Most Fun Way to Leave a Bad Job?

medscaper asks: "I have an awesome opportunity this morning. Since the market is opening up, I was offered a great new tech job over the weekend, and have been stuck in a miserable one for the past several years. I spend more time stressing out and anxious about keeping my job than getting any quality work done. I'm SO looking forward to walking into my boss's office this morning to let him know that I'll be leaving. I'm tempted to do it with style, especially because I got a (completely unwarranted) PHB-style threatening lecture last week about my work habits. I really don't need the recommendation or a reference, so it doesn't matter much how I leave. Should I politely give the standard 2-weeks? Or should I have a little fun with it and burn some bridges? Anyone have any stories to relate?"

Comments

Just leave

[Bob Cat - NYMPHS]

Tell nicely them you're leaving in two weeks, and they'll likely escort you out NOW. As you are leaving, tell them you are available for two weeks at $200/hr (for any part of an hour) to answer any questions.

Tell them you need to be paid in adavance.

Good luck in your new job.

Re:Just leave

[DZign]

That's the easy solution..

As others posted, don't anything they can call the police for.
About burning bridges, think well what you do and how you bring it. You can burn bridges but make it sound as if it's not your fault, try to make it their fault that you don't want to work for them anymore.

You can be creative about the way you're going to tell your boss. You don't have to say you've found a new job. So as far as your boss knows, there can be another reason to leave your job, like that threatening lecture you speak about.

It depends on who you are but you can use this in many ways. Just go to him and say you've thought about what he said then and you find it unfair and therefor don't want to work for the company anymore.
Or you can even act as you've got a depression because of it, start crying that you did your best and didn't want to disappoint him and liked working there so much but didn't expect it and.....
There are many possible ways but it depends on who you are and the situation at the company.

I had something similar, left a consultancy job 2 years ago, the boss was a jerk.. but I was polite, didn't burn bridges.
A month ago the company phoned me back, first to ask me if I still had documentation or even source code from a specific project I did for them.. Later their true reason for contacting me came out, they had a big project starting and needed to hire someone, and as I had that specific experience, they wanted to hire me for a few months. It felt very good to say no to them :-)

Vacation!

[vandalman]

Take a two week vacation and come back to a message saying something like, "So I guess your not going to work here anymore, come get your last paycheck." It worked for me, it should work for you!

P.S.
I did let the mean old lady know I was going on vacation, she just forgot.

Make it meaningful, or funny...

[bscott]

I could write paragraphs on pranks you could pull, but frankly if you can't think of your own, it would be pointless - you're not the type.

The only other "meaningful" way to go would be to use the opportunity to give a message to the downtrodden you're leaving behind. Show them just how lazy, insubordinate, and unmotivated one can be without actually getting fired (for the duration of however long you have left) - just be a really bad example to other employees, and watch management squirm in their inability to fire you in today's litigious climate... ideally, the outcome of this act could be that everyone else will realize their true position, begin acting similarly, and perhaps management will be forced into a corner with regards to how they treat their 'human resources'. Businesses treat employees like shit only when they think they can get away with it.

See the movie "Office Space" for some hints.

Ask for a promotion

[narratorDan]

Go into your PHB's office and ask for a promotion or a raise or just about what ever you want keeping in mind that he most likely will not give it to you. Then tell him that he has two weeks to think about it.

NarratorDan

Re:Na dun burn bridges

[St. Arbirix]

So my uncle does shipping right? He was the guy who got the Canadian company to ship food from various places to Iraq back when that's what the U.N. was all about. The deal for his company was pretty nice, 7 figures, and he was going to get 10%. His ass of a boss fired him after working 10 months on the project, 2 months before he'd get his 10%.

So then he got a new job. Sorta the same thing. He was working there about half a year before his boss there got promoted or something, gone, right? Then his company hires a shiny new boss for my uncle... and it's his old boss who fired him. The guy got canned himself for firing my uncle and dicking up the company.

My uncle tells the funniest stories. Since then he's sold baby formula to Africa, used cars, and now he's in Kuwait organizing shipping to Iraq once again.

--Matthew

Leave "gracefully"

[moanads]

Look at it this way. Your company has allowed your boss to survive and maybe even flourish. You need to strike back and the only way you can do that is to conceal the truth. In your exit interview (if you do have one) don't say that you're leaving because of a PHB. Think up some other reason. If possible, praise your boss. That will mean that he'll be given more control in the company and will piss off more people, who will also leave. The people who leave will also share your opinion and that might indirectly make your boss unemployable in many other companies. They will also bad mouth your former employer wherever they go and that will make it difficult for your former employer to find replacements for the people who leave. At the very least, you will have the satisfaction that your former employer will have to look for more than one replacement after you leave. That's the best way to strike back at the environment which shelters PHBs.

Re:Bad Move

[Khazunga]

That's a myth. Put yourself in a middle manager's shoes. Would you raise all twenty people in your charge all they deserve, or just enough they won't complain? You may say that if you get paid a lot, you're a bigger target for layoff. That's absolutely true. But then, asking for raises above average is for above average types.