You’re never too old to learn new things and while I just turned 40 years old, I find myself sometimes scratching my head when I see new vernacular out there. Let’s admit, how many people used the term “gaslighting” more than two years ago and now people use it interchangeably with “lying” (even though it’s not completely accurate.) Over the summer, I’ve heard the term “quiet quitting” many times and while I know that most of the newer employment jargon comes from the pandemic, I wanted to learn more about what this meant. Perhaps it was something that I could advise my clients on and if nothing else, I’d be able to discuss the topic… so I dove into the research.

In a nutshell, quiet quitting is not actually quitting your job at all. It is deciding that you are going to draw a few lines and not put your heart and soul, not to mention your labor, into your employment beyond the minimum of what is expected. Instead of attaching yourself to the long-held belief that you enter at the lowest levels, bust your hump, and work your way up the corporate ladder, we now have a culture where people don’t want to work their way up that ladder. They just want to do the work assigned to them, not get hassled, not stick their necks out, not volunteer for special projects, get paid, and go home.

Obviously, we’re not talking about entrepreneurs, business owners and those who still subscribe to “hustle culture.” We’re talking about people who have decided that burnout isn’t worth the paycheck and that they are fine with potentially being laid off or fired by their employers.

My personal opinion is that these are people who have still not adjusted to life since the pandemic restrictions for work have ended. In some cases, with people in their early 20s, they may not have been part of a working world where people clocked in at 9 a.m. and clocked out at 5 p.m. The government did a lot of creative things to keep money in people’s pockets and employers have done a lot of creative things to keep people working, but for a certain segment of the population, it’s still not enough.

The people who are “quietly quitting” are going to face one of two choices ultimately: They’re either going to have to create their own employment as an entrepreneur or they’re going to eventually get with the program and not put in the minimum level of work possible because they don’t want to lose their job. In my birth country of Haiti, for most people who had jobs, they took pride in them and worked very hard. Then, when I moved to Florida and started work in a hotel, I saw many entry-level employees who had been doing their jobs for years, just to put food in their kids’ or grandkids’ mouths. These people worked hard because THEY HAD TO WORK HARD!

The pandemic created a crazy set of circumstances in both employment and the economy (not to mention every other aspect of life) and I think we’re still seeing the fallout of this. This young generation is among the most creative and entrepreneurial we’ve seen, but not everyone is going to be lucky enough to fall into being an influencer or do well in the cryptocurrency markets. Not all have the skills to run their own business or the desire. Ultimately, I think things will settle down and they’ll remind us of what the working world looked like in 2018, which seems like it was 100 years ago.

My message to those who are embracing this lifestyle: You can quietly quit, but you’re going to suffer the consequences at a volume you can’t control.