Au Revoir, Quiet Qutting

Apparently, Quiet Quitting is out. All I can say is, whew!

What? You haven't heard of Quiet Quitting? Ah, let me explain it to you.

It began where most things do these days: TikTok. Twenty-something Zaid Khan posted a video saying this: "I recently learned about this term called quiet quitting, where you're not outright quitting your job, but you're quitting the idea of going above and beyond... You're still performing your duties, but you're no longer subscribing to the hustle culture mentality that work has to be your life. The reality is it's not — and your worth as a person is not defined by your labor."

Forgive me, but I must do this (shakes fist to sky. Khan!)

Okay, the Trekkie moment is over. In many ways, I get where Khan is coming from. In my twenties, I called it working in place, a term I heard Michael Moore once mention. There were times when I couldn't leave my problems at home. I'd come to work but just do the basics, I was polite, but nothing extra. Usually, my Catholic guilt would kick in, and I double my work efforts the next shift.

The thing is, for the jobs I held in my lifetime, Quiet Quitting simply wasn't an option.

My first job was as a student shelver at my local library. I was promoted to clerk several years later. Ninety-six percent of my job was dealing with the public. It could be a challenge hearing why they didn't the library have an updated list of available movies (it would be impossible to maintain such a list with videos never returned and new ones added every other week), a person protesting a fine for a book a day overdue (twenty cents) and my favorite was when I told people at an affluent suburban library they had an extra day for their books because of Martin Luther King's birthday, many wrinkled their nose. They said: "That's a holiday?"

Now with the latter, I couldn't say to these people, "Yes, it's a holiday, you twit. It's been a holiday for years!" Why? Because I was told many times by librarians that we had to be polite as possible to the public. It was the public whose taxes paid our salary. It was the public who voted. We had to be mindful that people remembered bad customer service. If they remembered a library person giving bad customer service, it could affect their way of voting.

Sometimes I had no choice going above and beyond my job. Someone might've called in sick. Or we were behind shelving books. There have been times when a library wasn't adequately staffed, it wouldn't be able to open for the day. The voters definitely would remember that on Election Day, and not fondly.

I also worked as a Test Administrator. Every month we had a deal called "How Are We Doing?" Clients would be asked questions: were they seated on time? Was the staff polite? Were you instructed to put your personal belongings in your locker? Our score couldn't go below ninety-eight percent.

Because of the scoring, I had to be polite to everyone I interacted with and go above and beyond my pay scale. Why? I was working a job where our How We Are Doing scores determined how many days the center would be open. If the score went below ninety-eight percent, people's hours would be cut. My hours would be cut.

Writer Emi Nietfeld said this about Quiet Quitting: Much of the "quiet quitting" discussion makes my blood boil: Most people are not hustling to self-actualize. They're hustling to survive." Indeed. Think of the sales clerks this holiday season, trying to help customers find presents for their families. They need this job to survive. Surviving means going above and beyond to help people. Some grocery clerks find out there's a chance to get overtime to work Christmas Eve. They don't have a choice in quietly quitting. They do it because tuition is due. Or they need to pay hospital bills for their spouse.

So I, for one, am glad Quiet Quitting is on its way out. It's for the privileged few. We should concentrate on helping people not feel they have to hustle so much, giving them a fair wage.

But wait, that's going above and beyond, isn't it?