
How to Resign Gracefully - cletus
http://www.cforcoding.com/2010/04/how-to-resign-gracefully.html
======
btilly
_You Will Get Yelled At

A lot of comments on TechCrunch revolved around being treated badly. If you’re
lucky you have a boss that’s passionate about what they’re doing. If so, such
bosses will get heated and yell because they care._

Yeah, right.

I don't work well while being yelled at. I don't want to deal with that. And
so I refuse to work in environments where I get yelled at. Seriously, if
you're my boss and you yell at me, my resume is being updated that night and
I'm going to shop it around. If you're my co-worker then I'll wait until you
calm down some, and raise the issue. If I don't get an apology then I'm going
to either my or your boss about it depending on the political dynamics of the
company. If the company doesn't agree that you were out of line, I'm going to
find another job and go.

And yes, there are people I've worked with that have broken this rule which I
choose not to work with ever again.

Now I understand that some people, cultures, etc differ. In some yelling is
OK. That is fine. I choose not to be in those ones. And I'm far from the only
person who feels this way.

So if you're a boss and you yell, take a moment to consider this. No matter
what excuses you give yourself for your crappy behavior, are you losing really
good employees because they don't agree with you on this issue? After you've
thought about it for a while, perhaps you'll find better ways to handle stress
than yelling at people below you in the hierarchy.

~~~
cletus
Expecting to be in a job where there's never any conflict is a lot like
expecting to be in a relationship without ever fighting.

~~~
cglee
He didn't say that.

~~~
cletus
Actually that's exactly what he said:

> Seriously, if you're my boss and you yell at me, my resume is being updated
> that night and I'm going to shop it around.

Yell at him _once_ and he's gone. Note: I didn't say you will get yelled at a
lot or even often but it _will_ happen.

If you pack your bags the first time you get yelled at well that's a pretty
good argument that you should be yelled at sooner rather than later to see
what you're made of.

Consider it a filter.

~~~
prodigal_erik
He's not talking about conflict. He's talking about yelling, which is a monkey
dominance game for someone who has lost interest in finding the right answer.
It's just a hair below shoving on the "cannot control himself, belongs in a
cage" scale of warning signs.

What am I made of? I'm a human being, not a slave, so I demand zero tolerance
for this in any workplace.

~~~
cletus
And the relationship analogy still applies: sure most (hopefully) conflict
isn't settled more amicably but tempers do blow up and things get said in the
heat of the moment. Expecting that to _never_ happen makes you look thin-
skinned, naive or both.

~~~
cglee
I think it can be expected in a professional setting in the US. Given your
line of thinking, almost any behavior can be excused.

I'll also add that it depends on the expectation of the job when you applied.
Normal white collar work in the US usually doesn't entail being yelled at.
Being a football player does. So does signing up to be a Marine.

------
chime
After reading tons of comments from people with varying viewpoints, I still
can't comprehend how someone could say this to their employee:

"... Good luck being employee 4,367 at a dying company....Horribly
disappointed in you."

I don't care if the employee only sent out an email without a face-to-face
conversation or resigned in person and then sent an email for documentation
purposes. I don't care if the employee was horrible, mean-tempered, or
terrible at programming. I don't care if he was core to the entire startup,
without whom the company is bound to fail. None of it matters. His email was
very polite and I can absolutely see myself in his shoes. Sure he called his
next opportunity "amazing" but so what? In next paragraph he commends his ex-
coworkers/teams and thanks everyone. What else could he have said in a
resignation email?

I just can't believe someone in CEO-level position replied to a resignation
email like this. Not every email should be treated the same. "Hey I'm sick
today, can't make it to work" or "Sorry! I haven't fixed the bug yet" are very
different from "This isn’t an easy email to write..." As a manager, you do not
treat those emails lightly or brush them off as good riddance.

~~~
cletus
Fact is, Yahoo is a directionless arguably dying company and very much a large
company rather than a startup with all that entails, probably meaning many
meetings before you can ever change anything and so on.

And Jason said something in the heat of the moment? So what? They just
promoted the guy and he can't even sit down and have a conversation? I'd be
horribly disappointed too.

Remember "disappointed" means you actually care and had high
hopes/expectations for that person. That's WAY better than no expectations
whatsoever.

~~~
chime
> Fact is, Yahoo is a directionless arguably dying company and very much a
> large company rather than a startup with all that entails, probably meaning
> many meetings before you can ever change anything and so on.

Does not matter. The boss has absolutely no right to judge the next company.
Everyone moves around in the tech world. MS employees joined Google, then
Facebook, then Amazon, and so on. Bosses are supposed to wish employees good
luck in the future or at the very least be polite and respectful.

> And Jason said something in the heat of the moment? So what?

So TechCrunch. So permanent record & documentation. So bad PR. People in the
IT/startup world should know the internet never forgets. Also there is no heat
of the moment when you reply to an email titled "Resignation." I can believe
heat of the moment if an employee walks into your office and says "Screw you!
I quit." But you can't play the "heat of the moment" card if it's an email.
Take some time to cool off before you reply.

> They just promoted the guy and he can't even sit down and have a
> conversation?

