First of all to whoever gave it a title, you suck! We do not need toxic managers learning about this technique.

The term “Quiet quitting” grew in popularity as I was battling burnout and Covid. However for me, quiet quitting was something that I was familiar with. It was something I had done repeatedly but I called it “Escaping Bad Management”.

The first time I quiet quit was due to a toxic manager. She was difficult to work with and delighted in making staff cry. She was new to the role, new to being manager and had me do all of her work. This was something that I found out after a very public meltdown at work (she told me at 5PM that I couldn’t go home until I completed all of my work- work that I hadn’t done because I was busy doing reports for her). When I raised the issue with her manager, her manager asked that I either support the toxic manager or find another role. Instead of focusing on the horrible environment that I was in, I threw myself into finding a way out. That was when I started my first two Marketing courses. A job opened up in another department (Customer Care) and I eagerly took it.

The second time I quiet quit was after the pandemic. We had returned to work after lockdown with less staff but a bigger workload. I didn’t know it at the time but I was severely burned out. Desperate for a distraction, I focused on completing the remainder of my studies. I didn’t plan on looking for another job. I had no energy for that. I just wanted to finish my studies and have one less thing to worry about. In any case, while my manager at the time had picked staff to work from home, she didn’t pick me because I said I would prefer to work from home (the team did a really nice toxic thing where those who said that they were fine to work from the office were chosen to work from home while those who wanted to work from home weren’t given the option to work at all- and therefore these people didn’t get paid during lockdown).

I need to point out that in both these scenarios, these managers and that fun little toxic game were all picked by one person- the head of the department. This person almost seemed to delight in torturing staff. So while it was obvious to me that I needed to escape, I did not have the energy to do so.

But I didn’t have to. A mere two weeks after I completed my studies, an email went out to announce that the Marketing team needed an intern.

Naturally I applied and the rest is very toxic, very traumatic history.

I will always be for Quiet Quitting because that is usually something that bad management drives staff to. You get paid to work certain hours and do certain tasks. Quiet Quitting to me means not putting in anything extra because you know you aren’t getting a return.