Funnycontrol | When you just can’t quite seem to quit quietly

Quiet quitting is quietly stopping short of actually quitting. To be sure, this isn't always possible. (Representational image: Kraken Images via Unsplash)

I have been reading quietly a few articles on this recent phenomenon of quiet quitting. Where you quietly start doing less and less at the job so that your take-home effort finally matches the CTC in the offer letter. I was thoroughly fascinated by this and thought it would be a great idea to implement in all spheres of life.

Why can’t you indulge in quiet quitting from the family WhatsApp group you were unceremoniously dragged into? Fortunately, WhatsApp has actually introduced this future where you can exit a group without the notification “Sexyboy369 has left the family group”. Unfortunately, an overzealous aunt did not get the memo on quiet quitting and loudly messaged my cousin demanding to know where, why, how, when and what I had absconded to.

I then attempted to quietly quit my relationship with my on-off girlfriend (by on-off I mean the nature of the relationship, not her power button). I slowly stopped responding to her memes with HAHAHAHA and settled for a more mildly enthusiastic HAHA. However, she chose to escalate things by responding with a thermonuclear passive-aggressive “k”. This felt more like the quiet before a storm so I quickly overcompensated with HAHA HOOHOO ROFL LMAO FML IDGAF FML DED.

See, the idea of quiet quitting is not to quit quietly. Only a fool without an MBA degree would think that way. The idea is to stop short of quitting just before you are shortly asked to quit. Like making a century against Afghanistan after your team is already out of the final. Or firing the Brahmastra of a superb cameo just when people were about to drop the prefix superstar from your name.

Now, of course quiet quitting isn’t always possible. Imagine the poor Governor of the Federal Reserve whose every move is desperately watched by financial analysts around the world. Forget quietly quitting monetary expansion, the markets will crash if he as much as quietly exits his family WhatsApp group. On the other extreme are folks like Elon Musk who loudly tweet their intentions to quietly quit buying Twitter. Perhaps that is the benefit of being the world’s richest man. You can be as quiet as you choose to be because your wealth does all the talking.

But on a more sober note, when one thinks about mental health and hears of people quitting life altogether you realize they never made any noise. They were quietly quitting all the time so no one ever noticed a thing. The quiet declines to invitations for social events. The quiet responses to quite innocuous questions. The promises to call back quietly never kept. Unless they work in HR in which case they loudly proclaim their intention to quietly never get back to you.

The whole idea of quitting quietly was supposed to be about balance and not getting exploited. But it happily presumes only one party is indulging in quiet quitting. Quiet firing also takes place in a similar fashion. The signs come much before the actual act. When you are pulled up for coming late to office even though you work in sales and were piss drunk with the client the previous night. When your expense account is quietly withdrawn so you have to take Ola share to a business meet and finance conveniently forgets to share the OTP. When your swipe card is quietly de-activated, your belongings quietly placed outside the office door one day and a quietly pink envelope is placed in your hands with the words “We hope you will keep this quiet. And not create quite a scene”.

But as a standup comedian, when it comes to the final quitting, I hope it is anything but quiet. Where nothing is held back and everything is shared freely one last time……except my browsing history….so that my girlfriend does not respond with a "k”.