Your ultimate guide to work trends, their meanings, and my opinion on them
FYI I went on Bruce Daisley's Eat Sleep Work Repeat podcast to chat about work and am thus an expert, thus you will be interested in my views.
You can listen to me on Eat Sleep Work Repeat here if you fancy.
Bare minimum Mondays
Meaning: Easing into the week and attempting to tackle the Sunday scaries by only doing absolutely essential tasks on a Monday, and no more. You do the bare minimum you can get away with every Monday. The idea is you put less pressure on yourself to absolutely smash it so Mondays aren’t so dread-worthy.
My opinion: Good idea, terrible name. ‘Bare minimum’ just gives people an excuse to go on a rant about lazy Gen Z-ers who ‘don’t want to work anymore’. We should call it something like ‘moderate effort Mondays’ or ‘mellow Mondays’, or even something unalliterative, if you really feel like going wild. A lot of people criticised this trend by saying you’d just end up dreading Tuesdays, but I don’t think that’s true if you engage with it correctly. If you put off ALL work until Tuesdays, yes, they’ll become your dread day, but if you instead just lessen the pressure on yourself on Mondays, that can only be a good thing. Unfortunately, however, this is one of those concepts that only really works if everyone’s on board, and it’s an unspoken rule that Mondays are free of big scary deadlines and meetings and shit tasks, much in the same way that we should all accept that no one wants to do any proper work on a Friday afternoon. Without that consensus, the people who most need to embrace bare minimum Mondays will just devolve into paranoia that everyone’s perceiving them as lazy. They’re not. They’re focused on their own stuff.
Rage applying
Meaning: When you get pissed off with your current job and apply to a bunch of other roles.
My opinion: Makes sense! Go for it! Some words of advice: check over your applications, because rage applying by its nature can be rushed and thus you might have some embarrassing mistakes in there. Also make sure that if you get to an interview stage, you do actually want the job before agreeing to go have a chat. Don’t waste people’s time.
Quiet quitting
Meaning: Giving up the idea of going above and beyond at your job. Coasting. Deciding you’re done with putting in a load of effort but not actually quitting or doing anything obviously destructive. Like a bare minimum Monday, but every day.
Opinion: As the many people who called me an idiot (to these people, can I just say yet again that I didn’t come up with the term quiet quitting, I just was the first journalist to write about it) pointed out, there’s a problem with the term ‘quiet quitting’ and its definition because it suggests that just doing your job’s requirements and nothing more is a form of ‘quitting’. It’s obviously not. Doing what’s required of you is… working. I much prefer the term ‘acting your wage’ or ‘coasting’ as a result.
That being said, I find the concept of quiet quitting deeply sad. If you start a job planning to do the bare minimum, and are just there to get paid, that’s fair enough. Good for you. But if you’ve gone from wanting more from work to giving up, that’s pretty miserable. I know the dream job is dead and ‘I don’t dream of labour’ is the go-to view, but I do feel a bit sad that our expectations for work are so low. It’s understandable - if you’re repeatedly beaten down by rubbish pay, poor treatment, etc etc, you’re going to lose some youthful enthusiasm. But is the answer to that to declare that all work is shit, that there’s no point in hoping for more, and that we should all just coast? I feel like we should get our hope back. No, our job doesn’t have to be who we are and give us absolutely everything, but it can be somewhat fulfilling. I don’t think that’s an unreasonable wish. Anyway, moving on…
Leavism
Meaning: Booking off annual leave just to get work done. Or waking up extra early to tick through your to-do list.
My opinion: This is terrible. Don’t do it.
Quiet promoting
Meaning: When you get lumped with more responsibilities… but no pay jump to match.
My opinion: Back in the old days, the advice for getting a promotion was to start doing the job to show how ready for it you were. The idea was that your boss would notice this and give you a shiny new title and a load more money. I have learned that it very, very rarely plays out this way. Instead, companies see you doing extra work and think: ‘ooh, great, now I don’t need to pay more for this role’. There’s also a pattern of what I’d call job description creep, where because you’re so amenable to increased responsibilities, it becomes your ‘norm’ and thus ‘just part of your job’… when in fact you’re going far above and beyond. Then when you ask for more money, the reaction is along the lines of: why is this person asking for more money just to do what they’re already doing?
But then on the flipside, if you don’t go above and beyond, how are senior people able to see your potential to do a role the next level up?
The way to tackle quiet promoting is by being a bit loud. Communication is key, and the way to get a proper promotion, with proper pay to match, is to say that’s what you want, ask how to get it, and then show you’re capable, all with regular checkins to make sure you’re not toiling away on end with no reward in sight.
Overemployment
Meaning: When you secretly take on multiple full-time jobs for lots of pay. More common in tech industries where you can work from home and automate your output. Overemployed people will often half-ass multiple jobs because it’s not such a big deal if they lose one.
My opinion: God, you guys are smart. Unfortunately I could never do this because I’d be deeply anxious about being caught. Also my neuroses would not allow me to half-ass a job and risk being seen as not very good. If you do not have these issues, good for you. Go for it.*
*But please don’t whinge about the realities of it online. There are people who are struggling to get ONE job and you’re moaning about having multiple? Have some respect please.
