The People’s Post
[tweetmeme]
The wonderful Corporate Daycare (who is much under read in my humble opinion) has been writing recently about the process of resigning from a job and the associated guilt and emotion. It’s not something that I’ve had to do a lot in my life, but I know that in most cases it has always left me feeling pretty grim. There is little attraction to the process unless of course you totally hate the company are feeling belligerent or looking for revenge….but in most cases that isn’t the case…..
You stand there with the letter in your hand, convincing yourself that you have made the right decision. Licking your dry lips to keep them moist, your eyes slightly glazing over and that damned funny butterfly feeling is back in your stomach. You’re snoozy, a little discombobulated. You’ve been awake since early practicing, in your head, the words that you’re going to use. Listing alphabetical examples of onomatopoeia in an attempt to take your mind of it, a few comforting songs going back and forth in your head. You’ve got Julie Andrews on your side, you’re going to make this, “Supercalifragilisticexpiali……..” Don’t! They’re going to think you’re some pharmaceutical fuelled lunatic if you go in with sweaty palms, humming that. Pull yourself together man, what is the worse that can happen…..?
Eventually, you build up the courage and go and see your boss, walking confidently now, trying to find your inner swagger. “Can I have a few minutes please?”. Immediately they clock the envelope in your hand, they know. You know they know. And they know you know they know. Agony. They look at you with a slightly pensive, superior look. “Of course”. And the next 60 seconds go like a shot, you can’t remember what you really said, you can’t remember what they really said, but you do know you felt guilty as fuck and like you were doing something wrong.
But aaaarrrrgggghhhh!! Worse than the feelings of guilt, worse than anything else….they just accepted it. No counter offer, no opportunity to reconsider, no begging…..not even a sense of disappointment. All the original feeling of employer pulchritude have gone….they’ve been smashed, erased. You feel irritated and exasperated………besieged by a sense of injustice. Totally pissed off that your loyalty had been displaced like that. They don’t care about you…..you’re just a number….a bum on a seat. If you’d only known that, well hell….you start to chuckle…..relieved….as you realise, “You don’t need them and they don’t need you”. Life is bigger than that, life is more important than that.
This is work. That’s all.
My Hell is Other People 
Congratulations! I’m impressed : )
Brilliant!
Very, very impressive and I’m honoured to provide the storyline.
It’s nice to know that my guilt was not wasted. 😉
Nice work HRD
I’ve only resigned twice: once to attend grad school and once to take a job that paid 30% more and where the bosses weren’t insane slavedrivers. After a year in the slave galley, where there was turnover of 100%+, where I spent several late evening hours removing the staples from the right-hand side of the agenda for the board of directors meeting and re-stapling on the left-hand side, where I more than once had to call security to turn the office lights back on because they went off automatically at 10:00 p.m., where the director and VP never gave feedback on the work they needed re-done until 7:00 p.m., where I was “counseled” twice for leaving work at 6:00 p.m. (not leaving work undone, not missing a deadline, not the quality of my work, but WALKING OUT OF THE OFFICE AFTER HAVING BEEN THERE SINCE 7:15 a.m.), I felt no guilt whatsoever about resigning.
Such creativity, such un-HR like behaviour! I love it. 😉
@BJH – Thank you….onomatopoeia, indeed…….!!!
@Lena – Thanks. Hope things are picking up for you?
@Corporate Daycare – And I hope the new job is what you are looking for
@leeburman – Welcome and thanks for commenting. Not sure I’ll be setting myself too many challenges like this one in the future!
@The gold digger – Yeah…..sounds like you did absolutely the right thing there!
@Geekette – Thanks…..I try to be different…..!
I doff my cap to you sir!
😀
@Alex Hens – Thanks Alex….but caps are so last year! 😉