Last year I wrote a column decrying the level of nastiness workers sometimes insert into leaving their jobs. Buoyed by examples from YouTube and elsewhere, I told of disgruntled employees who made public scenes, quit in a huff, and even brought in a brass band to announce a departure.
These emotional exorcisms might be temporarily satisfying but they’re not exactly career-builders. Unless your plan is to inherit your wealth, you need a more dignified exit to help ensure your future marketability. Here are three ways to leave your job that rise above any negative emotions you might be carrying.
1. Throw a thank-you party. I once spoke with a woman who was struggling to leave a job that she described as having saved her from difficult circumstances. The employees and owner of this small company had not only offered valuable career development, but they had also provided stability during a rocky time in her personal life.
Even so, the time had come to leave. She had outgrown the position and the boss wasn’t open to offering her more. She knew if she stayed she would resent being stuck. Her solution? Move on while she was still feeling grateful.
Her party was a low-key affair on a Friday afternoon. She brought in snacks that she had made and gave a card to her boss thanking him for the opportunity to work there. Then she handed out little treat bags with her contact information so her co-workers could stay in touch.
I was impressed by this story not because it all went so smoothly – in fact, she said parts of the situation were somewhat awkward – but because she made a conscious decision to frame her experience at the company as positive, instead of focusing on her frustrations.
2. Give your manager extended notice. This goes against most of our basic instincts, and for good reason. When a manager knows weeks or even months in advance that an employee will be leaving, the stage is set for low-level abuse. With no reason to invest in this worker, the manager defaults to excluding the person from meetings, withholding project resources, and just generally (but often unintentionally) making the worker feel shunned. In some circumstances, the reaction is even worse: An abrupt firing or dismissal from key duties.
And even so, there are circumstances when giving advance notice is not only the nicest thing you could do, it’s also the most productive. With more time to plan, the manager is able to transfer duties while leveraging the departing worker’s knowledge to train others. In a small department or company, this extra time can be critical for the manager’s success in steering the transition.
Extended notice is a common practice when the departure is evident anyway, such as when the worker is retiring, returning to school, or following a spouse across the country. To use it in other situations requires a bit more courage and judgment, but the rewards can be substantial.
3. Leave a tidy desk. Wait, isn't this just basic courtesy? Kind of, but you'd be surprised at how easy it is to forget a banana in your desk drawer (please don't ask how I know this – or what the effect can be after a few days).
The tidy desk is just a metaphor for the overall process of leaving things in good order. Your physical workspace is the baseline, whether that’s a cubicle, locker or company car. If you really want to be a Good Sam, put things in order and then clean the space. Just take my word for it: This will feel good.
Going up a level may be harder to pull off, depending on how busy your last days on the job are. Now we’re talking about organizing your paper and electronic records to ensure that others can find what they need, and labeling the boxes or files to be tossed out. Just don’t do the tossing yourself – that opens you up for problems later if something goes missing that was needed.
And finally – on the graduate level of putting things in order – comes the opportunity to write a current description of your duties, complete with process guides. This really is going the extra mile, but the value to your manager or the next person in your position will be immense. You’ll likely benefit from the exercise as well, so the effort isn’t entirely selfless.
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