Quiet Quitting

There has been a lot of talk about “quiet quitting” in the news lately. I read an article in the Wall Street Journal that explained the term. I thought that it was an alternative to throwing a hissy fit or (worse) planting poison pills in the workplace in the form of malicious gossip, then raising hell and slamming the door on the way out. (It has happened here a few times).

I was wrong. It’s about not quitting but staying on the job and putting forth minimal effort. The “quitter” sticks around, collects a paycheck, and spends most of his time goofing off so that he can save his energies for pursuing his personal agenda.

This has been going on in my classes for years. The paycheck, of course, is a passing grade.

Quiet quitting is a tradition among faculty in academia. The university hires people with advanced degrees who aspire to live a quiet contemplative academic life, people who profess passionate desires to grow intellectually and to impart their students with their gained knowledge and insight.

A few actually do possess a passionate desire to grow intellectually and to create sagacious students’ discerning minds. They publish prolifically. Some stay long enough to be granted tenure, but around here, most leave after they get a whiff of what goes on behind the scenes. It isn’t pretty.

A funny thing happens to some after they’ve been hired and make their ways to the tenure track. They publish a minimal number of papers in fringe publications, become chummy with people in the department and with administration, and then they’re full-fledged members of Le Country Club Academe. We don’t hear much about their research or critical papers. Some publish books about writing technique, compilations of essays that they’ve typed up over the course of a year or two. Publishers agree to publish them because they’re sure that they’ll be used in class at this university for years to come (but that’s not always the case).

Many times, that prof moves to another university, and their faculty friends order their books for their own classes but never use them. Students are stuck with buying an extra sixty to one hundred dollars for books that they’ll never use in class and the university store won’t buy back.

I haven’t published anything in years. I quit publishing several years after I was granted tenure. I haven’t read a paper before a committee of my peers (as if I really have any peers around here). I don’t get involved with graduate students or do any advising unless I am forced to. I haven’t been kicked off the graduate faculty. I just cruise along, not making any waves or noise. I don’t express any controversial opinions, and I don’t get too many students pissed off at me enough to give me bad evaluations that might call my teaching into question.

I Quietly Quit a long time ago.

My status may change. The new-ish department chair announced that the department may begin conducting mid-tenure reviews. I have a few years to go before I can retire to that waterfront lot my wife and I intend to build upon as soon as this diploma mill appears in the rear view mirror. maybe I should get cracking on a book.