Last Friday, Harry’s boss sent him an email at 4:45pm asking him to urgently check a sales report before the weekend. The 26-year-old account manager knew it would take him at least two hours to do it, which meant he would be working way past his contracted 5pm finish. Instead, he replied saying that he would do it on Monday, logged off and headed to the pub.
He wouldn’t have done this six months ago – after all, he knows occasionally working late is part of the job. But lately he’s had enough of the constant expectation to go above and beyond at work, so he decided to completely stop. He’s not alone either. New York musician Zaid recently posted a video on TikTok calling this strategy “quiet quitting”. “You’re still performing your duties but no longer subscribing to the hustle mentality that work has to be your life. The reality is your worth as a person is not defined by your labour,” he explained over the seven second clip that has now been viewed over 3.3 million times.
