Quiet Quitting Both Saved Me and Ruined Me

I “quiet quit” to protect myself from toxic workplace culture.  

At the beginning of my 6-year tenure with “Company X” I loved it. I landed what I thought was my dream job in a small company where I felt like I could make a difference.  

But the longer I stayed at the company, the more I saw untrusting, micromanaging, and passive aggressive behavior from top-level executives. Within Company X was a culture of veiled mind games that bred a fear mentality – no one was immune from it. I ignored the signs at first, but after being with the company for a few years, the damage had taken its toll. 

Over time, I saw myself go from an eager, optimistic employee wanting to give my best, provide value, and hone my skills to grow my department and my company to a robotic, beaten-down human who felt like trying was useless.  

At that point, it became a question of protecting either my mental health or my job.  

My job lost. 

But because I couldn’t easily leave my job at the time, I had to find a way to operate within the job. 

So, I chose to quiet quit.  

I began to emotionally separate and numb myself from the environment I was in. I became apathetic. While this approach did help me make it through my time at Company X, it also ended up trickling into my personal and social life. The apathy I had cultivated to help me get through my workday spread through the other areas of my life like a cancer.  

In fact, during my last two years with the company, there was a whole group of us “quiet quitters.” We would go out to lunches together like they were support groups. We would pump each other up and talk about how we had no choice but to detach ourselves to get through each day. 

I finally ended up getting a new job and leaving Company X over a year ago. However, I still deal with remnants of the emotional and mental wounds both the company – and how I survived it – gave me.