Quiet quitting is such a terrible name for a worthy and important topic. Some Gen Z users on TikTok no longer want to go above and beyond for their jobs, and would rather focus more time on their personal lives. This “movement” has been coined quiet quitting. But to want work life balance should just be… normal. To label it like this and make videos glorifying it seems to normalize the opposite: hustle culture, while seemingly people are going to an extreme just to have work life balance. How did we get here?
Work stress can have disastrous health effects, from hypertension, obesity, to depression. And working around the clock with little downtime is a first class ticket to extreme work stress and health complications. So why do people do it? Is hustle culture really necessary to succeed in your career? Are companies demanding it?
First, for those quiet quitters who just have low enthusiasm for work and are just using this as an excuse to coast, that’s certainly not a good thing. I’m sure you can find a more fulfilling way to spend 40 hours a week that would make you much happier, while not ruining your reputation and potentially cheating your employer. Optimize for your happiness first, and that means finding a vocation that actually excites you and makes you happy. Enthusiasm for work will quickly follow. Trust me, there is something out there for everyone.
But for those who are just begging for work life balance and to not be overly stressed about work, this is beyond reasonable. The glorification of hustle culture is frankly toxic. Hustling itself is fine. Being committed to work and loving what you do so much that you don’t mind putting in a bunch of extra hours is also fine. But to glorify it in a way that diminishes others who would prefer to spend their non-work hours… not working, or even worse to coerce them to work nights and weekends, is actually horrible. When this is done by managers and executives, who are effectively making this a requirement of the job, this is even worse. If perpetually, many extra hours are needed to get all the work done for a given company, this is an indictment on poor management. And honestly just abuse of employees. I do feel this is increasingly rare nowadays, but feel free to drop me your bad stories in the comments, or hit me up on Twitter. I can certainly have a blind spot to the happenings in the market here.
But sometimes, hustle culture can perpetuate accidentally. I feel this is actually more common. This can come from managers and executives, and in particular founders at startups, who are just hustlers. They get lost in their work, get in the zone, forget to eat, and suddenly look up and realize it’s dark outside. But employees will often take their cue from their leaders. If they see them working late, they will feel they need to work late. If they are emailed at 10pm, with no expectation of a response until the morning, they may feel coerced to respond late in the evening. Even if leaders may verbally tell people to check out in the evenings and don’t check back in until the morning, they will heed actions more than words. And for those employees who may just naturally be hustlers themselves, promoting that behavior will lead to burnout eventually, and it is a leader’s responsibility to save them from themselves. Burnout is hard to recover from, and people have long careers ahead of them. But even besides burnout, those who are willing to work many more hours than others can gain an unfair advantage. They will get more work done than others simply from the additional hours worked. So how do others compete? Well, they would also have to put in more hours. And is that the culture you want?
Some tips for leaders is to make it a directive and principle that everyone is expected to work specific hours within an 8 hour day and 40 hour week and not more than that (this is for the US and countries that have standard 40 hour weeks, your locale may have different hours). Sometimes, deadlines need to be met so an occasional late night or weekend will be needed. But this should be the exception, not the rule. And leaders need to practice what they preach, and similarly check out and not send messages late at night and on weekends. Scheduling messages are a nice tip to avoid tapping people on the shoulder during non-work hours.
But in general, hustle culture is absolutely not needed to get ahead. If employers are hiring properly and planning work properly, a 40 hour week is all you should need to not only get your work done, but to demonstrate excellence in what you do. There are certainly optimizations you can make with your time, so that your 40 hours can be maximized to enable you to shine. We can cover some efficiency tips in an upcoming newsletter, but pro tip for now: meetings can be a productivity killer.
So young people who are so disillusioned with what they perceive to be hustle culture pressure at work that they needed to make a movement called quiet quitting makes me quite sad. Either too many companies are either accidentally or purposefully coercing their employees to work too much, or too many people are not spending enough time finding those vocations that might make them happier. But I do hope the movement will make leaders re-examine some of their processes and any undesirable cultural behaviors, and for people to take some time to explore other careers that might bring them more joy.
The laughs
The motivations
Speaking of finding the right vocation for you, there are many initiatives bringing innovation to education. Go find them!
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I love data. And stuff like this is pretty amazing. From: https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/w4jzqv/i_rewatched_mean_girls_2004_counted_the_mean/