It’s the catchphrase of the week: “quiet quitting.” Sounds catchy, doesn’t it? In case you haven’t heard of the term, it means doing the bare minimum at work. It means not going above and beyond your job duties because that extra work doesn’t mean higher pay. It’s recognizing that staying late nights won’t land you that job promotion. It means at best you get a pat on the back and are told to come back again tomorrow, just to do the same thing again. At worst, you just wasted your time and are now more tired than you should be.

So, what does “quiet quitting” actually mean? If you happen to come across it on TV, chances are it sounds like these are just lazy employees who just want to skate by in life. What it doesn’t sound like are workers setting healthy professional boundaries for themselves. What it doesn’t sound like is management setting correct expectations and roles for their employees. The term “quiet quitting” puts the emphasize on the workers, who really have no power or say in their everyday job. It makes it sound like the worker is the one who gave up and simply doesn’t want to do their job. What it refuses to ask out loud is why companies don’t pay their workers a fair wage? Or incentivize hard work? Or just simply compensate accordingly?

Remember essential workers? The heroes of the pandemic? Ask any “essential” worker during the pandemic if they were compensated accordingly for going above and beyond, to risk their health, and at times their lives, so we could get our mocha latte with low-fat, soy milk fix. Ask them if that slice of pizza, or that “You’re the Best” mug at the end of the year was worth it. Ask them if they actually received a higher wage or better benefits from being deemed essential heroes. See if you can ask them these questions without them laughing out loud.

Quiet quitting is the catchphrase of the week. It sounds better than the alternatives floating out there – “age your wage” anyone? However, if you look deeper, you’ll see that it’s “work-to-rule” tweaked to be an eye-catching headline while disguising the fact that it’s a protest against low paying jobs and bad working conditions.