Quiet Quitting Qualms
Look at you, hitting the sack early, getting up well-rested and ready to seize the day, totally prepared to issue a pre-emptive strike at whomever and whatever gets in your way. If you're going to an office you're getting there first, deftly answering any and all emails and messages while checking the upcoming meeting schedule and, hell yeah, you even put on the coffee. If you're a teacher you've corrected all your students' papers and are stationed at the classroom door, handing them out while smiling down adoringly as they make their way in for the day. If you work on a ranch then you're up and at 'em at the crack of dawn, making sure the animals are fed, the cows milked and the fences mended. And if you're an independent entrepreneur then... I don't know; whatever it is you do but, c'mon, you get the drift. You're killin' it from the get-go, kicking butt and taking names. "Carpe-freakin'-diem", people!
So, yeah, that's a pipe dream for all too many of us in today's current climate. So much so that's its antithesis, "mailing it in", now under the guise of a new phrase, "quiet quitting", has come into vogue. Quiet quitting has been defined as "doing the minimum requirements of one’s job and putting in no more time, effort, or enthusiasm than absolutely necessary." And get this, according to a recent Gallup survey at least 50% of the American workforce can be considered quiet quitters. That is, if you can believe the pollsters (rumor has it they can be pretty lazy). Bottom line: be it the psychological effects of COVID, having to put up with an unrelenting boss or feeling that you're not being adequately compensated, a lot of peeps are just going through the motions.
To be honest, none of this surprises me, be it the cute little phrase with the dual "q-u" opening letters designed to pique your interest (a total misnomer; no one is quitting) or the fact that a huge number of us like to leave work at work once we're out of work (works for me). Be it at the job or elsewhere procrastination has been embedded in our psyche since long before they invented the snooze alarm. Isn't it a given that we all have days where we don't make beds, leave the dishes in the sink and order out instead of cooking dinner? If there were a food delivery company called "Uber Eats, Makes Beds & Washes Dishes" wouldn't it, like, totally clean up, literally and figuratively?
So this whole "quiet quitting" ruse leaves way too many loose ends. There are times you don't finish a task because it would entail staying late and your daughter's dance recital is in the balance. Or an instance when you realize, before your boss, that another department has completed the work. Or maybe you feel you're being taken for granted and it's high time you took a stand and put your foot down. There are even circumstances when you feel, from a practical standpoint, that it's unnecessary, as was the case with my dad who decided to forego painting the backside of the shed, realizing it was facing an adjacent wooded lot completely hidden from mom's vantage point, never anticipating that the neighbors, in he midst of selling their house, would call my mother over to point out the eyesore pleading to have the rest of the shed painted so it didn't bring down their property value (sorry, Pops; I mean, what are the odds, right?).
Finally, each occupation is different and with it comes its own rendition of what is now called quiet quitting. And writers, yeah we're certainly not absolved. While my only self-imposed responsibility is to publish a blog every two weeks I've never instated a minimum word count. Oftentimes it's anywhere from 800 to 1000 but right about now it's easily under 700. Now if I was an actual "quiet quitter" would I use this opportunity to prove a point?...
Am I not my father's son?