Did They ‘Quietly Quit’ or Are They Saving Their Sanity?

By now, most of us have heard the term quiet quitting. Is it a negative or positive thing? There’s confusion over what it is or what it means. Some think it means the period of disengagement an employee may experience leading up to actually quitting.

Is it really though?

It depends on the lens you see it through. I read an article from a recruitment firm that listed some of the ‘top signs’ of quiet quitting as:

People clocking out exactly at 5 p.m.
Employees are no longer willing to work overtime hours
Employees are not willing to perform tasks or take on responsibilities that are not included in their job descriptions
People only doing tasks as specifically described in their contracts
People are no longer willing to hustle, grind it out, or go above and beyond

Is that disengagement though -- or has that person simply engaged very deliberate boundaries to protect their work/life balance?