--- title: "Thoughts on Quiet Quitting" description: "An in-depth look at the definition, characteristics, and trade-offs of quiet quitting, using Apple, NVIDIA, and Google as case studies, with practical strategies for both employees and managers." canonical_url: "https://blog.markkulab.net/en/post/talk-about-quiet-quitting" author: "Mark Ku" author_url: "https://blog.markkulab.net/en/author/mark-ku" site: "Mark Ku's Tech Notes" date_published: "2024-06-14 01:01:35 +0800" category: "Management" tags: ["quiet quitting", "career", "management", "workplace", "culture", "performance"] language: "en" license: "CC BY 4.0" license_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" attribution: "when reusing or quoting, credit the author and link back to the original" --- # Thoughts on Quiet Quitting > **TL;DR** — 歡迎收聽 Mark 的技術雜談，我是人工智慧主持人璦廷。你是否曾覺得工作只要做完就好，不想再多付出一點心力呢？今天我們來聊聊職場上備受討論的現象，也就是安靜離職。 這個重點值得注意，安靜離職並不是真的辭職，而是員工降低敬業度、逃避交流並拒絕額外任務。讓我們來看看頂尖外商的真實情況。無論是蘋果與亞馬遜的高壓競爭環境，還是輝達創辦人將工作與生活融合的哲學，都告訴我們，世界上並沒有完美的企業文化。 選擇安靜離職或許能作為對現狀的無聲抗議，但長遠來看，卻可能讓你失去能力成長與升遷的機會，甚至在企業裁員時首當其衝。對於管理者而言，面對這樣的員工，首要之務是坦誠溝通，若真的無法達成組織標準，再啟動績效改善計畫。 總結來說，安靜離職沒有絕對的好壞，它就是一種選擇，而我們都必須為自己的職涯負責。下次當你對工作感到無力時，不妨思考一下，這份工作是否還能讓你學到東西呢？ ## Introduction Quiet quitting has become increasingly common in today's workplaces and is worth a closer look. This article examines the pros and cons of quiet quitting through various case studies and perspectives, and explores strategies for responding to it. Social media is flooded with short videos coaching people to "quietly quit" — the moment anything goes wrong at work, the advice is to adopt this approach. That trend sparked my interest in analyzing the phenomenon more carefully. ## What Is Quiet Quitting? Key Signs [From CakeResume](https://www.cakeresume.com/resources/quite-quitting.amp?locale=zh-TW&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR0M_PilTRRBaoVIW87yC6ziBpMYVZtmPEx58o3Hy6blcl7sv2wbnfPrV9g_aem_AWAn4KTAKzgnoxDxK0keUxHe1-WAFh5hi2cSk80xdLWcEfPC0nbByLEDdzp5MOWr-aPNk20rATzqwWeACeXiiAe4) When an employee is quietly quitting, they typically show five main behaviors: * 1. **Gradually disengaging**: They no longer invest extra time or energy in going above and beyond, and may decline additional assignments. * 2. **Doing the bare minimum**: Work gets finished but not done well — output quality drops compared to when they were fully engaged. * 3. **Withdrawing socially**: They stop participating in team activities or after-work gatherings and maintain distance from colleagues and managers. * 4. **Declining promotions**: They are likely to turn down promotion opportunities and unwilling to take on new projects, challenges, or responsibilities. * 5. **Avoiding open communication**: They stop sharing ideas proactively, avoid transparency about their work, and limit interaction with colleagues and supervisors. ## Quiet Quitting Is Often Blamed on Company Culture — But Is Any Company Culture Truly Perfect? ### Case 1: Apple and Amazon [This video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2E_lnngFuvU) digs into whether Apple and Amazon actually have perfect work cultures or healthy work-life balance. It reveals that these top companies commonly have high-pressure, highly competitive environments with overwork issues — no one pretends the culture is perfect. People who leave often say the work was grueling, and two years was about all they could take. But they also call it the best work they ever did, and they're grateful for the experience because it raised their standards to a level they wouldn't have reached elsewhere. There's no single answer here: the culture cuts both ways, and whether to join or stay comes down to personal needs and values. ### Case 2: NVIDIA [In this interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6XmHpPil6w), when the Stripe co-founder asked Jensen Huang about work-life balance, he said he is always working — and that he enjoys it. This helps explain why so much of the hardware industry is driven by Chinese-American leaders operating under American brand names. The senior managers and executives in this industry often have no concept of work-life balance; they work everywhere, all the time, blending work and life into one. That fusion creates a distinct competitive edge. Again, there's no right answer — it's just a different choice. If you genuinely love the work and have a clear direction you want to grow in, the long hours and extra responsibility stop feeling like a burden. ### Case 3: Google, Facebook, TikTok, Discord [In this interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coCHGiehxS0&t=1591s), Chloe, who worked at Google, Facebook, TikTok, and Discord, shares that every company has its own pros and cons — moving from one to another just trades one set of problems for another. The key question is: are you doing work you genuinely care about, and are you learning what you want to learn? Once you've gained what you came for and expanded your career options, if there's no room left to grow and the culture isn't going to change, you can always choose to leave. ## Pros and Cons of Quiet Quitting ### Pros * You still receive a paycheck while reducing your effort * It can be a form of silent protest when demands feel unreasonable ### Cons * Over time, you stop growing — your skills and capabilities stagnate * You miss out on raises and promotions * You waste your prime years in a culture that doesn't suit you * Current managers or colleagues are unlikely to write you a strong reference letter when you eventually job hunt * In layoffs, you are often among the first to go ## Strategies for Managers [CakeResume's recommendations](https://www.cakeresume.com/resources/quite-quitting.amp?locale=zh-TW&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR0M_PilTRRBaoVIW87yC6ziBpMYVZtmPEx58o3Hy6blcl7sv2wbnfPrV9g_aem_AWAn4KTAKzgnoxDxK0keUxHe1-WAFh5hi2cSk80xdLWcEfPC0nbByLEDdzp5MOWr-aPNk20rATzqwWeACeXiiAe4) include