'Bare Minimum Monday' is the new work trend making waves online and many are onboard

The abrupt shift from a weekend of merriment, dates, dinners, trips and watching a sporting event can make it even harder to dive straight into Monday to work. The feeling of lethargy is unapparelled to anything else. If you're a working person who also uses TikTok, you may have heard of "Bare Minimum Monday." For those unaware, it is a TikTok workplace catchphrase. According to Forbes, this trend can low-key get you through the workweek with a bare-minimum approach on Monday. You work, but not too hard. You do enough work in a way that makes you feel at ease and not stressed out. It is synonymous with "quiet quitting," which refers to not putting more effort into a job than necessary.

TikTok user Marisa Jo shed light on this trend, with many trying it out for themselves. After recovering from the Sunday Scaries, Mondays put you back to square one, and you find yourself doing the same drill for the rest of the week. It can get very exhausting if you don't give yourself a moment of respite to prepare yourself for a whole week of work mentally. The many memes and slogans about Monday being the most unexciting and unhappiest day of the week needs no further justification. However, a 2021 poll by YouGov revealed that nearly 60% of the more than 4,000 U.S. adults attested to Monday being the least favorite day of the week. 

Maybe you had such a fun-filled weekend that Monday is just not enough for you to get back to your work rhythm. Say hello to "Try-Less Tuesday" if you long for one more day to get your form back. You can add this to your "Taco Tuesday" and enjoy the best of both worlds. On Tuesdays, you show up for work but with just a little less effort. You don't want to wear yourself out after all, do you? So enjoy your taco, work casually, and don't worry because the email from your client can wait until tomorrow. While these new trends and terminologies seem very 'woke' and 'millennial,' it highlights the darker side of work culture. It can be challenging or lead to burnout, often leaving many with feelings of disengagement. 

People who tried this trend share a common ideology: "Work is work, and it's not fun." Working isn't fun, but it puts food on the table or pays the bills. It wasn't long ago when an economic trend called the "Great Resignation" began in which employees voluntarily resigned from their jobs due to the pandemic. The cited reasons were wage stagnation amidst skyrocketing cost of living, limited opportunities, hostile work environments, inflexible remote-work policies, and job dissatisfaction. Recently, "rage applying" to jobs was another such trend where people looked for better-paying opportunities that offered growth and development.

When things go south, you don't have an option but begrudgingly do your job. You don't want to be the first to get fired or the last one hired during a mass layoff. TikTok has a name for this—"resenteeism." It is when you really want to quit but are afraid to go for another job interview because someone might alert the boss, resulting in you losing your job. If you feel suffocated and trapped because of the pressure, go for "career cushioning," the building of job security. You have to make yourself a vital addition to the company while strategically making your moves, seeking out other recruiters and actively keeping an eye out for better job prospects.