‘Quiet quitting’ isn’t new. Some men have been doing the bare minimum for decades

Do you suffer with the Sunday night dreads? Do you feel permanently stressed? Anxious? Burnt out?  Do you despise your job but need your salary? Fear not, my little worrywarts, because I’ve got just the life hack for you. Hop on the “quiet quitting” train, my friends, and your next stop will be job satisfaction and a renewed sense of contentment.

After all, even ultra-workaholic Beyonce is telling us to quit our jobs. What more encouragement do we need? Of course, taking advice from a multi-millionaire during a cost of living crisis is all well and good, but most of us still need to bring in the cash. “Quiet quitting” might just be the solution we’ve been looking for.

Imagine working to contract (imagine!) – but permanently. Regularly take work home with you? Don’t. Spend weekends catching up with your emails? Stop. Feeling bitter that colleagues disrespect your leisure time and message you in the evenings? Switch off that Slack and pack in the passive aggression. Do the minimum to keep things ticking over at work: think checking out instead of burning out. Easy, but effective.

Like coffee bags, this is an idea that sounds genius – and strangely simple. Why on earth hasn’t anyone thought of this before? Well, I think they have. This quiet quitting lark isn’t new at all. In fact, I think it’s as old as the hills. Haven’t loads of white, middle-aged and over blokes been wise to this wheeze for decades already? Haven’t loads of men benefitted from a more self-seeking attitude to work where they do the bits they like and leave the rest for junior staff to wipe up?

Call me cynical, but that’s certainly been my experience of working life, from being a sales rep at a brewery, to being a teacher, to being an academic at a UK university. During lockdown 2020, I was part of the “Great Resignation“. I took voluntary severance from my permanent role in academia after years of feeling that my career was unpleasantly all-consuming. I felt that there was a prevailing attitude that being an academic is somehow an identity rather than just a job – and it got on my last nerve.

I was knackered. Disillusioned. Disappointed. I was rancorous with resentment as I noticed how many blokes got away with doing the career-boosting, profile raising bits of the job, while leaving the citizenship, the less glam, the less rewarded parts of the job – like many admin roles, student pastoral care etc – to others, often junior staff, often women, often on casual contracts.

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So how did they get away with it? Because we’ve been sold a dummy, folks! All that old guff about “work hard and you’ll get far” has done us a serious disservice. Instead, it should have been something more like “work hard at the things that will get you a promotion and leave everything else to the suckers who have no choice but to pick up the slack”.

So what if you get ahead while standing on the backs of others? Who cares if your career’s glistening while your junior colleagues on insecure contracts struggle by clearing up the crap you’ve left behind in your wake?

Embittered? Me? Not anymore. Good for me, but what about all the thousands who’re stuck with the jobs their colleagues don’t deign to do? What about those whose career progression is hampered by those who’re in a position to cherry pick only the most prestigious tasks?

I say, let’s look at who’s doing the quiet quitting – it might be less an indication of “sticking it to the man” and more of the same old sexist, racist, classist workplace dross, glossily repackaged for Tik Tok.