extended notes on cessation of gainful employ





I have quit on more occaisions than I usually care to mention but here goes:


balfours, dales, kennings, wimpey, KM, McCanns, Ivgn, and maybe you could count crumby lil' ol night and day - maybe even an.n.oter I forget. KM was a two way street but I effectively refused new conditions.

On the other side of the coin I have been roundly fired from two positions - Hoffsvei and earlier the cafuffle in Cannonmills. Also MarbleH and you could say KM as per above.

On balance I have done more quitting than dusting my ass off on the doorstep.

So what are they key steps? Roughly you can divide it into the hard and fast shut down, the

preparation for this and other preparatory steps to make your exit safer, more productive,

painless, and generally more fun.

well here are the actual orderly methods :

1) Do a lot of organisation before you go. Prioritise. Look professional.

2) read and re-read your contract and any law in your area or rules at your company then read

again. You may have lapsed into or unwittingly signed a 3 month notice, work-every-god-dammed

-day period. Read ten times any new contract of employment you have. Agree ten times and in

some dtail the actual working tasks you will have in a new job.Know the minimum legal notice

and payments(usually a two way street i.e. the same for both sides)

3) when the big day comes, do it in writing and to multiple contacts- personnel, your boss,

and their line manager / director. Don't do it to the MD / CEO or owner-director if you can

avoid it. Let them hear second hand if it is a clean break. The reason for this is that you

may get quite a lot of BS blackmail and payrises to stay so that they save face, later

highlighting you for the chop in any cut back round and generally making you uncomfortable.

This avoids little incidents and bosses hiding. If your boss is losing staff because he/she is

a dickbitch then they should be the last to know. Some bosses will try really nasty tactics if

you are a performer or just if they will miss their retention targets.

4) if you are leaving just because of pay and conditions then get another job and then go to

personnel. You can go whine before or threaten to just leave, but the security of another job

is a much better bargaining tool. In the forkant of enough discontent to draw up your pitch,

then sound out possibilities with personnel and your bosses.

5) Presume that you may well be asked to emtpy your desk and leave that day- get organised.

All those gonks and mugs should be gathered up, one by one over a period of 'cleaning out'.

5) organise your references- use some smoke and mirrors or just get them confirmed before you

go. It can be an embarrising or surprising let down if you don't get them agreed as or before

you leave. A reference for a sports club for example is a good way to open them.

And the tactics:

1) know when you get paid- in clear monies, and resign after this! With two months pay

outstanding you are at a disadvantage- they have a lever over you in that they don't need to

pay cessation payments maybe until you leave.

2) In advance organise any expenses and other outstanding benefits in kind get to you. Ask for

advances on any commision and make sure you are getting paid. Perhaps hold back on holidays

in the expectation of a 'double bonus' ie.e gardening leave, untaxed cessation AND holiday

pay!

3) steal all the stationery you need and put together a CD rom of all your work or anything

else you wanna take- remember e-mail addresses - do this several weeks b4 your post-payday D-

day!

4) give everyone your personal phone and e-mail details without any particular reason- just

for future reference.

5) work longer hours so you can do all the above when no on is in the office!

6) make passes at anyone you find flirty or interested or just with a pulse. You may as well

get a lay out of the old place.



9) your Boss should be the last to know, given the average relationship and management style

I've encountered. If you are in sales, you should start suggesting to your customers that you

are thinking of a move to something more interesting and would they see you under that guise?

In purchasing make it even clearer to your best and cheapes bttom dollar sellers.

10) write an org'chart and find out a little more on who BUYS what in your company and who

decided on HIRING. These are both worth money to you in future.

There is then how you handle the post trauma scenario of 'what shall we get them to do now

they have resigned?'. This is indeed a time to be a fiddle player and not the fiddle. In

essence the bosses can decide to

1) cast you out the door
2) make you politely tie up all loose ends
3) give you shit to do for three months

The latter are usually reference dependent. Be clear over your period of notice as mentioned.

