How to Tell Your Boss “I Quit” Like A Boss

I am honestly surprised that there are no courses for quitting your job. Honestly. Quitting a job you love has to be the next most stressful thing, right after breaking up with a girlfriend on the basis of your both discovering you have AS-AS genotypes.

So — where was I? Yes. The landscape is dappled with ‘how to get your dream job! These 12 easy steps will guide you in systematically strangling your fellow employees until you are the only one left to be interviewed, thereby increasing your potential for employment by a whopping 100%! If you can’t get the job, poison the specific guy who asked you the tough question that made you mess up — ‘ tutorials, but there is nothing to guide you when you get these jobs and decide, overtime, that you want to, to borrow a political term, decamp.

Such was my plight less than two weeks ago when I received in my email box an unprecedented offer. I blinked liquidly for a few seconds, then decided that quick action was required. So I sent in the offer, signed and sealed in my name (haha) then rang up my boss and said “I quit!”

(Well, not really. I was really contrite and heartbroken about it,and I did the online equivalent of weeping at his feet. I like to imagine a random Adele song was playing, unbidden, in the backdrop of the conversation.)

I was hurriedly made to realize one simple thing: one does not simply quit his job. Imagine that. LOL. You have to give a month’s notice, apparently (or at least two weeks’ worth of it), and anything short of that can be seriously detrimental to the last salary you receive and the furtherance of a good relationship with your former employer. And the thing is, your office can withhold your salary (for the entire month!) and they would get a conspiratorial wink from the legal system.

So, what is there to learn from my first (and apparently pathetic) resignation?

1. Do not get carried away. If you, like me, are essentially weightless, you might want to consider stuffing your pockets with rocks.
2. Give your employers a two weeks (at least) notice between your resignation submission and the time you actually leave them, unless they are really shitty employers and you do not care too much for your last paycheck.
3. Never start by submitting a resignation letter. For some reason, that’s just plain rude. I almost considered that, admittedly, but commonsense got the better of me and I decided to call up my boss first to break the news. You can never go wrong by discussing with your supervisor first or your HR whatsisname before you begin actually drafting the resignation letter.

Sometimes — and this I understand — some companies from hell can decide to preemptorily sack you right after you submit your notice of resignation. If you suspect that may be in their bag of tricks, then it is probably a great idea to follow my route and just leave them blindsided. That way, your no-sack kill streak will remain unbroken. Wheeee.

But if your former company was a great one like mine, they deserve the notice. I still feel like a douchebag (which I am, but still.)

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the actual way to quit your job like a boss. Anything dramatic is potentially career-damaging and reserved for Mafia Movies.

(I briefly considered rigging the entire office with TNT and handing in my letter, then stepping out of the building, pushing a button while the building erupts in explosions and fireworks and some penis metaphors from Kendrick Lamar spill out of my headset. Briefly.)