Quiet Fires & Quiet Quits

As a graduate teaching assistant in a graduate program, I've often felt like my position is "safe," meaning that I don't think I'd be fired because it'd more expensive to replace me as instructor than it is for me to continue doing my job. This doesn't mean I purposely do bad jobs; I love teaching and give it 100%. However, as I approach comprehensive exams and consider my life after being a graduate teaching assistant, I'm troubled by a couple trends in the workplace-- quiet quitting and quiet firing.

For those who don't know what these are, I'll define them. Quiet quitting is when an employee doesn't give that 100% to their work. Instead they do the bare minimum required to keep their job. They don't do extra work to help the team. They don't stay late if needed to. They don't take meetings during their lunch hours. They take paid time off as needed, knowing it is their right to take it when they want instead of considering the team and projects that need completion during that time.

Quiet firing, on the other hand, is when the employer or management make it difficult for employees to want to continue working for them. Quiet firing encourages employees to quit by making working conditions poor, such as providing no opportunities for raises, giving workers less and less assignments or billable hours, excluding employees from important staff meetings, and assigning employees difficult tasks that make them feel unsupported and undervalued.

Both quiet quitting and quiet firing are, in my opinion, a result of people not having the communication skills necessary to make a workplace truly professional or people refusing to professionally engage in difficult conversations in the workplace. Communication skills are vital for the success of any company, and these "quiet" ways of speaking passive-aggressively through action show a lack of maturity in both management and employees.

Quiet Quitting

Before quiet quitting took of around the time of the Covid-19 Pandemic, I engaged in quiet quitting in one of my first customer service jobs, a job so menial that I leave it off my work experience and resumes now. As someone new to the workplace, I fell for all sorts of traps. I was told our company didn't need a union because they were so good at meeting employee needs; we weren't allowed to join a union while working here. I was given illegal schedules, such as working 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. on Thanksgiving and Black Friday, and then being told my next shift started at 8 a.m. on Black Friday, giving me a measly 6 hours to rest between shifts. I was given late lunches because employees didn't relieve me of register duty. I could go on, but won't. I'm sure you get the picture: this place absolutely sucked.

By the time I caught on that a lot of these problems were illegal, I had been working there for about 3 months. I started applying for other jobs after the Thanksgiving incident. As I applied, I more and more quietly quit. I was often given scheduled that didn't work with my class schedule that I told them about when I got the job. I stopped calling the manager to say the schedule was wrong and just let them figure it out on their own; they had been ignoring my schedule for 3 months anyway. My first month on the job, I was recognized as the third fastest cashier and began training new hires. That recognition came with a "very generous" 3 cent raise. By month 3, I stopped rushing myself to bag that fast. I had increased back pain and instead of accommodating me, they gave me a back support brace and said to carry on. It wasn't worth the trip to the doctor for me to be that fast anymore. When they started scheduling me with less than 8 hours between shifts, I started not showing up. They knew what they were doing was illegal and they didn't care. Why should I?

It took about a month of my quiet quit shenanigans for them to notice. They told me my time had ended as the season was over, but told me to reapply for permanent positions as I had trained cashiers after me. I declined and walked out the door with a parting gift of a $10 gift card. I was free, and had no regrets.

Looking back, this probably wasn't the best way to communicate my unhappiness with the company's choices. I could have continued telling them they screwed up with the schedule. I could have called in when I decided to not show up during the illegal scheduling. I could have pushed HR to grant my accommodations correctly instead of settling and becoming slower at the job. However, I found that the quiet quit strategies were some of the only methods I could use to communicate that didn't stress me out. As one of my first jobs, I had anxiety every time I saw the next week's schedule where I had been given a shift during my college classes. I was stressed out by the lack of rest between shifts that drained me of all energy. I was in pain from lack of support for my position and they put a bandaid on a bullet hole.

When I think about it, quiet quitting wasn't my first or even second option for dealing with the poor treatment at work. Quiet quitting was my last resort. Quitting itself would have looked bad as I needed the reference at the time to get my next job. I definitely didn't want to stay though. I originally fought the workplace by doing something I now call "loudly complaining." Loudly complaining, something someone once told me could work as a feminist work practice, is the alternative to quiet quitting: when you see something wrong, you say something to people in charge and require a swift response to address the issue. I did this when they messed up my schedule every single week. I did this when I provided them with a doctor's note on my back pain related to the work. The results were not satisfactory, so I quiet quit instead.

