Slashdot Mirror
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?"
Have you never seen Office Space?
everyday is another shooter.
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.
Devise, Repair, Solve, Build
Yeah, it might be fun, but you never know when you will bump into people you worked with down the road.
"Derp de derp."
You NEWER know where someone will end up in 5 years. The Boss you screw over today could be interviewing you in 5 years at some other company.
I know a guy who used to work in a specific industry, then went to work for one of the large consulting firms. He was sent to one of the companies to pitch a $30M project. He ended up pitching to someone he had seriously screwed a number of years earlier. Needless to say regardless of his current companies abilities, they didn't get the contact.
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.
Perfectly Normal Industries
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
"If you're not confused by quantum mechanics, you really don't understand it." - Niels Bohr
never burn bridges.
Unique.
Well, you could do that. Or you could go a step further and: replace everyone's desktop with a bitmap image of their desktop (of course I like to make a batch file that runs at startup and just continuously renames the desktop so icons disappear and reappear), sign up the companys mailing lists to as many spam lists as you can find, jam pencil leads in the dollar slot of the vending machines, wd-40 his break pads, leave sexually harassing notes for your coworkers from your boss, and eat all the good donuts in the breakroom. Of course if you had a single neuron in that skull of yours you would not have the audacity to assume that you're new job is going to work out. Assume for just one moment that maybe having options to fall back on is a good thing. Now quit posting to slashdot and decide something for yourself. I think you know the answer already.
Occam's razor is the blind faith in the natural selection of least resistance and in universal oversimplification. -- EF
Don't piss anyone off! While it may be satisfying to finally tell some one off, it's just not worth it. Look at it this way; it doesn't cost you anything to just quietly and politely leave. Whereas your boss or some one he knows may one day be in a position to make life difficult for you. I've burned bridges in the past, and have almost always regretted it. I have never had occassion to regret the few opportunities I've been smart enough to take the high road. You can certainly express unhappiness as you leave, but I would avoid doing anything rash. Just my two cents.
"fist in the air in the land of hypocrisy"
I've known _of_ employers who would offer a job but not follow through if the prospective employee was willing to dump their previous employer without notice.
So, you say you're already employed?
Yes, but I'm not very fond of the work
So can you start immediately?
Sure.
Sorry, can't hire you.
That is a really pissweak way of quitting if you don't mind me saying so.
Running away isn't going to fix anything. You should have given your original presentation and added a slide to the end saying that if the trainees have any questions, please see the person who made the process changes.
You would still have a chance at losing your job but you would have a ton more fun in the process.
If I point out that you are incorrect, making me a foe does not make you any more correct.
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.
Discretely pack up your things and save any documentation or files you want to take along, and write a polite letter giving two weeks (or however much you agreed on) notice.
Ask if "they" would like feedback, and write a list of what bugged you, what was good, and what could have been done better.
Finish what you were working on if you can, offer to take care of any handover work, as you firmly should state that you will not be available for it after you have left.
Don't burn bridges; it's not so much that these people might come back to haunt you someday, as that it's an adolescent thing to do.
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
Few years ago I was about to leave to another company and a position.
:)
I told my boss I was leaving, we started organizing my duties to my colleagues etc.
Few days later I was told from my new employer, that my deal has just changed: completely different position. They told me this change by _email_!
I was very happy, that I was nice to my old boss. He let me stay, and I worked about one year after this at my old job.
So, I'd recommend being nice for your boss
Eleknader
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
Learn about pinball machines on www.flippers.be
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.
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you
- Do some kind of childish stunt. That might make you feel good for a while, but it won't convince your asshole boss that he treated you badly. In fact, he'll use your childishness to justify his assholedness. "You see why I was easing him out?"
- You can find some way to make upper management aware that you're leaving in part because your boss is an asshole. Think out that will make him look with his boss.
