Is This That “Quiet Quitting” Thing We Keep Hearing About?

I used to work at a fast food place that served deep-fried food.

One day, our manager stopped showing up. We never learned if he got sick, died, or quit, but one of my coworkers also had a key, so we kept opening up the store and selling deep-fried food.

We were unable to contact corporate, however, and as it became clear that the supplies were going to get low, we started grabbing money from the till and using it to buy more food, which we then cooked and resold. 

However, most people paid with cards, not cash, and the money started running out. Eventually, we were just showing up, clocking in, and keeping the doors shut and the lights off.

But that got boring, so we started having little parties. We brought our own food, with our own money, and cooked it in the store for ourselves to eat. We did some good crabs in the fryer with Zatarain’s and Old Bay… but we were poor high school kids and couldn’t really afford to do that every day.

Eventually, we just started clocking in and wandering around town before returning to the store to clock out.

Finally, we were abruptly shut down. Our time cards stopped working. We locked the store up for the last time, my friend with the key left it in the cash register, and we went home. We’ve never been contacted about any of these events. We were never told if we were fired, or what.

The lack of closure bugs me to this day.

It was fun while it lasted, I guess?