150-year-old short story is perfect illustration of 'quiet quitting'

Historically, striving to take on additional responsibilities was seen as a way for ambitious employees to demonstrate their fitness for promotion.

But in the past several months, "quiet quitting" has risen to prominence. The term describes the increasing trend of younger professional workers choosing not to exert themselves beyond their formal responsibilities and hours of work.

For one, not everyone is a workaholic striver, and over the past two decades more workers have not seen the connection between their own rewards and giving 70-hour weeks for their employers to meet their goals.

How bad is your job? Regardless of your answer, the question is a modern one. Only in contemporary affluent societies do individuals have "careers" and the luxury to seriously object to a monotonous or overwhelming job. Until less than 100 years ago, most people struggled to adequately feed and clothe their families.

Nothing captures the existential angst that accompanies unfulfilling work as well as "Bartleby, the Scrivener," a short story written by Herman Melville in 1853, 150 years before the internet economy. Melville, of course, is most famous as the author of "Moby Dick," a tale of a sea captain's deeply codependent relationship with a troubled white whale.

The story is told from the perspective of a New York attorney in the pre–Civil War era, as the Industrial Revolution is starting to boom. From our 21^st century perspective, the attorney serves as a primitive "business process outsourcer" for clients' financial and legal back-office duties.

The attorney employs several scriveners (copy clerks), who spend their days monotonously checking the accuracy of complex legal contracts. The contracts are handwritten; it is still several decades before the invention of the typewriter, and a century before the copying machine.

The increased volume of work from his government appointment leads the attorney to hire a quiet new scrivener, Bartleby: "At first Bartleby did an extraordinary quantity of writing. As if long famishing for something to copy, he seemed to gorge himself on my documents."

Bartleby soon loses his compulsion to proofread, though, and begins to refuse work. "I would prefer not to," he responds to an increasing range of requests, confounding the attorney with his passive resistance. Bartleby refuses to work and refuses to leave, even making the office his residence.

The attorney isn't a bad man, but he is ultimately projecting his own insecurities onto Bartleby. When he pleads with Bartleby to reciprocate and be a little reasonable, the scrivener marvelously replies: "At present I would prefer not to be a little reasonable".

In this respect, Bartleby resembles the central character in 1999's "Office Space," who goes through the movie in a carefree hypnotic trance, captivating the usually heartless efficiency experts and driving them to repeatedly promote him, in an effort to get him to care.

What meaning does Bartleby have for modern office workers? To some, it might speak of the potential for emotional burnout inherent in a corporate culture obsessed with continuous improvement and relentless growth.