Disengaging Instead of Quitting (vs. Leaning Out vs. Work-Life Balance)
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A few weeks ago I saw an interesting Twitter thread from Business Insider about how, while there's much being written right now about “the Great Resignation,” there's actually something more common happening around the globe with workers: disengagement.
They posited that instead of outright quitting, people were disengaging with their work — phoning it in, not taking on as many projects as they could, feigning being busy. (Acting like there's more to life than career! The nerve!) I thought it was a really interesting topic — particularly when set against what a lot of us probably think about now as “leaning out” (or even just general work-life balance!!) — so let's discuss.
Have you ever disengaged from work instead of quitting? Have you ever managed someone who disengaged from work instead of quitting? Where are the boundaries between disengaging, leaning out, and having healthy work-life balance — and is there a business etiquette associated with them? (And how does all of this compare to burnout?)
Psst — they're also calling this “quiet quitting“!
Some great quotes (all taken from their Twitter stream because the story is behind a paywall)…
What leaders don't grasp is that their turnover problem goes beyond employees finding new opportunities.
Companies are actively driving their white-collar workers away by presuming that employees are still thinking the way they did before the pandemic: that their jobs are the most important things in their lives. … [but] many workers [have begun] to question the validity of their career as an identity.
Though the unemployment rate has stabilized from the uncertainty of the pandemic, Gallup found that employee engagement dropped in 2021 for the first time in a decade.
Only about a third of employees reported being actively engaged in their work.
I recognize this from my own work history, to be honest, although I would have called it “treading water” instead of being disengaged. At a certain point in my legal career I decided other matters took priority, and instead of Striving! to! Make! Partner! or even looking for a better job for the long run, I just… treaded water at my BigLaw job. I did the work assigned to me without being overly concerned about my ultimate hours. I still worked late, still did good work (on good cases, for the most part; I was very lucky in my career!) and still got my full bonuses … but it was a far, far cry from the Go-Getter attitude I'd had all during law school and the first year or two of practice. (I would not advise this in the BigLaw of today… I could kind of get away with it way back when because business was booming.)
I remember thinking at the time that this was the natural way of things — a sign of adulthood, even — that instead of trying to “go hard” the way I'd gone in law school, I should recognize that my career has a longer timeline, and that my career shouldn't be the only thing in my life. (I actually used to have the mantra “My job is not my career is not my life.”) It was me trying to find some semblance of work-life balance, for the first time ever in my life. (I also have some shame in even telling you guys this, even though so many years have passed — like I was doing something wrong by not Striving Super Hard to be the best third year associate to ever third year associate!)
I'm really interested to hear what you guys think about this. For my own $.02, I'd define these slight but important differences:
- Treading water / being mildly disengaged / “prioritizing work-life balance”: Doing the work required of you but nothing more — “keep the job” instead of “advance the career” kind of thinking. I'd hopefully think most pandemic-related work disruption would fall into this category, e.g., as parents manage erratic school schedules / sick family members / disruption of regular care schedules.
- Being burned out: Being unable to engage with work at the level to which you'd like to because you actively need to prioritize self-care, sleep, Life Outside of Work-type things to reconnect with yourself — “Who am I and what am I doing here?” kind of thinking, with job/career being totally secondary.
- Leaning out; Similar to treading water but perhaps with a set end date (baby's second birthday, for example, or birth of a second child); hopefully done intentionally enough that there's a conversation with management about flexible work, reduced hours, etc. “Pause/decrease the job in a way that leaves you an on-ramp back to full job/advancing career” kind of thinking.
- Disengaging instead of quitting: Intentionally doing as little work as possible, feigning being busy, and taking every shortcut necessary. Think George Costanza. I would call this kind of thinking “indifference to end of career/job.”
Readers, what are your thoughts? (And are there other categories that you would add in this list — go-getters who are striving to prove themselves at the job? Movers who are intentionally trying to level up their career by seeking a new job or more responsibilities/titles at their current job?) Do you think workers should signal to their managers as they move in and out of these different attitudes toward work, or that business etiquette dictates that conversations be had?
If you've managed people in any of these categories, were there red flags for you as a manager — and how did you handle that? For readers who recognize themselves as being disengaged or treading water, how did you reengage or “start swimming” again?
Stock photo via Shutterstock / Dean Robot; “whatever” in font Perfect Redemption.
I work in government in a role where yes you can go over and above but working 9-5 and not being hugely interested in progression is pretty common. As a manager one of my struggles is actually how to best support those employees as, coming from a big law background, I relate much more to feeling a constant pressure to advance and do great work. I suppose I anticipate “leaning out” slightly for a period when I have young children/between maternity leave, but with the caveat that my employer is very supportive of part time or compressed hours so I feel I could do this with consent, as it were. I’m also grateful for the fact that I think I could do that for a few years without damaging my long term career in the way you might in an “up or out” environment.
