Enough is enough

when quality assurance and "quiet quitting" collide

Katherine May wrote, in her latest newsletter, “Can we learn, as a society, to simply be in pain? To notice it, and tend to it, and to give it the time it needs? To address its root causes rather than pushing on through, and to acknowledge its social dimensions, the care it requires, the webs of interconnection on which it draws? To truly hear people when they tell us that they are suffering, and to truly hear ourselves when our minds and bodies are in agony? It starts with an act of ownership, a willingness to admit to our own weaknesses, our own exquisite vulnerability in this big, hard world.”

Think about that for a moment. What if owning our shortcomings–our weaknesses–and taking a step back, is the best way forward when it comes to living well?

“Quiet quitting” is a thing these days, apparently – people, usually the younger crowd, are saying (to themselves, sometimes to each other, sometimes on TikTok), “You know what? I’m just going to do the job I was hired for and nothing else. My mission is not going to be to “exceed expectations” in all ways all the time. I want to live a varied and vibrant life, not just a work life. As Ann Helen Peterson shared in a recent installment of Culture Study, “[it’s] a phrase that proliferated last week on TikTok to describe a supposed movement in which people are no longer going above and beyond expectations at work…..but not actually quitting their jobs.” As a writing and coaching colleague of mine, JL Fields, said this morning, “Quiet Quitting” isn’t doing the bare minimum. It’s doing the job one is hired to do and creating boundaries that support a life beyond work.”

[Of course, this issue gets more complex rapidly when you consider how vulnerability & privilege intersect, access to life-giving work, and a whole host of other things, but that’s a direction for another time.]

I have always gotten dinged at work for not quite doing enough when it comes to “personal or professional development”—Ironic for a coach, eh? I suppose that’s one of my weaknesses, my shortcomings, in a professional environment that’s rooted in dominant culture. If I’m told to grow or else, I tend to say “nope, I’ll grow and evolve on my own terms, thank you very much.” I don’t want to move up the ladder, become a supervisor, or volunteer for 86 extra projects just to appear engaged at the office. I don't want to meet metrics just for the sake of meeting them. I want to meet people where they are and offer the support they need, which is something that isn’t often captured by a quantifiable formula. I want to do the job I was hired to do and have enough energy left to write, grow a garden, notice the details of the day, and live the rest of my life—things that are more important to me than meeting expectations, especially when it comes to being scored on how well I am ‘growing’ and ‘developing’ as a worker. Who gets to decide what is enough when it comes to someone else’s personal or professional growth anyway? It seems to me that it should be between the person and themselves, rather than something an employer dictates and measures. The way toward authentic, life-giving evolution is created by cultivating the conditions that help one build the capacity to do so (which is usually because the person has set appropriate boundaries and doesn’t try to do too much to ensure they’re always meeting/exceeding expectations).

To bring it back to what Katherine May was mulling over, I think at the root of this quiet quitting phenomenon is pain—and the need to tend to what’s causing it. These “quiet quitters” are feeling pain, and they are taking action to tend to it by doing less. (I can pretty confidently say I’ve been some version of a quiet quitter off and on since before that was a thing.) It’s time to listen to what’s bubbling underneath each additional person’s willingness to own their discontent, their pain, their desire for something different, and admit that vulnerability, weakness, and coasting when necessary are okay. That constant growth and development aren’t sustainable. Maybe, when I step fully into the parallel universe (inhabited by everyone else who accepts that setting personal achievement goals until the end of time is not the way to life and hates the word “optimization”) that I feel like I live in half the time anyway, THAT’S the actual growth. #mindblown

Recently I decided that I’m okay with not meeting expectations when it comes to how well I’m perceived at working on my own growth, setting challenging enough goals, and seeking continual, measurable, improvement. I’m owning this as something that I have no interest in participating in–I’m good at what I do, and the folks I serve are getting what they need. (I know this because they tell me they are.) When I push myself to continually “be better,” I burn out. In this hustle/startup culture, not being interested in continual and measurable personal/professional development is considered a shortcoming, a weakness, something to ‘work on improving’, and I’m done letting it make me feel like I’m never quite doing enough.

I would prefer everyone just slip into this parallel universe with me, but I haven’t figured out how to get them to do that yet. If you’ve been considering it, take the plunge. It’s quite nice, and there’s less math.

Anyway, Quiet quitting–what a concept, huh? Folks aren’t jumping ship (well, probably some are, but many aren’t), they’re just saying enough is enough. And there should be no shame in that. More of us need to take a stand for what we truly believe matters–even if we do it quietly– to shift another inch toward that elusive more beautiful world.

On a Post “Quiet Quitting” World

What if you worked

for an organization that didn’t measure

anything for quality assurance

because the thing most important

to every person toiling away

was adding healing to the world

by connecting in real, life-giving ways–

to others, to each other, to themselves–

a thing that is impossible to quantify

because when you try to turn

what matters most into metrics

that connection you are trying

to measure is no longer real

and can no longer heal.