Are you 'quietly cracking' at work? How to fix it

People tend to meet deadlines, show up for work, while slowly falling apart inside

- BY LAKSHANA N. PALAT

You keep showing up, till you just can’t. That’s the rather insidious case of ‘quiet cracking’. You keep working, meeting deadlines, attending meetings — while inside, you're slowly falling apart. It’s distressing because no one fully sees it, sometimes not even the person going through it.

This ‘cracking’ showing up on a physiological level is rather common. In one case, Dubai-based Deepankari (name changed on request), remembers how she would suddenly get a peculiar pain in her leg. There was no explanation. “We visited so many doctors, and no one could tell us, why my leg would suddenly cramp up to the point that it was difficult to walk in office. But, when I got home, it would be better.” She went over her daily schedule: Going to work at 9, and returning at 9. Answering calls, emails, meeting deadlines. “Did I have to work from 9 to 9? No. But, I just did, because I just believed that the organisation ‘needed’ me, and that without me, things couldn’t be done.” Cue, quiet cracking.

The slow erosion of motivation

In the past few years, an entire plethora of work trends have persisted, ranging from quiet-quitting to window-sitting. And now, it’s quiet-cracking, a rather subtle form of burnout, or what had once been termed as ‘burn on’.

As Aida Suhaimi, Clinical Psychologist, Medcare Camali Clinic explains, “It is marked by the subtle and progressive deterioration of an employee's emotional and psychological wellbeing, all while their external performance remains largely intact.” So, you continue smiling, laughing with your colleagues, while working, yet slowly, burning out.