A sudden, messy job departure could come back to haunt you
By John Eckberg
Cincinnati Enquirer
If the economy is on the way to becoming a job-generating rebound, many companies are preparing for a stream of departures.
Messina Management Systems gives clients a few key tips on leaving their jobs: • Always give at least two weeks' notice. • Resign as soon as you have accepted a new position. • Do not give in to unrealistic requests by your soon-to-be old boss. • Try to finish big projects. • Talk with co-workers about what they need to know after you leave.
But experts caution there is a wrong way and a right way to quit. Most companies remember workers not for why they left — but how they left. And workers should be mindful of how they might need past employers later in their career.
Quit with class
"Very often people who've done things that are particularly unprofessional or out of the box, they become like urban legends," said Allison Dubbs, director of public relations for Freedman, Gibson & White, a marketing communications company in Cincinnati.
"People from other companies hear about them. Some industries, regardless of what market you are in, the word gets out."
When a worker uses a company as a stepping stone and leaves the "stone" a little wet but still stable, the employer usually understands. But if the worker's departure is messy or sudden, companies are less likely to forget or forgive.
Justin R. Beck, marketing director for Rippe & Kingston, an accounting and systems consulting firm in Cincinnati, has worked for firms where employees are ushered out the door minutes after they give notice.
Other companies expect workers to hang around for at least two weeks to break in their replacements and alert clients that a new staffer will be assigned to accounts.
"When it's a sales-type role or an external position, it's important to at least give the company time to recover," Beck said. "If you don't, there will be a black cloud over you for the rest of your life — at least in that company's eye."
Workers who are headed to a new job should prepare themselves for a swirl of emotions between the time they decide to leave and the time they actually do leave, said Benjy Weisenburgh, executive recruiter/information technology with Messina Management Systems.
They are accustomed to being in a subservient role to a boss, and by quitting they will feel they are challenging authority.
"In reality, during a resignation you are on a peer level with your manager as you are stating that you will no longer work for him or her," Weisenburgh said.
Departing employees need to realize they are in an emotionally vulnerable state when they leave. Most counter-offers — which, incidentally, Weisenburgh says should be rejected out-of-hand — come four days before the departure date.
"That is when anxiety is very high and second thoughts can creep into reasoning," he said.
