I didn't play Mother Teresa. I walked, instead of checking out and letting everyone assume I'm doing my job. I think that's a much stronger signal than warming a chair.

My point is that there's a contradiction in this argument.

A work culture where everyone is held accountable is a culture of authoritarianism, blame and metrics gaming.

A work culture where everyone is expected to act like an adult and do their job even when nobody's watching with the red pen, is a work culture in which the least you can do to not get fired is exactly nothing.

Everyone can't "quiet quit" by any reasonable definition, as that amounts to doing nothing and when nothing is delivered nobody gets paid.

It does not compute.