Most people have had this experience sometime in their life:

They’ve been working hard on a project at work, putting in extra hours to get things done.  When they finish the response from management is … less than enthusiastic.  Maybe they barely acknowledge it.  Maybe they get upset because it wasn’t what they actually had in mind.

No matter the outcome it is disappointing, and demotivating.  The worker, frustrated that their hard work seems to have been for nothing, makes a vow.  They’re not going to put in extra hours.  They’re not going to put their heart and soul into something.  They’re just going to do what their boss says and nothing more from now on.  How can anyone get mad at them for that?

This interaction has happened countless times, but only recently was it named “quiet quitting.”  I want to take a minute to talk about what causes people to “quiet quit,” what the underlying cause is, and what they might want to do instead.

Burnout

I’m not going to be coy about it, quiet quitting is caused by burnout.  BUT, there’s still a huge misunderstanding about what exactly burnout is.  Even articles that talk about quiet quitting and trace the cause back to burnout AND quote actual research about burnout sometimes miss the main point.

Luckily I recently read a couple of books about it and still remember the cause!

Burnout is caused when your ideals for a job don’t match the reality of the job.

It’s no wonder that teachers have some of the highest rates of burnout in the nation.  Think for a second of what a teacher probably expects.  They have important knowledge they want to impart.  They’re going to mold young minds who are eager to gain knowledge.  They will have the support of helpful staff who understand the importance of what they do.  They will have grateful parents who understand how much work they put into the lessons and ….

And if you know a teacher you know none of that happens.  Students don’t want to be there.  Administrators constantly ask for more work for less pay.  Parents complain that their students (who didn’t do any homework) are failing and go over the teacher’s head to try and get the principle to change their grade since they’re trying to get into college.

Expectations and reality are vastly different, and the teacher suffers because of it.

It’s not just teachers, though.  Think of someone fresh out of college, excited to be entering “the real world” for the first time.  They have spent years learning stuff they were told they needed for their chosen vocation.  They probably assume that they’re going somewhere where someone will be excited to have them join the team.  Someone will work with them to help them succeed.  They’ll make a difference.  If they’ve been taught the passion hypothesis maybe they think their job should fulfill them.

And then they get to the job.  They find school wasn’t adequate preparation.  They find that they’re cogs in a machine — completely replaceable.  They’re often on their own, without career guidance or mentoring.  They find out they’re not making a difference — they’re selling overpriced t-shirts or energy drinks or whatever.  Worst of all, their job doesn’t fulfill them.  Even when they put their heart into something they’re met with indifference or even hostility (why is the new kid trying to take on everything?  Stay in your lane!).

For most jobs there will be a significant gap between our ideals and the reality of the job.  That’s because we’re taught a job should fulfill us, we’re taught to do what we’re passionate about and then, in the end … we’ve got to pay the bills.  We find a job that can do that.  It’s a recipe for burnout.

Listening to yourself

A brief tangent.

In Lance Dodes’s “The Heart of Addiction” he talks about what generally causes people to become addicted.  He says that often people have a feeling of powerlessness, and they perform their addictive behavior as a way to feel in control again.  As he explains:

…despite all its terrible consequences, addictive behavior at its core has an element of emotional health.  How can this be?  The answer is that acting against helplessness is, after all, a normal, and valuable, feature of life.  A good example of the healthy nature of this kind of action can be seen in survivors of hostage situations or political prisons.  When these imprisoned people found secret ways to express an aspect of their identity that was not controlled by their captors, they found they were able to preserve a sense of themselves … The experience of these people underlines the fact that acting in some form when one is trapped and helpless is not only normal, it is psychologically essential.  And attempting to act against powerful feelings of helplessness is just what lies at the heart of addiction.

Dodes’s point is that addiction is an unfortunate manifestation of a perfectly healthy desire.  It is a defense mechanism.  When treating people suffering from addiction Dodes would often look for the underlying trigger, and then help the client find alternate ways of defending themselves against whatever the trigger was that didn’t involve the addiction.

Knowing that the mind often defends itself in seemingly strange ways we can look at quiet quitting and ask ourselves “What is this person defending themselves against?”  And with our knowledge about the cause of burnout, we have an answer.

The cure for burnout

If burnout is caused by a gap between our ideals for a job and the reality thereof then the solution is obvious — we need to close the gap, either by changing our ideals, changing reality, or both.

And when you look at quiet quitting, what you see is that people are changing their ideals.  They have come to the conclusion that they can’t change the reality of their job, so they change what the job means to them.  Quiet quitting is just a defense mechanism — the mind trying to close that gap so that the pain of consistently unmet expectations stops.

