Quiet Quitting

 The 2022 word of the year was "woman" due to all the people on Google searching for what the definition of a woman is due to the modern-day gender issues, which really borders on a political discussion that's sure to spark contentious debate depending on which side of the political spectrum one is on (or your debate partner is on). "Quiet quitting" is a much more neutral word, but in my opinion a more pervasive problem, affecting in the workplace. It refers to the practice of workers/employees doing the least amount possible to get by at a job, not going the extra mile or doing anything extra then they are required to do, a direct backlash of the 2020 work-from-home Covid measures where everyone realized that workers can have more leverage, demand more things. Sidebar: the start of the pandemic is almost THREE FULL YEARS ago now? Seems just like yesterday we were huddled at home staring at a screen all day with nowhere to go...oh wait, that's still my life now. But I do remember the early novelty of just being at home all day and not having to commute to work or worry about bringing a lunch, etc... That summer of 2020 is etched in my memory of seemingly free from responsibilities, totally shut off from the world. 

Quiet quitting mostly affects MJ, who works with a team of nurses at the hospital who in theory should be helping each other provide care for patients, cover for each other when someone has to go on break, take lunch, can't be in multiple laces at one time, etc. (MJ sometimes has FIVE patients assigned to her, which from what I understand is a crazy excessive amount). Before the pandemic nursing was a little easier, but nowadays the issues start at the bottom of the profession: The nursing assistants don't want to work anymore for the pittance (small amount) that they get paid, they don't worry about being fired since they'd prefer not to work anyway, so they don't the work, that extra work gets passed up to the "tech" working at the hospital who ALSO doesn't want to do any extra work, and that extra work passes to the nurses, who try to pass it on to other nurses on their team. It's a game of hot potato, no one wants to get stuck with the bad assignments, and MJ being the nice person she is, often gets stuck with the ticking time bomb (metaphorical). And then that ticking time bomb gets blown up at home when she vents to me about her days at work. I've experienced similar employee "lag" in people extending their lunch hours when they don't want to work, trying to get out of the tough assignments and let someone else take the burden, and MJ's experiencing the full brunt of that right with certain co-workers somehow always being on break, suddenly "getting a headache" when others need their help, talking and gossiping while they should be working, etc. 

Quiet quitting affects me as well, maybe not as directly as nurses directly requesting each other and having to look each other in the eye and say they're on lunch/break, where they can physically see each other and it's a lot more personal. At my work, I have teammates who I've never met in person, just a voice on the group call or a name on the zoom call/email chain who I have to work with, so I've never been able to develop a relationship with this person other than what's reflected in their work; there are definite extremes of people a.) going above and beyond to impress the law firm partner to the extent that it makes me look bad and b.) not being responsive to emails and giving terse responses, not doing what they say they were going to do. There's a broad spectrum of co-workers, and I'd say the latter is much more annoying in terms of not being accountable. I've always had a motivation to not let the team down and it drives me to turn in assignments on time, or at least email to communicate, but some co-workers don't even feel an obligation, choosing to just let the matter sit and (I imagine) hoping it will just go away on its own, or maybe someone else will just do it instead. I think that's a common occurrence in any and every industry in our quiet-quitting world nowadays, and probably why Amazon, SalesForce, and a bevy of tech companies are laying off employees. Even law firms nowadays have associates who used to be gun-ho about working, now refusing to work on the weekends, bill enough hours, etc. It's an epidemic, alright, just maybe not Covid: it's quiet-quitting.