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Humour by Rehana Munir: Quiet quitting and lying flat
I’ve recently been reading reports on “quiet quitting,” a phenomenon where disenchanted employees of an organisation fulfil the basic requirements of the job and nothing more
I’ve recently been reading reports on “quiet quitting,” a phenomenon where disenchanted employees of an organisation fulfil the basic requirements of the job and nothing more. Which means: Your boss’ 4.32 am mail on a Sunday is now your problem only on Monday, 10 am. The Employee of the Month honour is now as avoidable as an ad in a YouTube video. The much-dreaded offsite PPT is now a collegiate collage. And the neon sign of guilt hovering over your head, because of the leave you’re anyway owed, is now a halo of bling you wear with pride.
Lower the bar
Though the fight for better working conditions and treatment of employees has its roots in the Industrial Revolution, centuries of protest and resulting legislation have made eight-hour work days, the two-day weekend, paid leave, and other rights we now take for granted possible. (Always a good reminder for those who despise those “angry and annoying” labour activists.) But something fundamentally changed when the pandemic hit. Anxious about the virus, cut off from one’s social groups and working remotely, employees began to feel the strain of their jobs more than ever. And the annoyingly efficient Zoom wasn’t helping, no matter how many perky party or background options it provided.
In China, 2021 saw the birth of a lifestyle and social protest movement with a laidback name—Tang Ping (lying flat)—but radical manifesto. Wikipedia says: “Unlike the hikikomori in Japan who are socially withdrawn, these young Chinese people who subscribe to “lying flat” are not necessarily socially isolated, but merely choose to lower their professional and economic ambitions and simplify their goals, still being fiscally productive for their own essential needs, and prioritize psychological health over economic materialism.”
The satisfaction of loud quitting
IMHO, a panda mascot, ideally, Kung Fu Panda’s Po in a particularly zen mood, would significantly raise the relatability quotient of this movement. But while one can be facetious about Tang Ping, it admittedly reflects a work (and life) philosophy that surely has always existed. I personally like this name far more than “quiet quitting”—a term that, to me, is problematic for two chief reasons. 1. To be paid for a job you’ve quit, however quietly, is a moral conundrum, no matter how evil your overlords. 2. One of the best things about quitting a job you dislike is being loud about it.
Tang Ping, as one can imagine, became a sore point with the communist dispensation in its home country, obsessed with ideas about human productivity. Since its first appearance, in April 2021, the term has been severely restricted on the Chinese internet. The movement itself began with an online post by one Luo Huazhong, titled “Lying Flat is Justice”, which included this text: “Since there has never really been a trend of thought that exalts human subjectivity in this land, I can create it for myself. Lying flat is my wise movement, only by lying down can humans become the measure of all things.”
Think and Grow Happy
This whole thing about quitting and lying flat is an understandable offshoot of post-pandemic existential angst. (Apart, of course, from buying 33 house plants, seven brightly coloured kaftans, and three essentially useless high-end gizmos; and signing up for a ridiculously early and difficult yoga class.) In fact, I’m surprised the response has been this measured—being silent or supine. Perhaps it’s time to reconsider aphorisms like “A quitter never wins and a winner never quits”. This one was declaimed by Napolean Hill, an American author obsessed with success, as one can glean from the title of his most famous book, Think and Grow Rich. It was published in 1937, only two years before World War II, which upended humanity’s ideas about not just the good life, but life and goodness themselves.
Anyone who’s read Rumi, Camus and Winnie-the-Pooh quotes online knows that one’s interior life is where it’s at. Quitting something that sucks the life out of you is wise. But if you love your salary, and are less than completely horrified by your job, incorporating rest in your routine is advisable. Quietly quit the drama. Lie flat in the face of provocation. But keep the job, unless you’re absolutely ready. Take it from a long-suffering freelancer.
Follow @rehana_munir on Twitter and Instagram
From HT Brunch, October 15, 2022
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