Irrelevant to the discussion. He could have been made CTO and still wanted to
resign. It was a very polite email and it is a free country/world. As a boss,
you need to be a good leader and say positive things even when someone wants
to quit.

> I'd be horribly disappointed too. Remember "disappointed" means you actually
> care and had high hopes/expectations for that person. That's WAY better than
> no expectations whatsoever.

I'd be horribly disappointed too myself. But saying "horribly disappointed" is
not constructive criticism or even a poor choice of words. It is outright
insulting. Instead of going back and forth over these words, let me just write
out what an appropriate reply should be, so you can decide yourself how far
this is from what really happened:

    
    
        Hi Evan,
    
        I accept your resignation and have notified Elliot to take care of the paperwork tomorrow. You can take the next two weeks off and have someone pick up your personal belongings or let Elliot know where to ship them.
    
        I had high hopes for you and am disappointed to see you leave. Good luck with your future ventures.
    

There. Said nearly the same things without sounding rude or insulting. Senior
employees resigning can't possibly be such a common occurrence that a CEO
can't even take 2mins to think the reply through. Could it?

~~~
cletus
> > They just promoted the guy and he can't even sit down and have a
> conversation?

> Irrelevant to the discussion.

It's entirely relevant. If you accept a promotion, you are making some kind of
commitment. To turn around and quit 2 weeks later just goes to show your
actions were, at best, disingenuous.

> As a boss, you need to be a good leader and say positive things even when
> someone wants to quit.

The chance to do that went out the window once this private email was made
public. That's kinda the point of this whole thing.

~~~
ericd
If it didn't involve some sort of rearrangement or big announcement, I would
say that the promotion acceptance being a commitment argument is weak. It's
not that big of an investment by the promoter.

WRT the second, as a boss, you should not be petulant. If you're not someone
who your subordinates can look up to and admire, morale suffers badly. He
doesn't deserve a chance to issue an email redaction any more than I deserve
the chance to redact insults I make to someone at a bar. Sure, it would be
nice to be able to apologize before it has any negative impact, but it is by
no means one's right.

------
elblanco
Early on in my career, I learned a lesson from a retiring colleague -- a
former Army Colonel, "never be loyal to a company because the company won't be
loyal to you." You can be loyal to individuals, and people can be loyal to
you. But the company? Nah. Lots of people get burnt really early in their
careers thinking that showing intense loyalty to an organization will be
rewarded when no such thing happens -- an "organization" doesn't care. At
best, your boss might give you a bump if you are loyal to him/her, and that
kind of thing pays off in the long run, in terms of keeping well built bridges
(it's amazing how often you meet the same people in a given industry no matter
how big).

The reason I'm commenting about this?

> They’re not in the office? You wait a few days until they are. They new job
> can’t way? Bullshit. Or, if true, it’s a good sign that it’s an organization
> you don’t want to work for because they don’t care about you.

This is the kind of idealistic naiveté, that while nice in principle, doesn't
really matter in reality. Show up, do a good job, when the time is right, move
on. If you boss isn't there, call them. If they aren't making themselves
available to the employees, then I suppose they fall into the category of
"places that don't care about you" anyways.

Organizations, by definition never care about you and you shouldn't care about
them. Care about your work and doing a good job -- that builds self-respect
and your reputation. Ask for what you want when you want it and be patient
until you get it, don't be a baby or an asshole, be flexible when better ideas
than yours come along, that builds respect. Business isn't about feelings,
it's about _production_ and making more money than you lay out. If you want
feelings, wait 'till quitting time and the after-work meetup at the local
happy hour where everybody can commiserate all they want over $3 beers.

Think your company cares about you because of the free t-shirts, catered food
and free drinks? Are you kidding me? They just know they can squeeze and extra
2-3 hours a day out of your sorry ass at pretty much no extra pay and about
$10-15/day.

Other than that, the post is pretty spot on.

~~~
ericd
Your post is probably accurate for most megacorps, but I should hope that
employees at a startup or company of less than 10 people don't feel this way
about the company. At that level, it's very much a personal relationship
rather than a company-employee relationship where loyalty only goes one way.
Not all companies are about the creation of profit at any cost... some
actually like creating an environment that is pleasant to work in, with free
food, etc. for no reason other than making life a bit more enjoyable.

~~~
kelnos
It's a personal relationship with the people, not with the company. You feel a
personal connection with the founders, with the other early employees. You're
passionate about the product. You want to build something amazing, and make
more money out of it than you put in, and maybe change the world doing so.

