Borland was tanking. I’d survived three rounds of layoffs primarily because my project was still generating quite a bit of revenue, but at every meeting I attended, everyone kept using the word if.
“Well, if we get funded we’ll be able to do this.”
“If Paul stays, we can keep this feature.”
“I don’t know if this is a good idea given what we don’t know.”
If—everywhere. If is uncertainty. If is fear. If there were no if I’d be able to focus on my job, but I couldn’t because no one was sure what was going to happen.
When I finally received an offer from a database company in Redwood City, I was in bliss for a brief moment. The new company had scads of cash, an upside, and a distinct lack of if. The bliss quickly faded when I realized I had no idea how I was going to resign. I knew it was customary to give two weeks’ notice, so when the beginning of those two weeks showed up, I walked into the boss’s office with my terse resignation letter and said it: “I’ve got another gig; I like it here, but it’s time to go.”
Boss: “Sorry to hear that. If I could make some changes, would you stay?”
Me: “I have a problem with your if.”
Boss: “I understand. Well, you’re responsible for the import/export engine features. Any chance you could finish that before you go?”
Me: [without pause] “Absolutely.”
Some data. I had four weeks of work left on the import/export engine, and those were four engineering weeks, which meant I actually had six weeks of work on the inside. While I valiantly worked my ass off for the first week, I started to not care in the second. By the time Thursday arrived, it was clear I didn’t have a chance to do a third of the work.
Why did I sign up for an impossible task? I violated the first rule on the resignation checklist.
Rule #1: Don’t Promise What You Can’t Do
If you’re resigning, you’ll be tempted to overcommit on deliverables because you’re leaving. This is your guilt talking. You feel bad for resigning and you are trying to make up for the fact that you’re leaving people you care about in the lurch. You need to remember that, no matter how hard you try, you will become useless in your final days.
It’s called short timer’s disease , and it begins the moment you resign. In that moment, you leave. You’ve got two weeks left, but you are not there. You’ve mentally started imagining your new job, and while you go through the motions of your old job, it’s a meaningless blend of unfulfilling repetition.
Your case of short timer’s disease , unfortunately, isn’t strong enough when your boss asks you to finish that critical feature. Congratulations on having the moral fortitude to have the guilt about leaving, but understand that you are signing up for damaging your reputation when you agree to do work you can’t complete.
Rule #2: Respect Your Network
There are, at least, three people you’ll need to make sure are aware that you want to stay in touch with them. I don’t know who these people are because I don’t know who you are or what you do, but I know that if you don’t carefully handle this transition, you’re going to lose them. If you’re looking for a way to identify these people, stare at your lunch crowd. Pick the ones whose meetings you care about. If you’ve got a folder in your inbox just for this person, you’re going to want to make sure they know you care.
No matter where you are in your career, you need to continually develop your network of people because it’s likely that one of these three people will assist in future employment or opportunity. I’ve been in high tech for coming up on two decades, and every single job I’ve had has either been a direct or indirect result of knowing someone from a prior job. You’ll hear the phrase, “It’s a small valley.” It’s a small world.
You need to go out of your way to make this happen, but it only need be a small gesture. A brief one-on-one moment where you acknowledge this person is relevant. More than a fly-by “bye” on your last day. Less than a tearful hug in the hallway.
Rule #3: Update “The Crew ”
I have a document in my Dropbox titled “The Crew.” It’s a list of each person that I’ve worked with in past 20 years that I would hire if I began a startup. There are people on this list that I’ve failed to talk to in the past decade, but, when the startup happens, I’m going to take the time to find them because they made the list. Each time I quit a job, I take an hour to update the list because there are always people I want to keep.
There’s a good chance there is intersection between rules #2 and #3, but they are separate tasks. The people you need to actively stay in touch with are not necessarily the ones you’re going to build your future company around.
Still, as with rule #2, a small gesture to your new Crew entries is essential. Remember, you’re the one who is leaving, who is changing, so it’s your responsibility to create the final impression.
Rule #4: Don’t Take Cheap Shots
If you aren’t leaving under the best of terms, you’ll be tempted to send out the scathing e-mail that sets things right. This is stupid on many levels. It will negate any positive work that you did while you were with the company. You’ll also hurt your network because everyone (including those who know that you aren’t insane) will remember you as that whack job that freaked out in e-mail and didn’t bother to spell check.
Remember, you are leaving and the people you consider to be the problem are staying. It’s not your problem anymore, don’t waste your energy.
We had a B– QA engineer at a startup who got passed over for a promotion and decided to bail in style. One the last day of his employment, he sent a grammatically painful e-mail that went through his organization, person by person, and hammered them. His incoherent rambling was posted on the cube walls for its comedic value, and no one had a clue that he actually wrote decent test plans.
Rule #5: Do Right by Those Who Work for You and with You
If you’re a manager, the previous rules apply to you in triplicate. You’re not allowed to fall prey to the dreaded short-timer’s disease because you are acting like a leader and you are representing the company until the moment you are out the door. If this doesn’t make sense to you, then it’s likely you weren’t supposed to be a manager in the first place.
My move for this rule is an expensive one. I provide a written review to all my direct reports in my last two weeks. Doesn’t matter where we are in the review cycle, I take the time to give everyone who works for me a temperature check. Yes, well-written reviews are painful and time-consuming, and yes, I get short-timer’s syndrome like everyone else, but this small gesture is the best way to explain what these coworkers mean to you.
Rule #6: Don’t Volunteer to Do Work After You Leave (or, if You Do, Make Sure You Get a Lot of Money for It)
This is a variant of the guilty conscience problem. This is the result of you sitting on your couch two weeks before you resign, tapping your pencil on your teeth, and exploring the hypothetical look on your boss’s face when he realizes his go-to person is leaving.
You like him. You’re responsible. You don’t want to leave anyone in the lurch. Yes, of course, you can finish those last three projects in your spare time.
Stop.
There are some very good reasons to continue to help out at your past job and, if you choose to do so, I highly recommend gouging your prior employer on price because this extracurricular work is coming at the worst time possible—when you’re starting a new job. The first few weeks of a job are precious. They present the primal lessons of your new career and you only get to hear them once. And what are you doing? Spending your evenings on work from a prior life when what you should be doing is digesting the lessons of the new job.
You will always regret signing up for work to do after you leave.
Rule #7: Don’t Give Too Much Notice
Our last variant of guilty conscience. More tapping of the teeth, fretting about how to support this team that you’re leaving. Maybe if you give them more time to adjust to a post-you world, it will be easier on everyone.
Again, wrong.
The basic fact is this: you’ve chosen to leave and you’re going to leave. Giving an excessive amount of notice is professional cruel and unusual punishment both for you and for your team because it extends the organization’s stress regarding your departure while also preventing your team from doing something critical: moving on.
Your concern is regarding the gap that is created by your absence. This will be your team’s concern as well, but a concern is not a solution. As long as you are sitting there busily being present, your team doesn’t believe that you are leaving. They’re not going to react to your absence until, come Monday morning, they walk by your empty office and feel your absence. Shit, he’s gone.
They Know
I got in early on my final Friday at Borland. I’d convinced myself a 5 a.m. start time would create a dramatic last-ditch effort on my committed work. By the time my going-away lunch arrived, I’d successfully booted my computer, stared at the screen for an hour, and packed my boxes.
As 5 p.m. rolled around, I shut down my computer and dragged my feet into my boss’s office. “Yeah, so, I didn’t finish much of the import/export work.”
His comment: “Yeah, no one thought you could do it.”