I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want ..

It has been a while. So welcome back to my ranting - or wise words; depending on your viewpoint.

The new season is upon us, and as most parents will tell you, back to school feels a lot like January 1st - a new year, full of promise, potential, and plans. It is the stuff of fairytales! Same as with work - no matter when summer holidays took place, the first couple of weeks of September is when it really kicks in, when it really starts to come together, again.

A lot of us came back to a post-COVID, hybrid work reality, free of restrictions, free of testing, free of people on most Fridays and even Mondays and free of any sense of threat.

What has remained is a general chasm between two almost opposing sides, a lot of work, of lot of emails that should have been solved in the common areas or a meeting room and some testy clients as well who are not always available for a coffee like yesteryear. And in the middle, some of us are trying to make the most of tired, remote teams that need to work together - all day, every day and even Fridays (shocking, I know). What prompted me to start writing again is this new concept of "quiet quitting" you see, which is emerging across the media and business sites - it describes employees limiting their work to tasks they actually get paid for. Apparently. And they (we) do this in protest - in protest to Covid-induced burnout. And they protest their employers it appears. Because now somehow we are looking for new villains and it must be the 'companies' because everything we do, collectively and individually, is just great and a faceless corporation is so much easier to blame or to punish by "quietly quitting".. .

There is something wrong with me. There must be - because as soon as I started my career, wherever I worked, I considered myself a part of that company; that company was me. I was not the decision-maker but I was it. Things have evolved. Companies are now springboard, hosting a few quiet quitters - until their next chapter comes along and headhunts them. This sounds so dystopian and it also represent so few of us, that it disturbs me. I look around and I see motivated people, driven and capable but we are also flawed, aren't we? Unable to find our post-COVID bearings, in order to navigate work, home, what we actually want during this express stay of ours in the universe. It is not commuting, it is not getting stuck in traffic, it is not a high-flying career, for some it is not even a career, so what is it? What is it we want?

Is quiet quitting another word for sulking? Because I have sulked, and I can recognize it in others. It is exhausting and it usually has the opposite effect. But it is isn't it? How was it even defined? From now on I will only do what I am paid for. Fine. But please do at least that. Please do it before logging off and starting to vlog. Because within the quiet quitters, there are also other groups - the loud quitters and the quiet slackers- which I am sure we will have plenty of months ahead to talk about. And beyond those, the balanced 9 - 5ers, the people who get the work done and deliver and take pride in it - and have ambition. Who said there was ever anything wrong with doing what you are paid for? and not more? Why is there a movement stating the obvious? What is it that we want at the end of the day?

How do we ever define professional happiness again if everyone is so miserable all the time? And quietly quitting it seems? Because the crazy thing is that I have not seen so many people changing jobs than in the last year or so .. and guess what .. .they are still quietly quitting. And are unhappy. And in new jobs.

So how will this end? Where is happiness lurking? Is it a promotion? bigger bonus? bigger office? wellness? work-life balance? success? and how will we make all this happen? who is to say who is deserving or not? and if everyone is so sick and tired of working and especially working for corporations, working for profit, then why don't we just call it a day? And give up. And chase our quilt-making dream? And consider the alternative .. but consider it carefully .. it may be surprise you to even loudly persevere ...