The Grand-Mal Resignation: Great Theatre, Bad Practice

I worked with a client, who confided in me that he was about to quit his job in a senior leadership role within the organization.  Mike was really smart, and hard working, but had a bit of a blind-spot when it came to political considerations within the workplace.  He always insisted that he didn’t play politics.  What he failed to realize is that you can’t choose whether to play workplace politics or not.  You play, or you get played.

Mike and I role-played his resignation conversation a bit, and it became clear to me very early that this was going to be a disaster of epic proportions.  Mike was determined to teach his boss, and the organization a lesson on his way out.  No one was safe – his boss, his peers, and his direct reports were all targets of his wrath.

In completely unrelated news, Mike was a smoker.  Putting the addictive nature of tobacco use aside, people smoke because the short-term consequences of smoking are immediate, certain and generally positive.  How else can you look cool, get a nicotine high and relax yourself?  It feels good.  The longer-term death and illness are problems for another day.

Mike’s choice in how he chose to leave the organization was parallel reasoning, and equally as stupid.  He had watched too many crap-TV shows that erroneously illustrate people quitting their jobs by sticking it to their boss and the organization, feeling a huge sense of relief and a temporary euphoria before moving on to bigger and better things.

The reality of a grand-mal resignation is more like the eventual cancer and emphysema that smokers get.  It feels good for a few minutes, but ultimately sabotages the quitter’s longer-term career prospects.

Before Mike chose to light his future with the glow of the bridges he’d burned behind him, he may have wanted to consider how and when he might run into some of these people again.

Mike didn’t know which one of the peers he burned on his way out might be a hiring manager at another organization five years from now.  He also had no way to know that the boss he called everything short of illegitimate would also be submitting his notice shortly because he was taking on a new role at the same firm Mike was moving to.

Oh, that’s going to be awkward.  But they never talk about that on the sitcoms.