The Hottest New Workplace Trend

Photo by Luca Bravo on Unsplash

Tom Smern logs into his job as a data analyst for a suburban Milwaukee insurance company every day at 9 a.m. He attends meetings, makes small talk with coworkers and takes a short lunch break, but most of the time, he’s analyzing data for Franklin Shield Insurance.

At 5 p.m., he logs off and makes the 15-minute drive home in his Jeep Cherokee, right around when his wife, Anne, is getting home from her job as an outside sales rep for a construction equipment company. It’s the same routine, Monday through Friday, week in and week out. Whether or not they know it, the Smerns are part of America’s hottest workplace trend: Doing your work and then just going home.

Asked to describe his personal philosophy about work, Tom Smern said, “I need money to live, so I work, and then I go home. I live my personal life at home. In the morning, I leave home and return to work.”

Workplace analysts say this method is actually how most Americans prefer to work. They call it “Quiet Working,” when an employee does what is expected and then goes home. It’s an arrangement in which both employee and employer benefit.

“It’s the true secret of American business success,” said Lisa Thompson, a researcher with Morris Workforce Strategies. “And no one’s talking about it.”

Thanks to Quiet Working culture, companies like Franklin Shield Insurance see steady profits and low employee turnover due to burnout. The company even pays employees like Smern not to work for 17 days a year, plus holidays.

“Employees often use this time to travel or vacation,” said Thompson. “Others just chill at home and take what they call a ‘stay-cation.’”

Smern says that when he uses this paid time off he sets an out-office email response.

“It lets coworkers know I am unavailable,” he said.

Sometimes, he has fun with his out-of-office messages.

“One year, my wife and I took a weeklong vacation in Mexico, and I ended my out-of-office message by saying, ‘Adios,’” he laughed. “We have fun.”

Dorothy Kendall is an administrative assistant at a digital marketing firm in Atlanta. She shares a similar Quiet Working philosophy. Although the demands of her job are always changing, she says that going to work on time and doing her job and then going home is still an effective way to contribute to her company’s success.

“There are people who roll their eyes and say things like, ‘Ugh, Mondays,’” Kendall said. “I just nod along, but I know that for most of human history things like poverty, back-breaking labor, violence and deadly diseases were the default setting. I work in an office that is heated in the winter and cooled in the summer doing work I enjoy next to people I like. I have technologies in my home that the richest men on earth didn’t have access to 100 years ago. If you hate Mondays so much, go toil in a turnip field all day for a lecherous feudal baron. I like Mondays.”

Not all employees see the benefits of Quiet Working.

On TikTok, the user @RegularJaSon25 posted a video of himself leaving work one minute earlier each day to see if anyone would notice. The series went viral. After Day 11, @RegularJaSon25 says his manager asked him to work the same eight hours just like his coworkers. When he left early again the next day, he was fired.

“I guess I’m ‘Quietly’ looking for a job now,” he posted on TikTok, along with a GoFundMe link.

At the San Jose startup blurp.ly, CEO Sanya Campbell says she’s fighting back against the 80-hour-a-week culture that’s so pervasive in Silicon Valley. Last summer, the human resources department rolled out a radical plan: work eight hours a day and then just go home like that’s a normal thing.

“When word got out, we had engineers from every major company in the valley applying for positions like janitor and receptionist,” Campbell said. “I get the impression that some workers are tired of driving themselves into the ground for company leaders who place profits, personal spacecraft and insider Washington access over whether or not you get to see your kid’s fourth-grade basketball game.”

Analysts remain curious about the role Artificial Intelligence will play for the 9-to-5 employees whose labor is largely responsible for the most successful economy in the history of all mankind.

“We all know AI is coming, and it is going to change things,” said Jamaal Worthington of Dylan Corporate Strategies. “I have nothing to add to that. We just know it’s coming, and it’s going to change things. Somehow.”

Every day, in every state, millions of Americans go to work, do their jobs and leave at a reasonable time. It’s a trend that shows no signs of stopping.

Said workplace researcher Thompson, “Americans like to work, and they want to succeed, but they also know they only get 28,000 sunrises before they cease consciousness and either enter a higher spiritual realm or disappear into a terrifying void for all eternity. Either way, they’d like to be home by 5:30.”

If you liked this satirical article, you might also enjoy this non-satirical essay I wrote: The Truth About Unlimited PTO.