adjusting work arrangements and strengthening communication with employees. ## Final Thoughts Even Apple, Amazon, and NVIDIA — some of the world's most prestigious companies — don't have perfect cultures. Every company has its own problems and constraints. You can choose to accept them, try to change things from within, or leave. Perhaps if companies were more upfront and honest about their culture during hiring, they would do a better job of finding people who are genuinely a good fit. Quiet quitting is a choice — neither good nor bad in itself. Everyone is responsible for their own choices. For managers, the first step in addressing quiet quitting is understanding why the employee is doing it and having a direct conversation. If communication doesn't help, but the employee still meets the organization's baseline standards, that may be acceptable. If they're no longer meeting organizational goals and it's becoming a problem, it may be time to initiate a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP). --- ## About this article and its author Originally published on [Mark Ku's Tech Notes](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/post/talk-about-quiet-quitting) License: [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) — when reusing or quoting, credit the author and link back to the original ### About the author **[Mark Ku](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/author/mark-ku)** — Software Solution Provider - 10+ years senior software engineer, now an AI Builder - Focused on large-platform architecture — North-American e-commerce, AI SaaS subscription billing - Combining AI Agents and automation to build evolvable product foundations ### Free tools built by the author All of these are free to use: - [Free PDF Sign Tool](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/pdf-sign): Online PDF sign tool — draw, type, or upload a signature, then drag, resize, and download. Everything runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded. - [VS Code Refactory](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/refactory): Refactory is a VS Code refactoring extension: 34 actions plus a 37-rule code-smell inspection layer with a Code Health dashboard, across 18 languages, backed by 534 tests. It learns your repo's conventions: where interfaces live, where DI is registered, whether 'use client' belongs. It ranks files by git churn × complexity so you know what to fix first, and hands any smell to the Claude Code already on your machine. Free to use, and your source never leaves your computer. - [DB-Kit Database Manager](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/db-kit): DB-Kit is a lightweight, cross-platform database manager built with Tauri + Rust + React. Manage MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, Oracle, SQLite, MongoDB, Redis, Kafka, Elasticsearch and RabbitMQ from one consistent interface: passwords encrypted in the OS keychain, SSH tunnels, full CRUD, a visual query builder, stacked multi-statement result sets, cross-connection data transfer and compare/sync, Excel / CSV import & export, visualized execution plans, ER diagrams, scheduled backups, SQL stress testing with p50–p99 latency percentiles, a 15-rule SQL review engine, Kafka message browsing with monitoring & alerts, a bilingual UI (Traditional Chinese / English), a built-in AI assistant (natural-language SQL, AI review and tuning advice) and the dbk CLI. Free and open source (MIT), with installers for Windows, macOS and Linux. - [VS Code Super Mermaid](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/super-mermaid): Super Mermaid is a VS Code extension for beautiful Mermaid diagrams out of the box: auto-colored live preview, mouse pan & zoom, high-res PNG / SVG export, 21 templates and multiple themes. Free and open source (MIT). - [React Super Mermaid](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/react-super-mermaid): react-super-mermaid is an open-source React component library: render beautiful Mermaid diagrams with a single , with built-in colorful / sketch themes, pan & zoom, in-diagram search, and high-res SVG / PNG export. Lightweight, SSR-safe, fully typed. Free and open source (MIT). - [Jira / Confluence Super Mermaid](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/jira-super-mermaid): An Atlassian Forge app: write Mermaid syntax directly inside a Jira issue or a Confluence page and get flowcharts, sequence diagrams, state machines and Gantt charts. 11 diagram types, SVG / PNG export, light and dark themes, full CJK support. Runs on Atlassian: your diagrams live in your own site and the app calls no third-party service. Free, coming soon to the Atlassian Marketplace. - [Mermaid Live Preview](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/mermaid-preview): Write Mermaid in your browser, see it render instantly, and share the whole diagram as a single link. No sign-up, nothing uploaded to a server, and mermaid.live share links work as-is. - [React Intl Phone Number](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/react-intl-phone-number): react-intl-phone-number is an open-source React component: framework-agnostic and antd-free, with E.164 in/out, a searchable flag / country-code dropdown, configurable validation levels (strict / mobile-strict / loose), themeable CSS, and i18n — phone logic powered by google-libphonenumber. Lightweight and fully typed. Free and open source (MIT). - [Uptime Kuma Cluster](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/uptime-kuma-cluster): Turn single-node Uptime Kuma into a highly available cluster: OpenResty + Lua smart load balancing, shared MariaDB state, health checks and automatic failover, plus cluster-management REST APIs. One Docker Compose command to start. 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