The Fine Art of Leaving (Part 1/3)

Most of us have thought about leaving our jobs at one point or other. And if you haven't, I have cause to either intensely envy (or profoundly pity) you. And having left quite a number of jobs myself, I think it's safe to say that leaving a job requires a certain amount of finesse. And courage. And above all, strategy.

What's that, you say - leaving a job is merely a matter of typing up a resignation letter?

That's a gross oversimplification. And honestly, if you consider yourself a professional, you might want to at least entertain the possibility that leaving a job is a little more complex than that. I've made certain mistakes while making my exit. We all have.

The Fine Art of Leaving can be condensed into three parts: Preparation, Follow-through, Clean-up.

Preparation

This sounds like a no-brainer, but many people don't. Prepare, that is. Not adequately, anyway. No, they suck it up till they can't suck it up any more, and then they resign in a glorious explosion of pent-up frustration. They don't secure new jobs before leaving, they don't scope out new opportunities. They don't prepare.

And that's what I'm going to talk about in the first part - planning. Remember, you don't want to do anything you might regret later. And the most obvious way for that, is to prepare.

Prepare well in advance. In fact, I would go so far as to say that you should begin preparing your exit the very first day you step into any company.

Now, just for the record, I am not advocating that you should enter the company intending to leave, which is just a waste of everybody's time; rather, you should enter the company prepared to leave. You should accept the reality that no working relationship lasts forever, and it is better to be prepared in the event of it ending, than not.

Nurturing that resolve

The process of leaving a job begins from a moment of resolve.

Avoid resigning out of a moment of frustration. That's usually a really bad idea. People rarely make good decisions in a moment of angst-driven haste. Instead, take that unhappiness and nurture it while doing your job the best you can. As the days pass, allow it to simmer till it coalesces into cold, hard determination. In the meantime, prepare. Ideally, by the time you're fed up to here with all that crap, you're financially, professionally and emotionally ready to leave.

Blowing up is not cool.

Back in 2013, I was working in a publications firm and at some point, I found myself at odds with the CEO. I was under the impression that he wasn't altogether happy about my presence, but lacked a plausible excuse to get rid of me. He hired a younger (and prettier) developer and promoted her as my Manager. The message seemed to be: You're old and decrepit. Leave. I left in April 2014, one month after she was promoted, and this led some of my ex-colleagues to speculate that I'd finally had enough. They, of course, didn't know that I'd already had enough half a year before that. My preparation to leave had started as early as November 2013.

Fast forward to 2015. I was working for a company dealing in education software. The management was constantly on the lookout to cut costs, and eventually this came in the form of a company-wide wage cut. You bet your ass I was unhappy. Some of my colleagues quit on the spot. Countless friends urged me to follow, but His Teochewness is not a man driven by impulse. Sure, I was going to leave. But again, only on my own terms.

I can't stress this enough - tendering your resignation due to a moment of frustration may look as cool and dramatic as it does in the movies. It is also the mark of a complete amateur. Yes, you're human and you have feelings. Master those feelings.

Build yourself up

Do not take it for granted that you can simply take the skillset you came into the company with, and walk into another company. Sure, you could accomplish that. You could even wrangle a higher salary. But ultimately, all that is unsustainable unless you have something to show for the time you spent in this company. Pick up new skills. Build stuff. Hone your craft. Make sure you're leaving this company a more accomplished developer than when you came in.

Work on those skills.

I've detailed the time I spent in desktop support back in the early 2000s. In 2007, the process of leaving took me a year - a year to obtain an additional Diploma which I used to restart my career, this time in web development.

In 2013, leaving the publications firm took several months - some of which I used to up my front-end game, skills I used to obtain my next job.

In 2015, I was working on this blog, and on my site at www.teochewthunder.com. I built up my GitHub profile, putting in tons of research and work after office hours so that I would have something to show to prospective employers. You'll notice this blog was set up in 2014. Yep, I was preparing even then.

Opportunities

It's mostly common sense that it would be better to already have a job lined up before you quit your current one. But even if you don't intend to quit, you should always be looking out for those opportunities.

Keep a look out.

Firstly, you're a professional and it is your professional duty to have a finger on the pulse of your industry and understand what your industry requires. Compare those requirements to what you have, and build your skillset accordingly. People will want to push your asking price down by denigrating your skillset. Expect that. Don't let them.

Secondly, exploring these opportunities can only be a good thing. Attend interviews. Get used to strutting your stuff presenting yourself. Know what to expect. Know the mind games interviewers play.

By the time you actually do want to leave, you know where you stand.

Money

Being unemployed (or even transitioning between jobs) for any amount of time requires resources. And by that, I mean money.

I like to maintain what I call a Fuck You Fund. Crudely speaking, it is a certain amount of disposable income that will enable you to survive for some time without a job, that will give you the confidence to tell your employer "fuck you, I quit" when you deem it necessary. Not that I recommend that course of action. Firstly, quitting in a moment of angst, as mentioned earlier, is not the mark of a seasoned pro. Secondly, even if you must quit, hurling vulgarities and insults on your way out is, well, childish.

Keep your disposable
income healthy.

But, in principle, that is the purpose of the Fuck You Fund. Classically, that amount is 6 months of your monthly expenditure. Some would recommend 12 months... but buddy, if it takes you that long to secure a job, money is the least of your problems.

So yes, put money aside. Monitor your monthly expenditure and ensure that your Fuck You Fund is healthy.

If you're going to spend every cent you make, it'll make leaving your job that much harder. In essence, you'll become your employer's bitch. Don't.

Next

The Follow-through