion on work-life balance and whether quiet quitting is an adequate resolution to straining working conditions. 

Those who were quick to jump on this trend explained their main reason as not receiving sufficient compensation for their work input. Indeed, a poll introduced in CareerArc, a social recruiting platform, revealed that 23percent of Americans in November 2021 were planning to quit during the next year due to the desire for a better work environment, burnout, etc. This data shows how the current workforce is discontent with how much their effort is reflected within the corporate system. This, in fact, is reinforced by Generation Z’s zeitgeist for self-preservation, where traditional key factors such as income, and promotions are losing their incentive against the value of one’s work-life balance. 

Despite this growing trend, some are not on the same page with quiet quitters. For instance, a workplace decorum expert asserted in an interview with BBC  that a rise in pay and better treatment will justly be conferred to those who demonstrate capacity above mediocrity, denouncing the logic that upholds quiet quitting. Furthermore, firms are concerned that quiet quitting may induce lower work efficiency, as fewer employees are inclined to show their best and manifest their creativity. Most prominently, some claim that quiet quitting does not benefit workers in the long run. According to TIME, “The more your voice remains silent, the harder it is to change the company’s environment.” This statement signifies that quiet quitting will only exacerbate the very workplace conditions one so desires to withdraw from. 

The corresponding statement leaves much room for thought. With all due respect to the acrimonious intentions behind quiet quitting, this method simply fails to address the source of toxic working conditions. In order to rectify the current system of indebting employees, workers should negotiate with executives, or form unions to acclaim their rights collectively. Since the problem is inevitably tied to inequitable working environments, an individual’s silent protest will only call for quick layoffs. In short, what employees truly want cannot be achieved by quiet quitting. 

In conclusion, even though quiet quitting arose on fairgrounds, this method simply acts as a mask for mediocrity. The inequitable system instead calls for collective action to target the essential problem.