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Before last week, I had never heard this expression, but among people who work remotely over the internet, it is fairly common.  For example, if you haven't seen or heard from a colleague for a long time, you might say to him, "Yo, bro, I was wondering whether you quiet quit."

What does it mean?

(ambitransitive, idiomatic) To cease overachieving at one's workplace to focus on one's personal life; to do only what is reasonably or contractually required. [since 2022] 

(Wiktionary)

Quiet quitting is a workplace behavior where employees only do the bare minimum at their jobs.

In the early 2020s, quiet quitting gained attention as a trend, mainly due to social media. Some, though, doubt its prevalence and whether it's really new.

Data on the behavior includes Gallup's 2023 "State of the Global Workplace" report, which stated that 59% of the global workforce consisted of quiet quitters.

Managers have had varied reactions, either tolerating the phenomenon or firing employees they thought were not putting in more effort, enthusiasm, and time than absolutely necessary. It has also led to related terms such as quiet firing—making a job so unrewarding that a worker will feel compelled to quit.

Quiet quitting has moved past the workplace to personal relationships, such as marriages.

(Investopedia)

This type of behavior is easy to develop in any business that is carried out largely online and remotely.  Because of the nature of the industry, however, it is especially prone to happen in telecommunications.

Individuals on network teams may be located in diverse places, yet undertake complex tasks requiring close coordination.  For instance, a six-member team may be spread across South Carolina, Louisiana, Dallas, etc., yet be responsible for making intricate installations in Georgia, Florida, or elsewhere.  Often, their main task is to ensure that tens of thousands of "nodes" are correctly and securely connected to all the tens of thousands of nodes in the rest of the network.  To me, at least, it is mind-boggling that each node is designated by a specific string of numbers and a precise GPS coordinate.

A given network team may be tasked with the physical installation of specific piece of hardware for handling the switching of all the calls / communications / transmissions that pass among the countless nodes in the network.

In any event, the geographically separated members of the team must be able at specific times to tell each other when repairs need to be made or new equipment installed, and they must put in the requisition orders necessary to carry out such work.

All of this communication is carried out among the members of the team by messaging, e-mail, conferencing (video and otherwise), and so forth.

So long as the work gets done and the system is constantly maintained, it's not so important who is doing it and where they are positioned, not to mention that the team members back each other up with built-in redundancy so that the network continues to function even if there is a temporary breakdown at a given node.

The team members may not be conspicuous at all times, so long as their duties are fulfilled.  In other words, they may "quiet quit" for a while, but if they are ever truly absent in a way that endangers the smooth operation of the system as a whole, their quitting will no longer be quiet. 

Selected readings

• "The language of phone numbers" (11/2/12)
• "Metatranslation" (12/17/16)

January 1, 2026 @ 12:34 pm · Filed by Victor Mair under Communication, Numbers

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