Quiet quitting is ultimately coming from a place of “emotional health.”  So I don’t necessarily think it’s a bad thing.  I know this sounds awful, but sometimes you need to lower your expectations just to get through the day.

But understanding where quiet quitting comes from, I think we can do a little better.

Some alternatives to “quiet quitting”

If you find yourself saying “I’m just going to do exactly what my boss says — no one can get mad at me that way” I want to just say … that’s completely understandable.  And honestly, it’s not a bad strategy.  I mean, a bad boss WILL still find ways to get mad at you, but what can you do about that?

My main problem with quiet quitting is that it basically is a holding pattern.  Career capital theory would indicate that quiet quitting means you are no longer accruing career capital.  You’re getting the paycheck, and that’s it.  You’re not setting yourself up for future success.  So depending on the situation you could do a few different things:

1. If the situation is genuinely terrible, you hate the job and it is making your life at work and at home awful THENNNNNN ….

Get out!  You can go work at in’n’out or something!  If you’re in a situation that is ruining your life then there’s no reason to stay.

2. The situation at work is bad, but it’s not ruining your personal life or anything, but there’s nowhere to go in that job THENNNNNN ….

You can keep collecting that paycheck, but you need to give yourself somewhere to go.  You can “quiet quit” (just do the bare minimum) while you try and open new doors for yourself.  Go to night school.  Work on side projects.  Study for some certifications (seriously, you could get an entry level helpdesk job with like … 3-6 months study and 2-3 certifications).

DON’T do a side hustle like Uber or Grubhub or whatever.  Those things provide minimal funds and take a lot of time.  You’re better off working your job and investing in yourself at night through study.  Instead of doing a side hustle, use the time to build skills to improve your main hustle (main hustle?  day hustle?  Whatever)

3. The situation at work is bad, but you are building valuable career capital there THENNNNNN …

OK, this one is a little different, so stick with me.  I had one job where I was managing an IT team, but management was less than supportive.  I was on my way to burnout for sure.  My work life was awful, my home life was suffering like in number 2 above BUT, every month I spent there and every project I accomplished also looked great on my resume.  I was building career capital, but it was very, very tough.

In that case I wanted to make the most of my chance to build career capital.  I decided to work really hard to improve that job BUT, and this is the hard part, I decided to do it the way I knew it needed to be done.  I said to myself (and my wife) that I was going to do the absolute best job I was capable of, but it was going to be MY best.  There was a chance that management would fire me, but it wasn’t going to be for lack of effort.  It was going to be because I was doing what I thought was the right thing to do, and the best I could do it, and maybe they didn’t agree with me and thought we should part ways.  I was okay with that.

I’m not advocating for “following your heart” and going off and doing your own thing.  I’m saying try and understand the job, and then try to do the best your capable of, under constraints you know you can live with.  For example, a big change I did after making this decision was I stopped working 14 hours a day — I worked the best 8 hours I could, then went home and spent time with my family and picked up the next day.  I was very worried that I would get fired for that change, but I was OK with that.  I couldn’t do 14 hours, but I could do 8 very good hours.

(And let’s be clear, I was doing 8 hours because research shows that more hours doesn’t equal more productivity — in most cases 8 good hours is significantly more valuable than 14 crappy hours.  It wasn’t just me saying “I want to work less,” it was me saying “the best way to do this work IS by working less”)

Hopefully that makes sense, this last option is kind of messy, so I guess to summarize I would say DO the part of quiet quitting where you set boundaries.  That’s healthy!  But don’t do the part where you’re doing “The bare minimum.”  Set good boundaries, and then do the best you can.  When you do the bare minimum it’s possible you’ll suffer because you’re not gaining career capital you otherwise could.

Maybe my experience was the best case scenario, though.  We had a good team and we wound up turning things around, but I understand it probably wouldn’t work out so well for everyone.  Maybe what looks like scenario 3 here is actually scenario 2.  So let’s just stop talking in specifics and summarize and say …

In Conclusion …

Quiet quitting is a fairly healthy response to burnout, but make sure that you’re not putting yourself in a holding pattern.  If you do that, you’re just prolonging a mediocre job.  Instead, set boundaries and then do whatever is best to build career capital and open other doors for yourself.  If you’re having a hard time and want to change careers to IT (I can’t recommend it enough) feel free to reach out to me!  I’m happy to offer some advice on getting into the field.