With the global economy on the rocks, quiet quitting is no longer a thing | Arwa Mahdawi

Endless pieces have been written about slacking off at work. But now it emerges even the poster boy for the idea is back toiling 50 hours a week

Bad news for all the aspiring quiet quitters" out there: the dubious trend is officially over. A few months ago, media outlets were working overtime to push out pieces about how nobody wants to work hard any more. Hustle culture is over, the narrative went: burnt-out employees are doing the bare minimum. Now, however, the economy is rubbish and a recession is imminent. Instead of quiet quitting, everyone is loudly labouring.

Well, maybe not quite everyone, but one guy certainly is. In March, Insider featured an anonymous recruiter using the pseudonym Justin who had started to deliberately slack off at work. That column inspired a TikTok; soon thinkpieces on quiet quitting were everywhere. The trend appears to have been short-lived though. The magazine recently caught up with Justin and found that his work attitude had shifted dramatically. Some of his colleagues had been laid off and he was worried about the economy. Today Justin, the OG Quiet Quitter, is back to going above and beyond," writes the journalist in the latest update. He is working 50 hours a week."

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist