I'm putting in my two weeks notice on Monday. I realize that most of you do not know me from Adam, but the ones who do recognize me probably have a solid understanding that I really, really hate the job I've had for the last two years. Focus: How should I submit my resignation? How would you have liked to go about quitting a job that you hated? Alt-Focus: Grown-ups who have actually been in this position already, please rain on my parade.
I've mentioned it before, but even if you hate your job and your boss, don't burn bridges when you leave. Thank them for the experience there and shake their hand with a smile. It costs nothing and doesnt run the risk of biting you in the ass later on. The second you walk out the door on your last day, you wont give a shit about any of it. Alt Alt Focus: What was the worst you saw someone get shit-canned? I think I wrote about it on the board before, and I might have when it happened. But about 5 years ago I worked for a bank. On a business trip in Milwaukee, we rented a beach house to stay in for the two weeks we were out there. The team was myself and 3 other guys. Well apparently one of the guys decided to solicit a prostitute on the second-to-last night we were in town. He had posted it on Craigslist offering $1,000. Unfortunately for him, the cops got wind of it and organized a sting operation. We were awoken to the sound of a detective knocking on the door wanting to question us while our co-worker was out sitting in a squad car. Well the twist was, the guy wasn't just looking for a random hook up. He had posted an ad in the Missed Connections section, asking for someone specific. The girl he wanted to pay for sex was an employee of that client that we were in town for, and that we had been seeing in meetings almost every day. So cue a phone call to our boss who had flown in for the last night and was staying at a hotel nearby. I've never seen rage come over someone so quickly when we broke the news to him. On top of that, our managing director was a woman and very vocal about female empowerment, so this went over splendidly with her. The kid was shit-canned immediately and he was apparently engaged. We were paid a small bonus to keep our mouths shut and not mention details to the rest of the department. Well it hit the news and people quickly figured it out anyway. All hell broke loose and for some reason, the other 30 people in the department that didnt get fired or try to pay someone for sex had to go through sexual harassment training.
This. In the story I'm about to tell, I quit/got fired from a job in a very unprofessional manner. Believe me, having done that will shake your own confidence when your looking for a job later in life. I was young and depressed, unhappy with my job and the things I didn't do before I settled down, drinking and doing drugs all the time. I went out drinking after work and met a girl shortly after getting to the bar. After hanging out and drinking til last call I took her back to the office to sleep and fuck. Well, the office kiss-ass showed up early as hell and caught us. While getting bitched at by the boss I told him I didn't want the job I had. I wanted to be demoted, have basically zero responsibilities and not have to worry about other employees. I had several people drafting for me and could not take a decent vacation in the years leading up to this. I was just tired of it. I was hungover as hell and sick of sitting there talking about my mistake. He sent me home and said he would think about it. The next day the boss was at the office before anyone else, that never happened. My computer password was changed when I got there. I got sent home for good. What I did quickly got around to other local companies. I got a job a month later, hated it too, and took a pay cut. Years later, I got a job after coming back from cruising for a long time. That boss told me that my first boss had good things to say about me. That may be true, but I know he also heard the story cause I didn't get a key to the office and an alarm code until 18 months later. Went cruising again, came back and got my current job, got asked about it again. I'm very good at what I do. But I'm that guy that did those things many years ago and I'm still dealing with it.
The BIL just got fired by Sports Authority. In hindsight he should've seen this coming in January and jumped ship then. He took a paid day off and on that day they called him up to tell him he's fired and if he wants his things to arrange it with security. With another gentlemen they didn't fire him completely, they just asked him to do landscaping instead of his office job if he wanted to keep his paycheck.
Focus: When I made the decision to quit a job I had in college, I deeply hated the CEO and wanted nothing more than to walk into his office and shit on his desk then light it on fire. However I just typed up a simple letter of resignation and handed it to him without many words. His only response was a shrug and "I hope it didn't suck too much." The sales director actually went out to me in the parking lot to apologize- and he ended up quitting the next month. My one bit of revenge was doing it on a day I was supposed to move some stupid heavy crap from one warehouse to another, leaving that work up to the assholes I was happy to be done with. Alt-alt-focus: My brother got hired on at a giant healthcare corporation here in town a few years ago and there was a happy hour for that wave of new employees as a part of initiation. A guy decided to get super shitfaced at the bar and was just sloppy, harassing girls and eventually puking all over the bathroom. The bartender approaches a manager at the company only to be told "He's not with us." Fired before the first day. Ouch.
Focus: My uncle who is a successful banker who has jumped jobs multiple times and is an office politics expert recommended, when I recently switched jobs, that you type up a resignation letter and hand it to your boss/manager when giving notice. As he says, 90% of the message will be conveyed by the simple action, and then you don't have to worry about saying all the right things. You can keep it brief verbally. Alt-Focus: Unfortunately, the jobs I've hated were jobs I also got laid off from, and another time fired in a discriminatory witch hunt. So I never got a "fuck everybody" moment like I wanted. My last two job switches were on great terms, and with great managers, which actually makes it tougher. End of the day, you have to do what is right for you, but when you work closely with/for someone, and they are great, part of you feels like you let them down a bit when you leave. Ridiculous in a way I know, but still. But in both situations, they were excited and happy for me, knew I had ambitions and upward potential and wished me the best. The first time, my old manager actually recommended me for a different job with a different company 2.5 years later. So definitely be polite and courteous, you never know what may happen down the road.