Your CEO probably cares about you. It probably kills him when the company is
running out of money and he has to let you go. But the company doesn't "care."
It shows no loyalty to you, and you should feel no loyalty to it. That doesn't
mean you can't work for a company and love the work, but it does mean you
shouldn't get wrapped up in it to the point where you lose sight of your own
interests.

~~~
ericd
My point was that when the company is the founders, it's not really possible
to separate loyalty to the founders and loyalty to the company. At that point,
it's very possible that the founders/company will act out of loyalty to you
rather than purely out of self-interest, at least until their ability to do so
runs out.

And I disagree vehemently that one should feel no loyalty to their startup. I
know of at least one startup that has run out of money without sacking their
employees, and the employees agreed to waive their pay until the startup was
able to get its cashflow going again. Had they all immediately bailed as you
seem to imply they should have, that startup would be dead now. Instead, I
believe its current valuation is around a billion.

I would hope my employees would do the same for me.

------
dennykmiu
Jason needs to chill. It is not clear to me if Evan has damaged his brand as
an individual. But it is clear that Jason has damaged Mahalo as a brand. As
the CEO, Jason has responsibility to his shareholders. If you promote someone
and still he leaves, you need to find out why and you need to ensure that the
team left behind is still motivated. A good CEO does that by inviting the
departing employee to a face-to-face in order to provide a reasonable
explanation to the rest of the company. It is all optics, but it is important
optics. How Jason feels emotionally is not important. What he does to maintain
shareholder values is.

~~~
cletus
Mahalo is no better or worse off for this incident.

The people who hate Jason and/or Mahalo still hate them. The people who like
Mahalo, well, I can't imagine they quite match up with the profile of the
average YC reader...

~~~
russgray
Mahalo are worse off. There are plenty of people out there - me included - who
neither knew much nor cared much about Mahalo but may have considered working
there had an opportunity arisen. I wouldn't work there now though. That might
not give Jason any sleepless nights, but I bet many better developers than I
have watched this play out with great distaste and resolved never to put
themselves in the way of the people involved.

~~~
dennykmiu
That's exactly the point. If Mahalo was a restaurant and I am a dish washer, I
probably won't think too much about who I work for and who I work with. But if
I am a technologist then I would have to choose to work for a startup. Life is
too damn short to be working for a dick.

------
swombat
Let's play word-replace...

 _A lot of comments on SocialCrunch revolved around being treated badly. If
you’re lucky you have a husband that’s passionate about you. If so, such
husbands will get heated and yell because they care._

Yeah, sounds just as lame.

~~~
donw
This is one of my favorite techniques in showing why some arguments are
asinine; well played.

------
jarek
This article condemns the employee for doing something well within his rights
in a polite manner because that's not the Right Way To Do Things. It then goes
on to say "An employer is well within their rights to bar you from the
premises."

I mean, really? This is a two-way street here.

------
ErrantX
> Had it remained private, which it should’ve, Jason may have calmed down and
> mellowed about the situation over time.

Honestly, I find that highly unlikely.

Why shouldn't the guy post it online, really? I believe he was "verbally"
abused on twitter and "yelled at" rudely in an email. It's important to know
these things about an employer.

> you that if there was anything urgent there (eg prescription medication)
> that he would’ve gotten that ASAP

Yeh, he lost me there. It's a huge assumption that may or may not have held
out - you can't make a point off the back of it.

~~~
cletus
> Why shouldn't the guy post it online, really?

Because now on the first page when you google his name you'll find a post
about him leaving a company after 12 months and posting a private exchange
with his (former) boss on his blog.

------
akkartik
+1. I haven't seen another article or comment pointing out that resigning over
email is a terrible idea.

I said recently that egregiously bad behavior should be publicized
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1274033>). This is _not_ an example of
such behavior. You resigned over email and received a harsh response? Airing
it in public will only cause you harm.

(None of this is a defense of don't-hire-job-hoppers. See
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1287253>)

------
DanielRibeiro
Statiscally speaking, it is a sad episode for both Jason and Evan: the former
will be condemned by several people for handling the matter not in the best
possible way, and the later for making its employer's inadequate response
public. Which is relevant, as Jason, being more well known, is more likely to
actually suffer a bigger impact from this bad press than the engineer. Not a
win-win situation by far.

~~~
exit
i'm pretty happy jason's character is being exposed. hopefully every future
potential hire will see this.

------
danbmil99
hmm... I wonder if Jason would/has ever fired someone in as 'shitty' a way as
this kid quit? If his business was in trouble and he had to do it, I guarantee
he would; notice would be minimal; and the process would be formal (otherwise
he's not doing his fiduciary duty to his investors).

Having fired > 100 people, I think 'at will' is in force in startups just as
it is in the real world, and it cuts both ways. If someone was willing to
email 2 week notice, they probably didn't drink the kool-aid, or felt like
they weren't appreciated. Or maybe they're just an unsocialized 20-something
who didn't want to deal with the drama. Either way, the pay-it-forward karma
would be to take him into the office and say "hey, next time keep in mind the
company is comprised of people who give a shit; man up and quit in person,
with reasons". That should have been the end of it.

------
exit
it's ironic, given the tweet from calacanis, how it's the employers
demonstrating the sense of entitlement in reacting to all of this.

 _"So ignore any comments about the at-will issue. It’s irrelevant."_

no, my legal rights are never irrelevant. go screw yourself.

------
sabat
_This is the tragedy of the modern education system in that it rewards
participation not winning._

Winning is entirely beside the point. Sure, merely showing up should not be
enough (never mind what Woody Allen said). But education should be about
bettering yourself, not defeating others. Oh, and learning how to learn. Not
just memorizing facts to pass tests.

Eighty percent of success is showing up. -Woody Allen

