# Loud Living vs Quiet Quitting - **Episode:** [206](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/206.md) (2025-06-17) - **Type:** news-roundup - **Tags:** quiet-quitting, loud-living, engagement - **Time:** 10:12–15:44 (start 612s) - **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/206?t=612](https://truthliesandwork.com/206?t=612) --- [10:12] Al Elliott: I saw something in Fast Company. Well, actually, to be fair, I saw it on LinkedIn, but the actual article was in Fast Company by Ali Kushner [10:18] Leanne Elliott: Look at you, you're on LinkedIn this week, you were on Insta last week [10:21] Al Elliott: Are we changing the plan? [10:23] Leanne Elliott: You're finally getting into socials [10:24] Al Elliott: I'm just old and I just, I'm old and I'm tired and I've seen it all before on Facebook and on MySpace on Bebo, and I'm like, do you know what, I don't need to learn another platform. But anyway, grumps aside, uh, Ali Kushner— that's what I'm talking about, not me, Ali Kushner— Ali Kushner, uh, she's— she wrote an article in Fast Company called Forget Quiet Quitting, Now I Am Living Loud Living. I know [10:46] Leanne Elliott: So I've basically got a new word [10:48] Al Elliott: I've got a new word. What do you think loud living means, Lee? [10:49] Leanne Elliott: Um, I don't— I don't know. I guess doing you unapologetically. And very loudly prioritising life over work [10:59] Al Elliott: Yeah, exactly. It's the last one. It's pretty much all of those things, but it's mainly the last one. This is what Ali says she lives. So basically her idea is that instead of going, if you, if let's say that someone says, oh, can you get this project done by the end of the day? And you go, well, I've gotta go and pick the kids up. Some people would be like, yeah, no problem. And they think, well, I'm gonna have to work until 11 o'clock at night. Whereas she says, no, set your boundaries. Go, I'm afraid that's not possible. And this is the wording I think she used in the article. That's not possible. Um, and you can say, in fact, I think she says you should say, because I'm picking my kids up. Not, the whole point is not, that's not possible, I can't do it. And the, and she's, she's bringing her sort of her life to work by going, I have other things in place. Uh, thing also, she says, rather than blocking out busy, which we do all the time, really, don't we? But rather than blocking out busy because— That's what I'll tell you in a second. What made me chuckle? Busy. Then put out, put something like going to the dentist because then you're like living life out loud. You're going, I'm going to the dentist. So it's not a question of I can't do it. It's a question of I've got other stuff on. The reason it made me chuckle was that, um, I saw this a little while ago on Twitter and it was something like, um, I only realized today that my, my calendar was public when my boss emailed me and said, um, we, I'd like to meet you today at 3 o'clock, but you've got a diary entry called get a chicken. Is that something that can be moved? Which really made me chuckle and also made me think, does he mean go and get a chicken, a live chicken to go and get eggs, squeeze eggs out of it, or go and buy a roast chicken? I don't know. Anyway, so back to Ali. Basically she's saying, don't hide, don't pretend that you haven't got a life outside work. Just turn off and go, yeah, look, I can do that, but I have to take the kids, or I can't come into work before 9:00 AM any days. Those are my dead, my hard boundaries. Can't come in. Um, but absolutely, I can stay till 6 o'clock on Tuesday, Thursday, and I can perhaps do Saturday morning or something like that. Thoughts, Lee? [12:49] Leanne Elliott: I enjoy the transparency. I enjoy being upfront that you have other, um, responsibilities that need building into your, your day. I worry that some organizations would use this as a way to discriminate against parents or carers or people with a disability or people with a health condition that need more appointments, that type of thing. Um, but in, in the spirit of this being used for good, yeah, I think it's good. Because I think as well, when you see, when you see someone's just busy, like, oh, they're always busy, they're always this. But if you see it's actually for, for decent, decent reasons, and it's at times of the day that aren't core work hours, or even after work, or— I think it's good. I think any transparency, anything that shows that we can bring ourselves to, to work that whole person, it will help to build relationships. It will help to breed empathy, um, because we're seeing that somebody is, is human. I think often we can forget that with our coworkers, particularly those in, in leadership positions. So I applaud it. I would approach with caution, um, depending on the culture of your organization. I might think there might be some cultures, not healthy cultures, But some cultures that might use that as a way of, of potentially picking people out. But that's just my cynical side speaking [14:11] Al Elliott: And Ali didn't mention that, I don't think, in the article. And I'm sure that she would if you pushed her further, because Fast Company only give you like 1,000 words or something to talk about. Um, I think if it was left up to me, this is why I can't work in an organization, because I'd be like, okay, right, I'm gonna try each week and see if I could put the more and more ridiculous things in my diary and just see at what point do I get called into HR to go, um, you've said plan a revolution for Tuesday morning at 10 AM and you've actually invited, uh, 3 of our ex-employees. Is that something, uh, is that— [14:49] Leanne Elliott: That would be amazing. And actually, you know what, it's humor like that that is actually a really effective way of building relationships. Again, depending on the type of organisation you're working in. Um, but yeah, I'm sure things like that do really well. I'm always kind of remembering things like that. Usually in my experience, it worked really well in, in jobs that have high emotional labour, you know, that are quite dark. I mean, like at Samaritans, yeah, there used to be a lot of that type of chat going around because you need that, that lightness, that levity. Um, so yeah, I don't know, I would enjoy that. In fact, I would very much like you over next week put those things in the diary, and I'll report back next week as to what my favourite one was [15:26] Al Elliott: If I dared, I'd put my diary public online so listeners can go and subscribe to it, but this— the amount of rubbish I put in there, no. I'll often put in there things like, oh, don't forget to put the kettle on, or, um, give the dog its flea jabs, or something like that on a work calendar. So yeah, maybe, maybe I am living out loud. There you go [15:44] Leanne Elliott: I think you are [15:44] Al Elliott: That's what I'm doing. I'm living out loud in our organisation of 2 people and 2 hounds. Leanne, what else you seen, my love?