The Engineer Who Made ‘Quiet Quitting’ Viral Just Had a Change of Heart

Last summer, some employers’ worst nightmare played out when a dissatisfied employee went social media viral.

When 24-year-old engineer Zaid Khan posted a 17-second TikTok video of how he was “quitting the idea of going above and beyond” at work in July 2022, he inadvertently set off a firestorm among underpaid and unappreciated employees around the world. The #quietquitting hashtag now has more than 354 million views on TikTok while one Gallup poll found that the term could apply to more than 50% of the global workforce.

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But in an interview with Insider a year after going viral, Khan said that he later realized that slowly disengaging wasn’t the solution to a bad work environment. Since going viral, Khan actually quit his job at a tech company and started taking on freelance projects that are interesting to him.

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‘Life Is Too Short to Be Dissatisfied,’ Former Quiet Quitter Says

“It wasn’t until I made the decision to actually leave my job that I just felt this enormous weight lifted off my shoulders,” he told the news outlet. “And it’s a decision that I wish more people could make, because I do think life is too short to be dissatisfied wherever you are. Because the reality is work does consume so many hours of our lives.”

While the hype around the initial “quiet quitting” video has died down, many have been tracking Khan’s journey away from quiet quitting and into finding satisfying work.

“I’m glad that video and the conflicting feelings that arise reached so many of you who are in that boat because Lord knows I felt so lonely when I was in that situation at my last job,” Khan said in a follow-up TikTok video explaining his later progress. “[…] Being able to step back for a few months, really take a break and reassess what matters to me was so instrumental in providing me with this general lightness again and this zest for living.”

While acknowledging that everyone’s situation will be different and that being able to quit is a privilege that many may not have, Khan sees this as a better strategy than staying in a job and growing more and more dissatisfied. 

‘Resenteeism,’ ‘Rage Applying,’ ‘Loud Quitting’: Why All These Office Terms Are Going Viral

After quiet quitting went viral, social media came up with endless more ways to describe different office-related problems — long-term quiet quitters can slide into the more serious “resenteeism.”

“Rage-applying,” or submitting job applications after a frustrating day at work, has also been making the rounds alongside the antonymous “loud quitting” — employees who stay in a dissatisfying job too long risk growing increasingly frustrated and maligning the company on social media after they leave.

To spot and prevent such problems, employers need to actively listen to worker feedback — the sense of not feeling heard is one of the primary reasons identified by employees who reported sliding into “quiet quitting” at their current role.

“Quiet quitters are often your greatest opportunity for growth and change,” wrote the authors of the Gallup study identifying 59% of the global workforce as “quiet quitters.” “They are waiting for a leader or a manager to have a conversation with them, encourage them, inspire them. A few changes to how they are managed could turn them into productive team members.”