When I found out I could finally quit Planned Parenthood last year I didn't tell a single person, even my closest friends that were working there, because 1) I was too afraid the two managers I hated would fuck with me and 2) I got the notice a couple weeks in advance and already had a surgery planned and I didn't want them to pull some shit with me using sick days right at the end of my job. Things were really, really bad and it had gotten very personal and I had been fantasizing about quitting in a blaze of glory with their careers in my wake for months at that point. But instead I made no indication whatsoever that that Friday was my last day, got paid for a full week where I didn't step foot into the office, and the next Friday emailed them to tell them I "just found out" I got another job and started on Monday. I had planned to meet with the higher-ups after I left to fully disclose exactly what had been happening now that I wasn't afraid of repurcussions and really didn't care about burning bridges, but the timing just made me think it would only fall on deaf ears because it would seem to be nothing more than a disgruntled ex-employee's ranting not based on anything true. I had a feeling I'd find a better time to go about this. Cut to a year later. I still have friends that work there so they've kept me up to date and I knew nothing had changed and heard about a recent flare-up of all the old usual bullshit. Some new people were doing what my friends and I had tried many times to do before, which was to cause a ruckus with the higher ups to try and get some rights and respect and change. Only this time I knew that one of the higher ups that started shortly after I left actually cares and listens and doesn't buy the bullshit of those managers as much as her predecessor did. So I wrote her this essay of an email detailing everything I'd been holding in for years of what incompetent, petty, destructive people those managers were and how they're running the program into the ground and blatantly lying to the higher up's face, saying it in the most professional way possible. She wrote back thanking me, saying she had a feeling the people who still worked there had been holding back about how bad things were, and now felt she finally had what she needed to straighten things up. Now the managers' heads are on chopping blocks and I hope they find out it's thanks to me so they know exactly who they made the mistake of fucking with. I haven't made that many enemies in my life, but every time I've found it's much better to be calm, quiet, and patient than going in guns blazing in a fit of fiery rage. And I know there are plenty of good things to be said about taking the high road and blah blah blah but, damnit, sometimes revenge is just so delicious. That being said, PP was the zig to the general zag my career has taken so those managers were completely useless to me and there was pretty much zero risk of this biting me in the ass anywhere down the line. I don't think I'd suggest the same to anyone that isn't the case for.
I filled out my resignation form a couple weeks ago. There were a few things I wanted to do, but after having a Senior (high school student) fail my class and basically being told to "fix it," I don't hold much confidence in the direction that the whole system is headed. I tried to teach personal accountability progressively as they move to senior year (I teach all high school math courses at my school), but they cut my legs out every time parents run to the school and throw a fit. I'm not sure if things will get better, but I'll be in school for engineering in a few weeks.
ALT ALT FOCUS I was working on a group of projects in Baghdad and was informed in April that things were winding down and that I was going to be demobilized in July to go back to the home office or find work elsewhere. I was fine with that as I had spent two years in Baghdad and we were getting shot at several times a day leading up to the election that year where I was located. I literally could not get a good night's sleep as we had incoming every few hours during the night. So, mentally, I was prepared to go and I went about my work and started tying up all of the loose ends associated with closing out construction projects as well as handing off the remaining duties to those who would stay. The remaining work we had in theater was paired up with a Turkish company who had a lot of young engineers who liked to party, so a bunch of our guys made a habit of going to their compound to hang out; on this particular night they had a bunch to drink and drove back. On the way back to our compound they passed an Iraqi Police (IP) checkpoint that tried to make them stop; someone in the group decided to throw an open beer at the IP guys and drive away. Fortunately, the IP didn't shoot them but they did chase them back to the compound and report it to the RSO. The RSO went straight to the guy who is in charge of everything for my company at the time who was fucking pissed. The RSO told him that those who were in the vehicle were to be on the first bird out in the morning and not to ever return to Iraq. When the Country Manager went to the trailer of the first guy involved, he pounded on the door. The guy inside yelled out: "Go away! I'm jacking off!" So the country manager ripped the door open and found the guy passed out, with vomit all over himself bare ass naked sitting in a chair. The naked guy yelled again: "Go away! I'm jacking off, I have a medical condition!". Fortunately, that was the worst of it for the 3 guys who got shit canned that night but this individual will never live that moment down. They were gone before sunrise in the morning and all we heard was the story of this guy's final blaze of glory in Baghdad. The reason I found out was because the Country Manager was telling me that my plans were about to change. This mishap caused me to have to stay in Baghdad for almost a whole year extra, which sucked. I have not seen him back out on contracts and I'm sure that will affect him for any future foreign assignment moving forward.