精神离职jīng shén lí zhí

Quitting in spirit

wǒ yǐ jīng jīng shén lí zhí le.我已经精神离职了。I’ve already quit in spirit.

精神离职 means “quitting in spirit”. You still go to work and do your job, but only the part you are paid for: no extra hours, no extra effort, no chasing a promotion.

Took off: 2022
Started in: Xiaohongshu
Today: Now everyday Chinese

What it means

It is the Chinese name for “quiet quitting”. 离职 means to leave a job, and the first half says that only your mind has left. You are still at your desk.

A Chinese psychology account listed the signs in 2022: you give up on working twice as hard, you care little about promotion, you never pretend to work late, and you do not answer messages after hours unless they are urgent.

How people use it

It is now a common word for work talk. Dao Insights, writing in 2025, separates it from 躺平, “lying flat”: 躺平 is an outlook on life as a whole, while 精神离职 is about one job.

里昂

晚上十点了，你还在回工作消息？
wǎn shang shí diǎn le, nǐ hái zài huí gōng zuò xiāo xi?
It’s 10 p.m. You’re still answering work messages?
没有，我早就精神离职了
méi yǒu, wǒ zǎo jiù jīng shén lí zhí le
No. I quit in spirit a long time ago.
那你在看什么？
nà nǐ zài kàn shén me?
Then what are you looking at?
在找新工作
zài zhǎo xīn gōng zuò
Looking for a new job.

More examples

我现在是精神离职，到点就下班。
wǒ xiàn zài shì jīng shén lí zhí, dào diǎn jiù xià bān.
I’ve quit in spirit. I leave the minute work ends.
他已经精神离职了，下班后不回消息。
tā yǐ jīng jīng shén lí zhí le, xià bān hòu bù huí xiāo xi.
He’s quit in spirit. He doesn’t answer messages after work.

Where it came from

“Quiet quitting” first appeared on TikTok in July 2022, according to Huxiu, and American media picked it up that summer. Chinese media used 精神离职 as its translation.

In mid-November 2022 the phrase reached first place on Xiaohongshu’s trending list, according to a second Huxiu article.

The original. There is no single image. A psychology account’s list of its signs went around Chinese social media. Huxiu described the trend in November 2022. Huxiu (in Chinese)