Most Fun Way to Leave a Bad Job? 371
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?"
Just leave (Score:5, Interesting)
Tell them you need to be paid in adavance.
Good luck in your new job.
Vacation! (Score:5, Interesting)
P.S.
I did let the mean old lady know I was going on vacation, she just forgot.
Make it meaningful, or funny... (Score:5, Interesting)
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 (Score:5, Interesting)
NarratorDan
Seek employment for your friends (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Na dun burn bridges (Score:5, Interesting)
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" (Score:5, Interesting)
Not Necessarily (Score:4, Interesting)
The only problem is when your either crap and they don't want you any way, or your boss is an ass who thinks your bluffing. Then of course you are going to have to find a new job because you know they wont promote you anyway.
Re:Just leave (Score:5, Interesting)
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
Re:Bad Move (Score:5, Interesting)
This is what I tried to do... (Score:2, Interesting)
That being said, here is one time when I tried to break my own advice. Among the many problems that one company I worked for had was a "diversity program" that was nothing more than giving certain contracts or benifits to specific cultural/ethinic/social groups to the exclusion of anyone else. I decided that, when I left, I would have a little fun with that policy. I did the appropriate research and, when we had the meeting where I would announce my resignation to the team, I would instead announce that I had been accepted as a candidate for sexual reassignment surgery. Furthermore, in about two weeks, I would begin my 18 month "real life test" and would start coming to work in my female persona.
Sadly however, my supervisor stole my thunder by just blurting out that I was resigning. Coulda had a lot of fun with that.
On the plus side though, I did learn something new about "gender dysphoria" in the process of trying to learn enough to sound authentic at the meeting.
Unfortunate double standard (Score:3, Interesting)
It all really depends on your situation. The best bet is to not burn bridges because you never know when you may need the resources of the company or your colleagues in the future. Just come up with an equitable compromise.
Remember that YOU are in the driver's seat. YOU are the one making the decision, not them. And stand by your decision--if they offer you more money or a promotion, absolutely turn it down and take the new job. Are really suddenly worth more to them now? Is staying really in your best interest? If you stay, it shows that you are not willing to stand by your word.
Just don't be shocked if they ask you to leave immediatly.
How I left (Score:2, Interesting)
We went through several mergers, where our division bought smaller (and one pretty big) company, and, well, merged them into our business. I went with the flow on all of them, even the second to last one where the company we bought was almost as big as our division up to that point. Those IT guys became my new bosses, and they were cool. everything went good for maybe another year. Previously, I had went through 95 to 98 conversions, then 98-w2k conversions a few years later. We even went from AS400-based systems to SAP, and everyone knows how much fun that is.
Let me mention that I was Golden Boy in this division, even after all the new mergers and conversions and y2k, etc. I took great (and I hope understated) pride in that my team met our objectives on time, and often on budget. I saved the company several thousands of dollars by moving most TCP/IP services over to Linux(like dhcp, dns, ftp, the intranet, etc). It worked so well, we used Linux as printservers for the SAP system when it went in. (The actual machines running SAP were in remote, hosted locations). So, in large part, I was the go-to guy in our division - and I loved it. Worked long hours maintaining cool equipment - it was great.
The unions up north went on strike, down here in the south, we had no unions. The higher ups decided to expand the biggest plant down here in the south, and tell the unions where to stick it. They did all of the planning in secret, and the morons DID NOT INCLUDE IT/PHONE CONSIDERATIONS IN THE PLANNING AT ALL! Being the IT guy, I knew this was coming, but the higher ups were unwilling to discuss it with me until it was going to be made public. I did not know how fast it would be, though. Construction started within a WEEK of the announcement. What's more, they did not consider any budget increase.
The division was not-so-well managed. I was the one who notified the head of our IT department - he either had no clue about it or he was lying. Given that the guy is pretty cool, and the division was pretty badly mismanaged, I honestly believe he did not know about it. From what I hear, it was a closely guarded secret to keep the union from finding out until the last possible second.
So, after the public announcement, you may well imagine I was jumping through hoops. Our data/phone center was a modular office type thing in the middle of a huge manufacturing plant, by design it was pretty much in the middle of the plant. They decided to move the data center into a corner, out of the way for a while. It was QUITE amusing to tell them I thought it would take anywhere from 500k to 1 mill to move it, and re-run all the cabling. I got the blank, puppy dog look when I told them that IT operations would be severely interrupted for the duration. The time frame they wanted this done in was, shall we say, unrealistic. It would have required several wiring companies 24-hour shifts, and even then I doubt it would have worked.
Then our division merged with another division in the same large corporation. This happened within weeks of the construction announcement, and the subsequent scramble to get a working plan. _That_ IT management team became everyone's new boss. So, _Their_ head IT guy came in, and "took over". This means that he made a bunch of unrealistic promises, and told everyone to come to me if they had problems.
