Quiet Quitting
KWY-it KWIT-ingnoun
What it means
The radical act of performing the exact job described in the employment contract.
What it actually means
Working to rule, but it sounds worse now.
How it is used in a sentence
"Since the reorg, half the team has quietly quit."
Why this one is here
The phrase appears to have been coined by a career coach in March 2022, riffing on a magazine piece about people coasting at work. He said he blurted it out. The interesting part is what followed: a description of doing your job properly was read as a revolt, which says more about the baseline than about the term.
Filed under
Work & Ambition — Everything your employer calls a benefit and your therapist calls a symptom.
Diagnosis — The phrase already names a real problem. We define it properly.
Related entries
Hustle Culture
Work & AmbitionHUS-ul KUL-chernounDiagnosis
The belief that rest is a character flaw, promoted most aggressively by people who no longer need to work.
Real meaningNobody is going to give you your evening back.
Burnout
Work & AmbitionBURN-owtnounDiagnosis
The occupational condition produced by a culture that has a word for it precisely so that it does not have to change.
Real meaningYou are exhausted and it is your responsibility to fix it.