[papito]

Is quiet quitting a US thing, or is this happening elsewhere?

US is unique in this sense because when we lose our job, we lose our health insurance, risking financial ruin. This forces us to go above and beyond so to not end up in that bottom 10% that gets regularly laid off. We overcompensate not to have a great life, but to not be completely broke.

This makes us easy marks for work abuse, this is why we respond to emails and Slack messages at 9PM, this is why we are afraid to leave at 5PM to be with our loved ones, even though we are totally spent to do any effective work (or do shit work at that point).

What we call quiet quitting may be just snapping back to what work should be, after the COVID lockdowns made people realize they were wage slaves.

[Saigonautica]

I can't say I've seen any evidence for it here (Vietnam) or with my Chinese colleagues. The slack channels are still active very late at night sometimes (e.g. midnight), and I'd classify most people in the workforce as 'hungry for opportunity' rather than 'looking to coast by'.

That being said, there's a surprising segment of the population that is not really part of the workforce. They're not 'rich' in terms of the amount of liquid capital they have onhand, but their family owns the home they live in, and they'd rather do odd jobs from home than go and build a career. They seem happy with their lives and I don't consider them foolish for making this choice! I think as the cost of living in the city slowly rises, this lifestyle will become unsustainable with time, and maybe quiet quitting may become a thing then.