Burned out employees are allegedly ‘quiet quitting’ their jobs by doing the bare minimum at work and Corporate America wants you to know that this is a bad thing.
They don’t want you to notice that quiet quitting isn’t quitting at all.
It’s still collecting the checks so that you can afford your rent, and your dinners out at that Indian food place, and your new shoes you like and – if there’s a little left over – an education for your children. Collect the check, show up on time, and just do enough that your dumb boss can’t justify firing you.
Look, our system is designed to exploit you. If you aren’t doing your passion, if you don’t love what you do, then you should exploit your employer right back. And the truth is, this has been going on for years – it just didn’t have a clever hashtag to go with it. Think about the number of people you’ve encountered who are totally checked out from their jobs over the past 20 years. Store clerks, rental car employees, that guy making the announcement on the subway, “Next stop 34th – wait, no, it’s 14 – Honestly, I don’t care. Just get off the train, stay on. Do whatever. If you don’t know where you are, that’s on you.”
People have been quiet quitting since the beginning of time. Four hundred years ago I’m sure there was a guy cobbling shoes together or whatever and he didn’t even care if there were nails and pieces of rubber sticking out. And I have got to say that I’m on that guy’s team. Do the bare minimum, everybody!
Don’t misunderstand me. I hate if it’s me trying to rent a car and the guy is scratching’ his balls while we all have to stand there. I don’t like it if it’s me but hypothetically, I’m on your team.
Now, some of the ruling class are trying to “reframe” quiet quitting because they’re terrified of it. Even the Wall Street Journal half-endorsed quiet quitting by redefining it**.** They quote one quiet-quitter as saying, **“**The most interesting part about it is nothing’s changed… I still work just as hard. I still get just as much accomplished. I just don’t stress and internally rip myself to shreds.”
That’s not quiet quitting! Quiet quitting is not working just as hard. It’s doing the bare minimum. The rich dicks at Wall Street Journal want you to believe that it’s just continuing to burn yourself out at a job you hate, but being cool with it when you get home.
Rather than doing what Wall Street wants you to do, I say we go the other direction. Let’s reframe quiet quitting into bringing down corporate America.
Corporate America has stolen trillions of dollars from average Americans over the past few years. Perhaps it’s time they lost a round or two. Not to mention, a lot of Americans work for truly evil corporations because they just need a job – like big oil, big tech, big pharma, big ag, the military industrial complex, and Olive Garden**.**
Would the rest of the world be upset if a few hundred people inside the military industrial complex all of a sudden started slowing things down?
Just imagine, let’s say you work in the front office of a factory farm – one of those horrific torture farms. You start misplacing emails, accidentally shredding important documents, getting a few of the numbers wrong on crucial orders. Now, 500 fewer cows take a bolt gun between the eyes that month because the company was having some front-office issues they can’t figure out. Then a few people across the country don’t get their fast-food hamburgers. So ten fewer people get diabetes, maybe a couple people keep their legs later in life. One guy never gets that heart disease he was slated to have. All thanks to you. Now you’re a hero. Cows would be marching around with you on their shoulders like the end of Rudy!
Watch the full report in the video above.