I did what needed to be done: quiet quitting during internships

Purpose – This paper aims to explore how workplace hazing fosters interns’ quiet-quitting-like modes of relating in everyday supervisory relationships. Design/methodology/approach – The study draws on qualitative interviews with 42 nursing interns and was analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. Findings – Two sub-themes were identified. “Withdrawing to Endure” illustrates how internships are reinterpreted from developmental learning spaces into relations that must be endured, leading interns to narrow their availability while remaining present. “Preserving Dignity” shows how interns reorganise their participation by delimiting tasks and selectively withdrawing from interactions undermining their professional becoming. Originality/value – The paper extends quiet quitting research beyond employment relationships by introducing internships as a critical empirical setting and by conceptualising quiet quitting as a relationally organised mode of participating in low-quality work relationships rather than as individual disengagement.