Embracing “Quiet Quitting”

Quiet quitting isn't “quitting” at all. Let’s all "quietly reprioritize.”

I hope all you school people are off to a happy start and that the kids are bringing smiles to your faces.

So - “quiet quitting.” The inference is, as described in a recent NY Times article, that’d quiet quitting means “passive aggressively” doing the minimum to fulfill your job responsibilities. I guess this is what I would think of as “phoning it in” but when I would describe myself or someone else as “phoning it in” it usually didn’t quite rise to the level of minimum job requirements. It felt like doing the minimum, full stop; it wasn’t sustainable and it would not get a thumbs up in a performance review.

(I also gathered the inference that “quiet quitting” was a silent protest/way of thumbing your nose at The Man. Let me tell you - if the work is actually getting done, most managers are not going to notice that you are pointedly leaving on the dot at 5.)

What quiet quitting reminds me of more than anything was when my mom, a public school teacher, would have to do “work to rule” instead of striking, where per the union, the teachers met their basic job requirements and couldn’t come in early or stay late or grade papers at home or go the extra mile in any way. She hated this. She was always one of the first people in the building every morning. “Work to rule” felt to her like not doing the full job. It made the work, work she was extremely good at and changed many childrens’ lives for the better, less fulfilling.

Now, are there problems with all this unpaid labor? Oh yes. Are teachers truly compensated for the “whole job?” We have taken for granted the answer is no. I would say that one of the reasons independent school tuitions have risen so much is that we live in a world where it has finally become unacceptable to pay teachers at an extremely low rate and then remind them of the joy of working with kids, their summer vacations, or in boarding school, the free food and housing. I lived in a unit without a functioning refrigerator early in my boarding school career and I never asked to have fixed as I figured I wasn’t paying rent. No one told me not to ask to have it fixed - I just made that assumption. I won’t even tell you my starting cash salary in 1996, but it was not that far off from my sister’s starting teacher salary at an independent school in 1981. True fact.

Teaching takes at least one specialized degree and to do it right, it is extremely time intensive. Schools must pay people at least reasonably and ideally, very well.

However, I think because independent school teachers are drawn to jobs that give greater meaning to their lives, it can be easy for boundaries to get mushy. It can be easy for a great percentage of your emotional satisfaction to get tied up in your job, what you do to earn a living. It can start to feel tempting to treat the school like your living room. That family analogy looks oh so appropriate and compelling, like a siren song. You don’t get the “Sunday scaries” - you love your job and your friends and family envy you.

However, it is, at the end of the day, a job. You want to be treated as a professional. You want to maintain some perspective and focus. You don’t want to fall into a trap where you are assuming a great degree of emotional satisfaction from your job but aren’t seeking it out elsewhere, so the stakes at your job become impossibly high when that emotional satisfaction decreases. Things in life wax and wane.

Last fall, one of my main messages to the adult school community was to find meaning outside of school. Relationships, activities, hobbies. You are not your job, however great your job is, and your job will provide even more satisfaction if you can keep it in the proper perspective and not allow it to become the main source of emotional connection in your life. It can be a significant souce, but not the only source.

So while I would not advocate passively aggressively “phoning it in,” I am heartily advocating delving in and creating significant sources of meaning in all areas of your life, school people. Make time for even a few things you are always saying you “never have time for” whatever those are. Your school life can be even more satisfying if it’s put in perspective with all the other emotionally enriching opportunities life has to offer.

So I would put it not to “quietly quit” but “quietly reprioritize” and that goes for you, too, administrators. I am editing this poolside in sunny and hot California after spending a very satisfying evening reconnecting with a dear old friend. While I miss the buzz and rush of starting a new school year, it’s such a privilege to have the space to appreciate those past experiences and have a little bittersweet longing but also embrace new and equally fulfilling ways of being in the world.

Sometimes it takes understanding that meaningful school work can be “just a job” to reconnect more fully with the joys it offers.

Julie

PS - As I’m editing on my phone, apologies for any errors or typos! #livingmybestlife #notagrammarian #typoshappen