How to Accept a Resignation

I’ve resigned from a job only once. That doesn’t count the part-time jobs I had in high school and college. I also resigned from two of those, to go on to career-enhancing positions. But there was only one real job I resigned from, and only one I resigned from because I didn’t fit in.

Most of my employment career I spent working for a single employer. It wasn’t dedication that kept me there. It was camaraderie. If you’ve ever been in a small, tight-knit team of bright, motivated people, you know what I mean. I did not resign from that job. I was laid off. I was laid off long after I should have resigned, long after the writing on the wall had turned to blood. I was not the last to go. There’s something special about a company like that, something that transcends words.

I’ve also done a number of contract gigs. I did not resign from them, either. Rather, I delivered the work, and the contracts expired.

But one place I worked, I just didn’t fit in. In retrospect, I see that I would have learned to fit in. I knew it at the time, too. But that prospect was too painful to consider, especially after I was offered a position in which I did fit, and in a new industry where I’d be learning new things. My future looked rosy and exciting. And it indeed turned out that way, or close enough to it.

But there was still the matter of resigning my old job. I had never resigned formally from a job before. I didn’t know how to do it, and I didn’t know what to expect. Fortunately, Google helped me find several good articles on the subject. My resignation letter was short and to the point. I will be resigning my position as such-and-such effective such-and-such a date. I knew I should give HR an exit interview, and I knew they wouldn’t ask anything that I hadn’t told them before.

I also knew I didn’t have to tell my manager, or anyone else, why I was resigning. And I knew I shouldn’t feel pressured to stay, even if she were to turn on the pressure tactics. Pressure tactics are unprofessional. You don’t try to make the person feel guilty for leaving. You don’t counter-offer. But I didn’t know how my manager would respond.

I should have known. I knew her well enough, but I was blinded by my own thoughts and worries.

I accepted the offer for the new job on a Friday morning. I personally delivered an acceptance letter and greeted those in the new office. Then I went to work. I planned to submit my resignation in the afternoon. Just before lunch, my manager poked her head in my cubicle and said, “Knock knock,” as she always did. (You can’t actually knock on a cubicle wall.)

I nearly jumped out of my seat. Then I greeted her.

With a gleam in her eye and smile on her face, she said, “What’s going on?” She was not asking for my status.

“Nothing. What’s up?”

“We were thinking of going out to the 99 for lunch. Wanna come?”

“Okay,” I said.

As the group gathered in the hallway, I found my opportunity. I got her alone in her cubicle, and briefly filled her in. “I wasn’t going to bring this up until this afternoon. But I feel I should mention it before we go out with the group. I’ve accepted a position at another company.”

What she did and said next blew me off my feet. She smiled, congratulated me, asked where I was going, and said it was great. She asked to meet in the afternoon and also asked if I could keep it quiet until she smoothed over a potentially political situation with another group member. I knew what she was talking about and understood completely. That afternoon, she congratulated me again. She accepted my resignation without objection. She asked about the company I was going to and agreed that I’d be happy there. She set everything up for me with HR.

This response defined for me the word classy.

-TimK