Quick quitting
Meaning: Not being bothered about ‘job-hopping’ and getting out of a job the moment you realise it’s not for you.
My opinion: I think the idea that ‘sticking it out’ is a good, applaudable thing should be blown up into itty-bitty pieces. Why is being miserable admirable? Shouldn’t valuing your own happiness, and knowing when something isn’t right for you, be worthy of more respect? Quick quit away, but if you do find yourself on a streak of jobs you hate, do consider why that is. Maybe you don’t actually want to be x thing… you just like the idea of it.
Career cushioning
Meaning: Building skills and working on a ‘plan b’ in case you need to exit your current job, whether that’s via redundancy or quitting.
My opinion: Smart! It’s always smart, in my view, to be thinking about how your current work can set you up for future work. Maybe that’s taking on projects that you know will develop skills needed for a different job. Perhaps it’s doing some courses after-hours. Building a cushion to fall on if things go wrong is always wise, and means that if your current role doesn’t work out, it won’t feel like such a devastating blow. Also, cushioning is a nice word, isn’t it. We all love a nice cushion. Cosy.
The Great Resignation
Meaning: When a bunch of us quit our jobs post-pandemic because Covid was a time of, as the great Kylie Jenner once put it, “just realising stuff”.
My opinion: This was indeed something that happened, and that makes total sense! A pandemic was bound to make us shift our world views! However, I am glad I didn’t do what my lockdown brain wanted, which was quitting journalism and trying to becoming a carpenter.
The Great Regret
Meaning: When a bunch of us began to regret quitting our jobs post-pandemic.
My opinion: Yeah, very possibly a thing, but lots of people are very happy to have quit their jobs. Also, a little bit of regret or uncertainty is normal for every decision you make, right? We all panic that we’ve made terrible choices? Yes?
(I’m joking. I am very glad I quit my previous job and it was entirely the right decision)
Flexibility faking
Meaning: When a workplace makes a big deal about offering flexible working, but doesn’t actually deliver in practice, or penalises people for actually taking up the offer.
My opinion: This is very much a real phenomenon and it’s absolutely shit. Don’t say people can work from home, then turn around and demand that they come in. Don’t allow some people part-time or flexible hours and refuse it for others. Don’t put in compulsory meetings on days/times you know flexible workers are off. Don’t say in an interview or on a job listing that you’re soooo open to flexible working, then make snide comments about someone being entitled or lazy when they ask for it. God, it’s maddening.
Diversity dishonesty
Meaning: When an organisation tries to show off that they’re super committed to diversity (pictures of Black workers on their website, mentions of a D&I group in the interview, making a big deal of hiring POC), but doesn’t really deliver, whether that’s by not actually upholding their proclaimed values in practice, only having people of colour in junior roles, or having a D&I group that… doesn’t actually do anything.
My opinion: This is going to be increasingly common as organisations try to avoid getting called out. And it’s going to be increasingly tricky to spot. The best way to avoid getting lured in is by talking to POC who currently work or have worked at the company to get the inside scoop. Also, look at the leadership roles - do the faces get increasingly white as you go up the ladder? Alarm bells should be ringing.
Resenteeism
Meaning: Staying in a job you don’t like because your options are limited and hey, you need to eat.
My opinion: What can I say on this one? It’s depressing. This is where quiet quitting is a good plan, along with looking for other roles on the side. Hopefully you can find one that isn’t so miserable, because, yes, I do still believe that non-terrible jobs are possible.
Quiet thriving
Meaning: Doing a good job at work and finding some enjoyment in your day-to-day, primarily by figuring out your strengths and using those more.
My opinion: This is just a made up term that came about because people saw all the chat around ‘quiet quitting’ and wanted to come up with a positive alternative. You can’t just stick ‘quiet’ in front of words and think that makes it a catchy trend. It doesn’t.
Frolleagues
Meaning: Colleagues who are also friends! Frolleagues! Cute!
My opinion: I love making up terms as much as the next online journalist, but we all know this one is silly.
Quiet hiring
Meaning: Acquiring "new skills without actually hiring new full-time employees", apparently.
My opinion: Shhhhhhhhhhh.
I’ll probably continue to update this as more work trends/terms appear, so pls send me any you spot and I can do further opining.
Anyway, it’s time for some reading recs:
You should absolutely, definitely read my excellent friend Rebecca Reid’s excellent Substack, named after the Taylor Swift song I most deeply relate to
Honestly gutted that Buzzfeed News is closing. This piece about The Bambi Sleep Files is wild, important, and such a great example of Buzzfeed News’ incredible journalism
It’s probably a bit weird to recommend Rebecca Reid twice in one email, but her column about divorce is great. Please read it and then join me in encouraging her to write a book on the topic.
Chatbot friends! Robots keeping vaguely creepy diaries! Fascinated by this Stylist Extra piece.
Would this be a newsletter by Ellen Scott if it didn’t recommend a piece by Amelia Tait? Probably not. Anyway this on ZEOs is predictably fantastic.
Also from The Guardian, I really liked this feature on the childfree community