I have shifted back and forth between treading water and majorly burned out over the past couple of years. I don’t know how anyone has managed to keep their career progression at the forefront during this time. Sometimes, it feels like the only way I can maintain balance IS to be mildly disengaged, which is pretty sad, when you think about it.
I made partner at the beginning of 2020, so it has been a pretty anticlimactic achievement, and to be totally honest, I was only treading water through the first year of the pandemic. I’ve been trying to get my groove back, but it’s still really hard – my team is all over the country, so I have nothing compelling me to spend time commuting to/from the office, and I’m sick sick sick of being at home. Things are picking back up in terms of travel, but I still don’t want to get covid and a lot of clients and prospects still aren’t seeing people in person, so most of the fun parts of the job are still not happening. One of my senior associates took a 2-month leave of absence to decompress in Dec-Jan, and I was happy she was able to take the time (and I am still a tiny bit jealous!). I don’t think we’re out of the weeds yet.
I hear ya. I got a major promotion in December, transferred business units, and joined a new team who is on the opposite coast as me… and I’m just blah about it. I thought the work would be more interesting but it’s just a slog. I’m not really learning anything interesting to keep me engaged or that I want to learn more about. It doesn’t help that I’m receiving no feedback whatsoever (good, bad, or indifferent) so I guess I’m just over here treading water and hoping that I’m meeting their expectations. PS: Peer Reviews are the devil’s work; I need to learn how to not take comments personally. Woof.
I was really trying to do incredible work up until about October. And then I realized I was being taken advantage of, I applied for a promotion I should have gotten and didn’t get, and I realized that the work I was doing wasn’t being acknowledged at all. So I’ve leaned out. A lot of it comes from being pissed at my boss and team- my team puts the absolute minimum in and it results in incredibly embarrassing work product for our group, and my boss sets zero expectations around people doing a good job on their work. I do my work well but I’m no longer volunteering for things outside of my actual work. It’s easy enough so I’m not job searching, but I’m also not very happy.
I have a very similar reality to you right now. I kept pushing, and pushing myself to get everything done to a high standard, but it doesn’t get me anywhere. I got great performance reviews. And I still wasn’t chosen for the promotion. Someone outside the organization was. I started job hunting right after that, and right now I’m trying to do the best I can for my existing clients while realizing that I need out of here eventually.
I’m going through some major personal stress and I don’t think I could switch jobs right now- so I’m just leaning way out and doing everrything myself rather than trying to work with my sh*tty team….
Is there a category for: leaning in but with balance?
Note: Overachiever is my middle name, always has been.
I have definitely intentionally leaned out, most notably when my kids were born. The first year for both of them = don’t get fired mode. I had been with my employer for a while, knew where the lines were, and had some goodwill banked against that.
In March 2020 i was way burned out and disengaged and pissed off. I took the first week of March off to decompress (wasn’t sleeping, which wasn’t helping). Lo and behold… I came back to… chaos…
Lately I am in this weird happy zone where I am working furiously, fingers in everything, lots of things going on but they’re mostly going right? And I am doing this while NOT putting in insane hours and I’m seeing lots of great results. I think we call this “unicorn mode.”
I predict it will come to an end in 6 mos when current Great Boss retires, and I will go back to pissed-off, disengaged mode.
I am in a field (not law) where long hours and late nights tend to be considered badges of honor. Efffffff that. That can stay in 2019 with mascara.
Unpopular opinion alert! Disengagement is not ok. If you don’t like your job, go find one that is a better fit. It is an amazing market for job hunters right now. Alternatively, go part time and actually work less. But if you just disengage– do less work, or do it less well – someone else has to pick up your slack. Someone else has to take on the extra work- on top of all the other stuff they have to do. It is selfish to say “I am going to work here, take my check, and half ass it” and force someone else to take on even more. At one point does your desire for an easier road entitle you to make someone else’s road that much more difficult for no good reason?
Obv., this does not apply to folks who need to lean out because of health/child or elder care/ other real reasons. There are ways to approach that. But to just half-ass it and expect someone else to fix problems you create because you are just not feeling like doing it…. uncool.
I really disagree. A lot of the work I’ve disengaged from is meaningless “corporate contribution” work which I used to think was a way of building by brand, but I now recognise was taking up a lot of my energy for limited impact. Now I don’t do it, no one does and that’s made absolutely no difference.
Similarly sometimes I now let my staff feel the consequences of doing bad work, rather than spending hours coaching them in how to make it better. Sure maybe their development is suffering and our ultimate work product is a little poorer, but I was fed up of putting so much in and getting so little effort from them in response.
