So I decided to quit. Except I'm too afraid to actually do it, so I'm not quitting. I mean let's be honest, I have essentially stopped working, I just haven't given notice. This approach has some benefits, for example I am still getting paid, unfortunately regardless of whether or not I am actually doing anything, I still have to go to work everyday. Showing up is half the battle, or whatever it is they say.
I knew when I decided to quit that quiting usually sucks, even from jobs you hate. It never happens like on TV. If I were quitting on TV, someone would say something that pisses me off or ask me to do something I am morally opposed to and I would get red in the face and then some music would play and then I would storm into my bosses office, give some touching yet powerful speech and then storm out of the building without looking back. In real life, when you quit, can't just storm out. You have to go back to your desk and not only continue working for the rest of the day but you have to keep working for at least 2 weeks, or even two months or however long they were able to convince you to stay.
Not only do you have to continue working, often times you have to train your replacement. I hope that isn't the case for me. How am I supposed to train someone to do the things I haven't done in over a year? I'm sure my replacement will be well versed in gchat and facebook, which is pretty much what I do all day, no need for me to "train". But in order to train a replacement they need to hire a replacement. And in order for them to be able to hire a replacement, they need to know I am quitting. And in order for them to know I'm quitting...I need to actually quit. See where this is going? As I see it I have two options.
Option 1: Quit.
I can march in there right now and tell her I'm outta here. I can tell her I'm sorry to leave right when they need me most, but I have to focus on getting my career/life on track. I'm too old to be doing this. I'm kind of embarrassed of what I do. I would rather be unemployed then tell people about my job. At least if you are unemployed people feel bad for you. And if you are unemployed they don't ask you "how is work?" The last thing I want to talk about when I'm not working, is my job. I mean come on people. I was there all day and you think I want to relive any of that. Um...no thanks.
Anyway, in my quitting fantasy I ask my boss if I can talk to her for a second. We never really talk so she will immediately become terrified. I sit down and say something like "you know I love it here (lie) but I just don't think think position is right for me anymore. I need to move on and find my path." In response she says "OK" and we never speak of it again. In my quitting fantasy there will be no discussion of the timeline of my departure, or training my replacement, or interviewing my replacement. I don't want to have to update my job description. I don't want to have to make the announcement to the staff about why I am leaving or where I am going or about what they are going to do without me.
I certainly don't want to be the special guest at a going away party.
All of those things sound awful to me. I wish I could slowly float away or magically disappear without having to talk about it. We have way too many meetings as it is, I couldn't stand sitting in a meeting about me quitting. Torture. Almost as bad as continuing to work here. And let's be honest for a second. They don't really care what my future plans are, or where I will be going. I barely care what I'm doing next...as long as I'm not here. They are probably only asking to be polite, so why bother answering questions they don't even want the answers to. That is why I never ask questions just to be polite anymore. I don't even say 'how are you?' to be polite anymore. Actually I don't even say hello to be polite anymore. What's the point? I don't care. I'm sure even if I did care, they wouldn't even care that I cared, so why bother? But that's a whole different story.
Option 2: Stop showing up.
Talk about a quitting fantasy. Option #2 really takes the cake. Clearly my preference. I just wish I had the guts. I would implement the plan on a Friday afternoon. I would just say goodnight to everyone, see ya Monday, have a great weekend, all that BS. Act all normal, then just never come back again. No one would notice until about 9:56 Monday morning. That's when I would send my boss an email about how that "although I enjoyed working with you, I wont be coming back...ever" At first she will be slightly confused and think I just took a sick day. Then she will read it for a third time and realize it did actually say what she thought it said. Then she will call some people in to read the email to make sure she read it right. They would all agree that I had in fact quit over email. After that I'm not sure what would happened. I would probably get a crazy voicemail followed by a crazy email. And then more voicemails...until they got the hint.
They say there are five phases of grief. DABDA - Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and finally Acceptance. I have a feeling they would stay in Denial for a while. But knowing my boss the Anger phases would be most entertaining. Unfortunately/fortunately I would miss that since the whole plan revolves around the idea of not ever setting foot in the office again. They could bitch and moan and complain all they want, but it wont matter to me because...I wont be there! My replacement can deal with it.
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