Quiet Quitting’s Detrimental Effects -

By Anthony Dryden

This is an independently submitted op-ed for our Quill section. Views and statements made in this article do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Tower.

Quiet quitting refers to the fairly recent trend of employees not necessarily quitting their jobs, but doing the bare minimum required of them and nothing else. The argument behind this workplace phenomena is based on boundaries. Examples of the quiet quitting attitude include: refusing work calls after hours, refusing to come in early or late, and refusing to partake in extra work. To give you a reference, “A 2021 survey from Gallup found that only 36% of people reported being engaged with their job.”

There are several reasons why people may participate in quiet quitting. As said above, it is chiefly about boundaries. People have experienced more work time freedom, exacerbated by COVID-19 and working from home. I think that employees had a taste of this freedom and are reluctant to give it up. So much so that, “57% of workers are looking for fully-removed jobs, and there are an even larger number of people who would like a hybrid option as well.”

All in all, setting boundaries in a workplace is not bad. A healthy balance between work and life is necessary. Yet there are a few problems that I believe will arise: the first,that these modern employees are not finding purpose in their lives. Generally, one would set up boundaries in their work to ensure meaningful time with their family, spouses, community, or church. Unfortunately, many modern employees have none of this. The Pew Research Center finds that, “roughly four-in-ten adults ages 25 to 54 (38%) were unpartnered – that is, neither married nor living with a partner.” Additionally Gallup finds that, “Americans’ membership in houses of worship continued to decline last year, dropping below 50% for the first time in Gallup’s eight-decade trend.” Now adding on the unwillingness to go above and beyond at work means that many modern employees are not finding meaning anywhere.

Let’s take a look at popular culture for an example of quiet quitting: George Costanza from the sitcom Seinfeld. He never gives his all at work and lacks meaningful relationships, community, or church outside his work life. And as a result he spends the entire of the show in a pitiful (and if we are being honest, quite funny) state of misery.

The second issue is with the practice itself. I’d argue that quiet quitting makes little workplace tyrants. Let me explain using Aquinas De Regno. St. Thomas writes, “The malice of their impenitence is increased by the fact that they consider everything licit which they can do unresisted and with impunity” To be clear, this is highly speculative and takes quiet quitting to its logical conclusion, assuming that the practitioners would partake in the practice completely. Most quiet quitters are not of this nature, but I believe this is something that quiet quitting promotes. If this is true, I believe that the genuine quiet quitter would not be sorry for their behaviors (they believe it benefits them). I think that they, for the most part, would (and mostly do) go unresisted (perhaps because employers are so desperate) and thus would continue acting this way with what I consider to be impunity. St. Thomas then claims, “Hence they not only make no effort to repair the evil they have done.” Taken to its final end, I believe the quiet quitter sees the problems of the management as something not worthy of their concern, and makes no effort to aid in the solving, only doing the bare minimum of what is required of them.

I want to restate that setting workplace balances is important. I do not believe work is not the end of our human nature, I believe it is to worship God. Yet work is something that we must do. Something that we should give our all in to provide not only for ourselves but for loved ones as well.