Wow. Child care is a “real reason” eh? But what you say still holds–you lean out because your husband didn’t pull out, your single or child free colleagues get to pick up your slack. I’m not working late because your husband won’t share child care 50/50–not my problem, Karen. This falls into the category of a problem you created…
Yikes. So glad you are not my co-worker, Olivia!
not sure what your angle is here, but yes, child care is one of several legitimate reasons that a person might need to dial back for a bit. Enjoying more frequent happy hours is not. Not all reasons are equal.
Amen. I’m tired of being dumped on because moms need to see every play and coddle every sniffle. Nobody GAF when I need coverage for eldercare issues.
Couldn’t agree with this more. I think the worst employee is the disengaged yet unwilling to quit employee. I get not putting your all into your career, but this is next level irritating AF. Someone has to pick up the slack and the attitude from the disengaged person is so poisonous to the rest of the team. If you’re unhappy, make a change. It’s not okay to just fester in your mood and not do anything about it.
i have elder care and get sick with all the problem employees who half a$ $ it and still haven’t been promoted. my health and time with my family have paid the price
I think this depends a lot on your work environment. I’m the kind of employee you describe, but no one is picking up my slack. Stuff just doesn’t have to get done, and I’m not adding work to my co-workers’ plates by half-a$$ing my job. Arguably I’m harming the organization as a whole, but I don’t feel any guilt about it. If they wanted their employees to care more, they should pay more and treat their employees better. To your “just get a new job if you’re dissatisfied” point, it’s really not that simple. There are family reasons I can’t move from my small city, and there aren’t a lot of job options for me locally. Fully remote work isn’t super common in my industry, and even the WFH positions I’ve seen generally want someone to be within occasional commuting distance of the company headquarters. I’ve been casually job searching for over a year, and have only found a couple suitable jobs to apply to, and I didn’t get interviews (and I’ve had a pretty good interview success rate in the past so I know it’s not just that my resume is terrible).
This is not true in many jobs. Sometimes projects don’t get done as fast as they would’ve. For example, new software implementations can run over by months, merged entities don’t get fully integrated and continue to operate independently, automation gets delayed, an RFP to move to a new vendor doesn’t get completed on time so you continue with the old vendor awhile longer, an Audit can go late because the source documents were hard to chase down, etc.
Keep burning the midnight oil and working yourself to death for the sake of shareholders and your CEO- no one’s stopping you. But I’m not going to pretend to admire you for it – I frankly think it’s pathetic. You think your working oh- so- hard is somehow noble – and it’s not. It’s warped priorities.
I honestly agree amd disagree with this. My current role is pretty “put in as much effort you want” as it gets, but the extra effort rarely has anything to do with the bottom line of work we have to do. I really wanted to excel at this position when I got started in August, hoping to get some good projects to add to my portfolio out of it, but I’m hampered by a lack of clarity for our projects goals, shifting posts for work that needs to be done, and fundamentally very little agency to push for the changes I think should happen to get the proverbial ball rolling. Result? I leaned out to focus on recovering from a pretty nasty case of burnout from my previous role and reengaging in improving myself personally so that I can have greater stamina for engagement going forward.
I’m glad you have the mental stamina and bandwidth to push for change and improvement at every turn, but I really hit a slump with this job because all the work we do just seems so pointless. I’m sure that feeling has been exacerbated by the pandemic, but the idea of searching for another job after interviewing at for 23 other positions makes this all seem pretty pointless. I’d prefer to lean out, reassess my interests, nail down a reasonable personal routine, build up my portfolio a little doing some side projects, and then look for the next opportunity. That takes a while. Leaning out feels like the only reasonable option.
This is a super interesting post. I don’t think my people-pleasing nature would ever allow me to be completely disengaged, and also, my industry is somewhat small, so I think it would create a challenge when looking for another job. Having said that, I recently applied for a new, related job within the org, that is a step up, that I’m doubtful I will even be considered for. I plan on staying in my current job, doing it well, but still trying to reserve time for myself to work on what really inspires me and might help me get my foot in the door in a different, but related career.
I totally did this during the pandemic — not because I was stressed because of it — but because I knew I was never going to get any further at that company. So I took advantage of less supervision thanks to working from home. Most days I only worked about 2 hours a day and still got everything done. But I barely did anything extra because it was clear there was no point. So I put that energy into bettering myself and ba bam, got a new job. But now I do have to work more than 2 hours a day so it’s an adjustment (but a good one!).
I love feeling seen. My company restructured in August. I was demoted from a busy important job that I loved to my former position’s assistant. I got a small pay cut. No longer part of a team. No longer part of the decision making process. Just a worker. I still get paid well. No complaints there. But the transition from an all encompassing job that I based my entire personality and self worth on to much much less – was very hard. I spent months interviewing with other companies ultimately declining offers because I am so burned out I can’t imagine starting at a new company with energy. So I have leaned out. I am doing my job well but I do not put in an ounce of extra energy or effort. I quit at 4pm. I take breaks. I don’t check my email on the weekends. I am figuring out who to be now. But this is much better. Leaning out.