I don’t think it’s bosses actually. I think this is the runaway click bait machine of “business outlets” trying to recapture the unexpected success of the whole “quiet quitting” thing they celebrated themselves for reinventing. “Stille Kündigung” is the literal translation for quiet quitting in German and it has been around for years, referring to an employee who has already decided that they wanna quit and mentally cut all ties to their jobs but haven’t acted on this yet. But even in Germany, the business media kept yapping about 'quiet quitting ’ as if it was something new and something to be afraid of…