Only do the essentials at work? That’s actually very sensible

taketonews

In my excitement about the tight job market I wrote about for the past two weeks, I totally quiet quitting missed – according to the AD the new trend at work. It comes, of course, from America and it is “just doing the essentials at work, and nothing extra”.

So “close your laptop at 5 p.m., just do your assigned tasks, stop checking your email at night and spend more time with your family.”

Experts did not think it wise to participate in this, because without that extra step you miss the boat in your career. But yes, it is something “of the young generation”, which “has lost connection with the labor market due to corona and has a different view of work than the elderly”.

When I read it, I thought three things: one: ammehula. Two: quiet quitting isn’t new at all. For millions of years, entire tribes across the country have closed their laptops at 5 p.m., even if they haven’t done a bag. And three: there is absolutely nothing wrong with doing the essentials. That’s a lot! I wish I could get the bare necessities every day.

Because quiet quitting is not cutting corners, like former KLM CEO Dick Benschop with his annual salary of six thousand euros and his stupid talk on TV. Or that entire army in The Hague that has had the Allowance scandal “high on the agenda” for years. If they had done the ‘necessary’ there, all those parents would have had their money long ago and the lines at the security at Schiphol would have long since disappeared.

Employers can get their hands dirty with people who do the essentials. I think that all those young people who do the essentials every day, do ten times more than many scrum master in a year.

Quiet quitting is not quitting, but setting your limits

So I’d advise all those quiet quitters to stop using that term and just call it what it is, which is: setting your limits – the most important thing there is at work.

Yes, employers have an interest in giving that a negative qualification – as if you would quietly disappear into the background – but it isn’t at all. Quiet quitting is not quitting, but doing what you are paid for and refusing unpaid overtime.

But most of all I am against that ‘quiet’! How quiet? You don’t have to do anything quiet at work. That’s when you disappear into the background. You have to do everything loud so that no one can get around you.

Now it is often the people who do the least that make the most noise. The ones who walk desperately through the corridors with thick files, sighing how busy they are. Who set the sound of their mail to a loud ping every time something comes in (the Jumbo newsletter, mail from their mother, the latest update to Minecraft) and loudly state their opinion in meetings to disguise that it is only thing is what they do.

People who quiet stay, get the most work on their plate – those who are silent, agree – have to clean up all the mess, get burned out and are missed the most. It is high time we stood up against this.

Quiet quitting should not be quiet, but aloud

From now on we will no longer call it “quiet quitting”, dear young people, but “loud working”. And let us not quietly lead us to the exit, but raise our voices.

Are we going to shout loudly in the meeting that we are really not going to do what that lazy colleague should have done a long time ago. We loudly point out our meager salary scale in everything we do. We protest when something is thrown over the fence. We announce loudly that we are going to take all our days off. Do we say out loud that we only do our own work and if they want more: ten other employers for you!

If the recession hits again, it’ll be early enough to get us all back quiet to work a burnout.

These were the Pearls on Twitter this week

A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of September 21, 2022

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