That's the basic choice. I'm sure you can fill in the details yourself.Ah, nothing like a stream of highly conductive liquid between your genitals and something containing thousands of volts...
This is not my sandwich.
" All I have to say is, sure, go ahead, ask for a promotion. Ask for Money. Ask for Power. Ask them to offer you everything you ask for. The point isn't that you want all of that. The point is: "I want my father back, you sonofabitch!"
I doubt this is a true letter, but the friend I received it from swears it is true....
---
Following is a supposed letter of resignation from an employee at a computer company, to her boss, who apparently resigned very soon afterwards! It's Funny, but a bit harsh
Dear Mr. Smith,
As a graduate of an institution of higher education, I have a few very basic expectations. Chief among these is that my direct superiors have an intellect that ranges above the common ground squirrel. After your consistent and annoying harassment of my co-workers and me during the commission of our duties, I can only surmise that you are one of the few true genetic wastes of our time.
Asking me, a network administrator, to explain every little nuance of everything I do each time you happen to stroll into my office is not only a waste of time, but also a waste of precious oxygen. I was hired because I know how to network computer systems, and you were apparently hired to provide amusement to myself and other employees, who watch you vainly attempt to understand the concept of "cut and paste" for the hundredth time.
You will never understand computers. Something as incredibly simple as binary still gives you too many options. You will also never understand why people hate you, but I am going to try and explain it to you, even though I am sure this will be just as effective as telling you what an IP is. Your shiny new iMac has more personality than you ever will.
You walk around the building all day, shiftlessly looking for fault in others. You have a sharp dressed useless look about you that may have worked for your interview, but now that you actually have responsibility, you pawn it off on overworked staff, hoping their talent will cover for your glaring ineptitude. In a world of managerial evolution, you are the blue-green algae that everyone else eats and laughs at. Managers like you are a sad proof of the Dilbert principle. Since this situation is unlikely to change without you getting a full frontal lobotomy reversal, I am forced to tender my resignation, however I have a few parting thoughts.
1. When someone calls you in reference to employment, it is illegal for you to give me a bad recommendation. The most you can say to hurt me is "I prefer not to comment." I will have friends randomly call you over the next couple of years to keep you honest, because I know you would be unable to do it on your own.
2. I have all the passwords to every account on the system, and I know every password you have used for the last five years. If you decide to get cute, I am going to publish your "favorites list", which I conveniently saved when you made me "back up" your useless files. I do believe that terms like "Lolita" are not usually viewed favorably by the administration.
3. When you borrowed the digital camera to "take pictures of your Mother's birthday," you neglected to mention that you were going to take pictures of yourself in the mirror nude. Then you forgot to erase them like the techno-moron you really are. Suffice it to say I have never seen such odd acts with a sauce bottle, but I assure you that those have been copied and kept in safe places pending the authoring of a glowing letter of recommendation. (Try to use a spell check please; I hate having to correct your mistakes.)
Thank you for your time, and I expect the letter of recommendation on my desk by 8:00 am tomorrow. One word of this to anybody, and all of your little twisted repugnant obsessions will be open to the public. Never f*** with your systems administrator. Why? Because they know what you do with all that free time!
Also, I would strongly urge you not to quit "with style." What you call "with style" is really anything but. You should always try to maintain cordial and polite relationships with your former employer. Every job I've ever left, I've given a written letter of resignation, naming my last day (at least two weeks, sometimes more) and letting them know that I would be available free for "quick questions" on a short term basis to ease the transition. (I did not state, but implied, that if it was more than a "quick question" they should expect to pay me for my time.)
In 2000, this served me well. I had just left a large Internet Company, and discovered the company I went with was going out of business after only two months. I went back to work for the Internet Company, got a pay raise and full-time telecommuting. And that's the job I've held for the past 4 years through a crappy economy while all the other geeks were whining about outsourcing.
Bridges are good, a thing of utility and a thing of beauty. Never burn them unnecessarily.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1