Quiet Quitting is the new Pandemic
In 1986, I thought, mind you I was thirteen years old, that the 21st century was going to be filled with innovation: taking holiday space trips to the Moon, applying for jobs on Mars, eradicating cancer, and using an endless power source such as fusion.
Instead, as 2023 nears, the biggest issue we face in innovation is those who have given up on innovating.
Your co-workers have become faceless on video calls, muted on conference calls, and offer no inputs except for an occasional, “Good call,” before everyone taps the red leave button.
Even attempting to prevent quiet quitting limits the creative output of what’s possible. Telling employees that they only have to work in small doses or giving bonuses for doing the things that were part of the job mandate anyway isn’t stopping “silent quitting.” It’s exacerbating the problem.
The biggest instigator to “quiet quitting” is employees asking the question, “What’s the point?’
A technology economy based on quiet quitters is as dangerous as an advertising economy based on solely influencers. Everyone claims that everything is great, numbers are up, endorphins are kicking in, people are engaging, and work is being done. But in fact, when the call is over and the video screen turns off, there’s a digital flat line.
As minimum and below minimum wage jobs face huge deficits of employees, corporate America faces employees who show up only to do the bare minimum. Or worse yet, they are extremely risk adverse. No one wants to look bad or try things that make them feel uncomfortable.
Quiet quitting is the result of a disconnect between employees and employers. So the key to keeping employees engaged could be said to create stronger relationships between management and employees and also between employees and employees. Get to know your team, co-workers who contribute, and even try to get to know those who are disengaged. Ping them on Slack or Teams to get to know them. Find out what makes them tick. And if they still push away, don’t force it. Just keep letting them know that you are there to engage and even someone to vent to.
Remember, most employees post the Great Resignation are trying to find their new normal. Is it going back to the office? Is it staying at home? Is it a hybrid? Is job satisfaction due to having more time with their children? Or doing yoga before the 9 AM team meeting video call? What is normal anyway?
The corporate ladder post-Pandemic is not about sucking up, working longer hours (more people work longer now from home then they did pre-Pandemic) or being a part of all the networking functions your company offers. Its more about finding “your thrive.”
And so, before the upcoming year 2023 can be filled with the same mediocre creative spurts that powered 2019, the Pandemic years — 2020–2021, and the post-Pandemic year of 2022, ask yourself, “Why am I here?’
Life is too short. A normal person’s life has 25,915 days.
I personally am currently at 18,262 days of existence. I am beyond a mid-life crisis. What I do every day forward has to mean something… I have to challenge today or I am asking myself the same question, “What’s the point?”
More remote work? More filling out spreadsheets? More and more email forwards, replies? Doing development work on things that already work but keeping myself busy to complete Agile sprints on time? These are the things you can fill your day with to quietly quit.
But during the pandemic, when we were forced to lock ourselves away, didn’t all of us make a promise to ourselves, “When this is over, I am going to follow my heart. I am going to travel. I am going to see friends. I am going to tell those I love, I love them. I am going to launch that startup.”
So instead of slowly dying inside every time you join a video call, remember the dreams of your thirteen-year-old self and ask, “What would impress that kid back in the day if I told them what I was doing now?”
Steve Jobs was fired from his passion: Apple. But he didn’t quiet quit. Steve Jobs then went on to create Pixar. Who could imagine a world without the movies, “Up,” “Wall-E”, “Inside Out” or “Toy Story”?
Making yourself uncomfortable pushes you to follow your dreams. You can decide to follow those dreams inside a company or make the company.
But wasting one of your 25,915 days to sit silent should never be part of that dream.
If I knew in 1986 how much it was going to cost to keep Pixar going, I doubt if I would have bought the company. — Steve Jobs
