In 2021, when Paige West was a 23-year-old transportation analyst at her first job out of college, she realized she had chosen the wrong major and career.
“It was pretty high-stress, high output, a lot of deadlines,” West said. “There were people who were super passionate about that aspect, but I wasn’t one of them.”
West was losing sleep, and her hair, over the stress of being in an engineering field that she knew deep down wasn’t right for her. She regularly went to her job feeling nauseous. She did her work, but, needing relief, she turned down extra assignments and opportunities to get the professional engineering license that would have enabled her to advance within the company.
“When they would ask me ‘Where do you see yourself in five years at this company?’ I literally had no answer for them,” West said. “That’s when it became apparent I had to figure something out.”
West said her decision not to go above and beyond at work had a name: She was “quiet quitting” as she saved up money for her next move.
“To me, quiet quitting is more of a mindset shift than it is an actual action,” she said. “It’s dismissing this idea that I need to give this my everything. I can just put in the effort that’s required to do this job, and then put the rest of it into figuring out what else that is.”
Why so many people want to “quiet quit” their jobs
“Quiet quitting” is the new way for people to explain why they are not doing more than the bare minimum to stay employed.
Many people in Reddit threads, YouTube videos and TikTok clips use the term to describe their personal rebellions against hustle culture, which holds that people need to constantly work to achieve career ambitions.
“You’re still performing your duties, but you’re no longer subscribing to the hustle culture mentality that work has to be your life,” explained TikToker zkchillin. “The reality is, it’s not.”