The world thinks rest, recovery, and general refusal of work is gross. You can — and should — do it anyway. ●

Sleep is fine (but it has to be “productive” deep sleep, no naps!!); self-care is fine (so long as it also involves buying things, resisting aging, etc. etc.); exercise is great (disciplining and regimenting the body). But truly doing nothing, not even birding, not even gentle walking, not even organizing , where’s the moral value in that?

The term bedrotting screams the quiet part aloud: when the ability to work is cherished above all else, rest has to be framed as abject.

“Linguistically, a duvet day feels gentle and generous, while rotting in bed conjures up a sense of decay, of life collapsing in on itself. Bed rotting doesn’t shy away from the sticky experience of staying in the same clothes all day or the lethargy that can come from lying down for hours on end.”

The grossness is the point — because, as O’Sullivan

I understand the cautions against leaning into depressive episodes. I also understand how many things that people label “indicators of depression” are also 1) forms of deep rest and 2) general resistance to the idea that every day should be filled with lists of things to do , places to be , productivity to exalt. And as Refinery29 writer Sabdhbh

Which isn’t to say they don’t still work: most of them do. But they don’t necessarily take pleasure in making profits that disproportionately benefit people who are already rich. They’re not super psyched for another day of fucking up the planet in the name of defending big oil interests. They’re not pumped to break down their bodies for Jeff

But many younger workers — knowingly and unknowingly following in a long tradition of labor activism and more radical anti-work politics — are immersed in media (particularly on TikTok, but also on Reddit) that invites them to question the directive to “love” your job or even want to work.

“Quiet Quitting” articles allowed readers to access a convenient cause (damn lazy Gen-Zers) for a pretty existential problem (work sucks). It’s also, conveniently, a way of blaming workers for systemic ills. “Quiet Hiring” deflects from organizational norms that call for eking out as much productivity (at the lowest cost) from each employee in the

If you didn’t want to look closely at your own organizational practices, if you felt uncomfortable about what younger works were agitating for, if you feared changed or anything that usurped your understanding of “how business is done” — Quiet Quitting was the easy answer.