So, at this point, I and my one assistant were trying to juggle our normal support duties, dealing with plans for the construction, trying to handle NEW responsibilities with all the mfg lines and eqpt and peopl
Re:MOD PARENT UP (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Na dun burn bridges (Score:2, Interesting)
For example, he had to deal with several thousand tons of U.N. WFP food parked on container ships off the coast of British controlled Iraq which the Brits wouldn't let move into the country.
His current stories are about hiring drivers to transport stuff into the country (food again). He has to deal with Turks in the north who are all loaded up but then get scared at the last minute and stop at the border with freezer trucks who's systems end up getting shut down and the food rots. All the truckers he deals with in the south are Indian, btw, and they're not so difficult except for the fact that everyone's charging exorbitant prices to transport stuff into the country. For good reason too, he's been on a couple convoys when they've been attacked.
There's not much Satan to him, he just likes being in the most interesting places at the time. I'm not sure what the used car thing was about though.
--Matthew
Re:Leave the Fight Club way (Score:3, Interesting)
I couldn't agree more. Even if you don't need the reference for this new job, most prospective employers want to be able to contact at least your last 2 or 3 employers, and it's not unusual for companies to ask for a complete work history going back as far as 7-10 years, with non-working time accounted for.
Thinking you don't need the reference is, at best, naive.
Re:Na dun burn bridges (Score:3, Interesting)
Wait for the next time your job pisses you off. Try to put yourself in a situation where something unfair will be done to you. When it happens say, "That's it! I can't take it anymore! I'm leaving! You have pushed me too far!" They'll try to apologize and beg you not to overreact, but you'll be walking out the door.
If done just right, the person who wronged you will look bad for having directly caused employee attrition.
Free software bonanza, and then a free iBook (Score:1, Interesting)
That was in August of the year this all went down. I stuck it out for a while, but when my new boss didn't loosen up I decided it was time to move on. Though I hated the management in the company, I liked most of my endusers and didn't want to leave them unsupported-- so I decided to be nice and gave a month's notice just before leaving for my two-week Christmas vacation. I worked the first two weeks of January before leaving. They screwed us out of bonuses that year, so I decided I'd make my own bonus-- on the last weekend before my final week, I came into the office and spent eight hours copying all the software I wanted from The Big Cabinet O' Software.
On my last Friday, I went out with all my friends and got ridiculously hammered. I slept in my soon-to-be-former office that night, and vomited a few times in my recyclables bin. Just before leaving, I emptied and rinsed it out in the men's room. When I noticed it still smelled pukey afterward, I switched it for the one in the office of the enduser I hated most, a pompous dickhead who was always ignoring IT policies and fucking up his machine. The can spent Saturday and Sunday baking in the sun that streamed into the windows of his south-facing office, so I'm sure it was nice and fragrant when he came in that Monday.
Finally, two weeks into my new job I received an extra paycheck from the old company. Since it was direct-deposited, I didn't have to worry about the legalities of cashing a check that wasn't really mine. I called the very nice payroll lady who was one of my endusers and told her of the mistake, and she said she'd take care of it. The money never disappeared from the account and I never heard anything about it again except a nice letter from some suit in upper management, thanking me for my honesty in returning the money. A few months later, that money turned out to be just enough to buy me an iBook.
Quit being redundant (Score:4, Interesting)
Now lets get on with funny ways people have, or have wanted to leave their jobs. Something interesting to read instead of 500 obvious "Do the right thing" posts.
Re:ok, so I feel old saying this but... (Score:3, Interesting)
when I work for my first company, there was this presales guy who decided to change role to a team lead. One day he was overheard complaining his bonus was a measly x, instead of y (y being jus a couple of grand less than our salaries at the time).
forward 4 years, I'm recruiting.. and I'm asked to ask questions of this guy they ave n for a fancy job... you guessed. He didn't get the job.
Since then, when I get CVs in, I ask around for people who knew the guy, it does give a good indication of how he'll fit in with the team, and though you don't use just that as a filter, it does play a major part of the hiring decision.
There's one guy I used to work with at my last company who I will not work with ever again. I recommended the product they make to my current employer who will resell it/partner up. That guy *will not* be involved in the new business.
FOAD to my boss (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Leave the Fight Club way (Score:1, Interesting)
These get shuffled around from manager to manager to marketing as they get tons of "we wants" and then, about 2 seconds before they want the project done, they actually start wanting code. After all, management has decided what they "need" so my ESP should fill me in on what they want. But for me this time, I'll be gone at that point. The last 2 times this happened, the blame got shuffled off as managers blamed other managers in a fine display of back-stabbing. I'm hoping for a hat trick.
A few years & different job ago, following a marketing suggestion (demand actually), I changed most of our site to pdf. It looks just how they want. Browsers be damned. Good idea that one was. Ah, marketing, where everyone has T1 and a 24" monitor. I couldn't even see the entire screen with my lowly 17".
Be heard. (Score:2, Interesting)