12 years later, as I work in academia for minimal wages despite having 8 years of experience teaching, I embrace loudly complaining over quiet quitting. Loudly complaining puts the ball in the superiors' court, telling them what is wrong and giving them ideas for how to fix it. Quiet quitting doesn't always explain what's wrong or the reasoning behind the quiet quitting because it is so passive-aggressive. How do I embrace loudly complaining? I helped bring back the graduate student organization for my department, where I served as treasurer, vice-president, and president. I acted as a student representative at out department meetings. In mandatory progress and feedback forms, I openly share my issues with lack of quality pay, food insecurity, health insurance problems, and overall increased stress from the work given. I'm not afraid to email the provost, college chair, and department chair with issues graduate students have and ideas for how to address them.

While I don't get everything I ask for, I at the very least am given a forum to represent myself and my peers. I may not get everything asked for, but we do get some. We got the process of finding 2 new faculty started. We got the student organization back. We got a minor raise, but a raise nonetheless. We got the opportunity to work at the writing center as graduate assistants when I was told my first semester that that hadn't been done in years. It feels good to be seen and heard. Loudly complaining has been more fruitful for me than quiet quitting would have been. While it took time for me to get comfortable speaking about these issues, I don't regret it one bit.

Quiet Firing

While I've never been the position in power to quietly fire someone, I have seen the quiet firing techniques used in my workplace in the past. While the previous job I mentioned was just a horrible place to work, it was not exactly quiet firing. The company was the same when I got hired and the same when I ended my time there. However, quiet firing is about changes. I was fortunate enough to recognize the changes quickly so I only wasted 2 months at a job that was quiet firing their customer service associates. This was also a menial job that I've never had to include on a resume or work experience, and part of that was because the lack of opportunity given to prove myself while working there.

The place that quiet fired me and my co-workers was another retail store. As I've grown older and completed more interviews, I've noticed that places that have good, smooth job interview and application processes tend to also have smooth workplace processes and lead to more positive workplace experiences. This store had forgotten that they scheduled my interview the first time. After an hour, they asked me to leave and rescheduled my interview for a time next week. I was hired on the spot. My schedule, however, was troubling. For the first two weeks, I was scheduled for 8 hours of work total split between 1 day the first week and 1 day the second week. This was not enough hours to learn how to do the job well.

I went to work and the process of learning was quite slow as I only practiced the procedures once a week. By the end of my first month, I had worked less than 20 hours total. As time flowed into my second month, I was given even less hours. I had requested a day off to go to the local fair with my boyfriend at the time. I was then scheduled for a 3-hour shift that day. No more. The week before, I asked the shift manager when I'd get more hours as I felt underprepared for the job due to my inconsistent training and lack of hours. She told me the most hours I'd get in a month would be 20; workers only got more hours if they got more sales, which was impossible for me to do with the training and hours they had me working.

I remember coming home and telling my dad about what my shift manager said. He told me to quit. It was stupid that they wouldn't give me more opportunities, train me better, or give me time off on the one day I requested about 3 weeks beforehand. I put the phone on speaker mode as I sat next to my dad in the living room and attempted to quit the job that was quiet firing me since my second week of work.

Can you transfer me to management? I'm resigning from my position effective next week.

The manager I talked to didn't know me, which didn't surprise me as I hadn't worked with too many people. He asked me to spell my name, which I did slowly twice. After he responded "Sheri Williams" (close enough, I guess?) my dad leaned over and said "I'm sure you'll realize the name when she doesn't show up. Idiot." He hung up the phone for me. I was anxious but he said it would never matter. If they couldn't even get my name right, they really didn't care.

This was one frustrating job during my early college years. I wasn't told I'd be getting 4 or less hours a week during the interview. I wasn't told that my hours would never increase. I wasn't trained well because each time I showed up I had forgotten the skills I had only practiced for 4 hours 7 days before. Even the phone call when I quit felt like they wanted me to feel stupid and worthless. If they had communicated with me about the scheduling and the work from the beginning, I would have never joined the job. It was a waste of 2 months. Overall, I feel like management and employers who do this are cowards and assholes. Employees who are ripped off when they're ready to work as hard as I wanted to make for hurt feelings.

Why Quiet?

Overall, I feel like these "quiet" actions are more passive-aggressive than quiet. It takes a bit of time to work up courage and have difficult conversations. I know that firsthand. However, communicating and being honest is more brave and professional than being quiet. Actions may speak louder than words, but if the recipient doesn't know why the actions are being performed, the purpose behind those actions is completely lost.

Be brave. Complain loudly. Make yourself seen and heard. Quiet paths are for last resorts, and by then, I'd suggest looking for work elsewhere anyway.

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