Recently, the internet went crazy over a young Japanese man who devoted his remaining entire life to not doing any kind of work, and it turned out lucrative as it became a (full-time) job. People hire him to do nothing but just be around. Millenials and GenZers were flabbergasted and yearned such an opportunity - Shoji Morimoto, a 38-year-old Japanese, is paid approximately 71,000 RWF ($71 or 10,000 Japanese Yen) for a single-booking. Straightforward, quiet quitting means not going beyond what one ought to do, and just doing what one is paid for at the workplace – doing the bare minimum. The term quiet quitting was first coined by economist Mark Bodger and rejuvinated by Zaid Khan, a 24-year old engineer from New York by posting on his on Tik Tok and it became a midnight sensation. It is a correlated to Bai Lan, literally, “Let it rot”. Bai Lan was a Chinese youth movement in 2021 against competition, and involved giving up or not even trying to hustle. It was against the phenomenon of “hard working” and “hustling”. If you don’t grasp what it (quiet quitting) means, think of a time you needed a service urgently at that hospital or service center, but was shocked or angered that the person who was supposed to provide it to you was playing a mobile/internet game or was chatting on the phone for three hours. Quiet quitting is a side effect of many employees feeling that they are not rewarded for their input. Most people who succumbed to Bai Lan in China loathed that the government was manipulating them and were thus covertly rebelling against its systems. They turned to nonchalance as well as minimizing social and economic activities. One of the people I heard supporting quiet quitting argued that, “the house prices are high, jobs are scarce, and wages or salaries won’t cover meet these needs”. Aging generations tend to blame others for being “lazy” , a case in point, Baby Boomers blamed Millenials for being lazy and that tendency has been inherited by Millenials as they are blaming GenZers, however, one SHRM (which is the world’s largest HR association) writer, Karen J. Bannan, whom I strongly agree with, elucidated that Quiet Quitting is a new term for an old problem in the workplace. She stated that people have been having this tendency even in the past decades. In my opinion, from a workplace perspective, people are trying to find work-life balance for themselves, for instance, chatting with family members while at the workplace because one hardly gets time for doing so as a result of working overtime. They fear to leave that rare job because they fear a financial crisis and still want that monthly cheque. Some analysts argue that it can be attributed to people who lack clarity in the meaning of work, and some employers tending to exploit workers especially where government regulations are not applied. In work environments where employees can’t express their issues in fear of being fired or facing the consequences, they tend to quietly quit. Although the social media trend, “Working overtime? No thanks! Late night emails? Ignore those!”, seems to be intriguing, it is not so in real life. Careerwise, sometimes one needs some kind of extra commitment or devotion beyond what others are inputting especially whilst still nascent in a certain field. This is what will separate you from others. Personally, I found and always find reading books as bitter as bile, but when I first read “Pride and Prejudice” and it opened me to a new world, equipped me with communication and cultural awareness knowledge and skills, I could not look back. Soon, I read more books including Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, the Seven Skills of High Effective People by Stephen Covey, Wuthering Heights by James Bronte, to mention but a few. It is now a daily but useful habit. We ought to discern that Covid-19 brought a rennaissance that individuals, employers, and governments need to be aware of. Some of us reimagined our lives and how we want to spend the rest of it: most people are considering changing jobs, others reconniasing their family relationships. From an employer’s point of view, quiet quitting leads to a decline in labor productivity, stokes conflicts at the workplace as some employees accuse others of not doing work, and leads to a decline in employee engagement. Employers and managers should ensure that workers monetary and non-monetary needs are met to curb this viral tendency and meet organisational goals. For governments, this will not only affect its economic goals, but also individual standards of living, and it is widening income gaps between the rich and the poor, as the poor who abscond from hardworking become poorer. There are better options to quiet quittig. A teacher who taught me in High School, let us call him Mr. Dean, had paradigm shift after the COVID-19 pandemic. Mr. Dean was an excellent teacher with all the relevant qualifications and skills, but after the pandemic disrupted his career, he decided to become a businessman. This helped him start a new career that he loved, without providing poor education to students. My advise to anyone is to stick and strive towards their goals, build meaningful personal and professional relationships, and have at least two careers. Success is based more on personal education, and that is why professionals need to go beyond their limits and acquire new skills and knowledge. All this can be achieved while meeting job expectations, building meaningful relationships with family and friends, and engaging with the community at large. You may think that you are revenging your boss or manager, but in fact you may be sabotaging your future and career.
