Recognizing the Hard Work of People Quitting Their Jobs
An admittedly lame way to quit your job.
By now you’ve probably heard the incredible story of Steven Slater, the JetBlue flight attendant who literally bailed on his job by cursing out an unruly passenger before grabbing two beers and jumping out the emergency slide onto the tarmac at JFK. I’m sure all of us have felt the sting of having to stay in a job that you just really can’t stand, so in honor of this 21st Century Folk hero and the many disgruntled employees that came before him, I’d like to highlight some of my favorite resignation stories from recent memory. (And also because it’s Friday, HR’s favorite day to make layoffs.)
First off, there was this departure email from a laid-off JP Morgan employee from 2007. As Wall Street was crumbling under the weight of it’s own turgid investment practices this guy roasted most of the middle management, proving that the incompetence and general asshole attitude extended deep into the ranks and wasn’t just limited to those CEOs we saw on CSPAN acting like dicks in front of Senate hearing committees. His last two paragraphs are great inspiration for anyone who ever felt they were smarter than their bosses:
So, in parting, if I could pass on any word of advice to the lower salary recipient in India or Tampa who will soon be filling my position, it would be to cherish this experience because a job opportunity like this comes along only once in a lifetime.
Meaning: if I had to work here again in this lifetime, I would sooner kill myself.
To those who I have held a great relationship with, I will miss being your co-worker and will cherish our history together. Please don’t bother responding as at this very moment I am most likely in my car doing 85 with the windows down listening to Biggie.
Meanwhile, back on the West Coast, a former business associate of mine pulled back the curtain on life inside the Googleplex with his resignation email, sent out to over 5,000 Google employees with the subject line: “So long suckers! I’m out!” which he wrote while sitting at his desk, drinking Bud Lite and listening to N.W.A. It’s actually kind of a sweet email, since the ex-googler was thankful for getting to travel the world on Google’s dime and he recounts the sloppy-drunk business events that make office life seem kind of fun actually: “'like the incident at last years sales conference, which I REFUSE to mention. Too much scotch, not enough dinner, and a bathroom floor. EPIC FAIL.” But his reason for moving on? “The next generation with their MBA’s, blue shirts, and tan slacks have arrived and it’s time for one such as me to depart.”
And of course, we can’t forget this week’s other quitting story about the personal assistant who told off her boss via a series of whiteboard messages which she photographed and emailed to her entire office (which turned out to be fake – LAME). So let’s take a moment to honor a couple of classic, but fictional, quitting/layoff moments:
The never-gets-old Office Space Fax Machine Revenge
And of course, the still-hilarious-after-all-these-years Fuck You, I’m Out!