Then organise your work around priorities to make you look good and organise around dump,

dump, dumping. First of all dump all the assholes who are no longer important. Swap yourself

out of any dumb or vague project committees and let someone else get in. Use delaying tactics

for anything non important. Write opening instuctions or SOP style documents- print them out

so that they loose an element of tracebility down the line. These should look detailed,

inclusive and exhaustive by virtue of a professional front page and masses of detail for about

2 minutes reading thereafter. Multi-delegate. Pitch out tasks to diverse people, exploit the

weak and emphasise the risk if it isn't done to the strong. With outside parties you are

dumping off, you can choose to either 'ostritch' them or pass them on by being all 'don't give

a shit' and suggesting who may be taking over from you. Hold onto your golden globes though-

something to be remembered by and some things to lighen up your confidence.

Walk tall and proud out the office. If you hated them, don't do any leaving lunch. In fact

tell the assholes you leave monday and don't turn up at all, enjoy some drinks with pals on

the friday!


Okay but wait a god darn minute here muskie...why are you leaving?

I suppose you can break these down into categories. Conflict, motivation and performance:

First much loved of the divorce attorney, 'intolerable cruely'. My manchie jobnumber one was

under the lash of a little pitbull. The agency was running out of customers based on being

over priced and under-creative. Darren hadn't given a shit for about a year and I got really

shit creative from wasshis face witht the tasty, tasty girlfriend. My own creativity was

better and in fact there was a point at hand! more on that later. Ok, now back to you- if it

is a littel wee shitty company then do all you can to get another job and just leave. if

things are really bad then you just have to go. With bigger companies you can either move jobs

internally or play a higher risk game in discrediting your boss - just being another nail in

their coffin. The same is true with cow-orkers if they are harrassing you. But like me, maybe

you are quite a frustrating person to work with in this type of job?

P is for Performance. It's also for Penis and if you are trying to squeeze yourself into a job

you are not right for then you are a dick. Maybe the job is too demanding, too detail

oriented, too touchy-feely, too busy, in fact why am I able to get a paycheck out of anywhere?

If you are underperforming it is due to skills, application of those skills, knowledge and

confidence in the job and most of all motivation (to which we return). In a small company you

may be multitasking and have some ability to say steer from sales into more project management

and customer services. In a larger company you need to have a little trumpet to play when

thinking of moving-say sales into marketing, accounting into personnel or the like. Also there

is the last ditch for a company big enough to absorb you and that is from a pressure job to

something you can handle- and considering part time work to ween yourself out of the situace.

Motivate Me! motivation is the big deal. In most western labour markets the non-nigger jobs

in between there and the high flyer fast trackers can be filled by just about anyone with

motivation to shuvvel metaphoric shit around and be happy with their own "yess" as they slam

the phone down on a supplier. Motivation is the key to performance and usually the discouple

means a slide in results. In times of recession negative motivation turned a dollar-and-a-cent

but in these days of the educated empowered work force companies should be little board room

cheer leaders for you. There are some skew angles here as well- you may be very, very

motivated and dedicated to your own job but not at all to the individuals you work with. This

is a big fault of mine- I get nicely task oriented around one or two internal customers and

show little interest in coworkers. In fact in marketing and other areas being motivated to be

"with the in gang " is far more important than any actual performance. The marketing matrons

will keep you in their head count if they like you. If they can hide a performer they don't

like / have control over then despite effectiveness, at head count 'right sizing' they are

out! All that useless team rubbing and sniffing of arses and wagging of tails I just can't do.

This type of team work is the social disease of marketing and renders departments costly and

underproductive. In a stroke I say it- marketing and personnel for that matter are too

"female"- too groupy, touchy feely and not task oriented enough.

I also suffer from motivational problemos that I see in others. Motivation yo-yo. It's much

better to have an even motivation in a job than be up and down. Now as an older man though my

motivation up lasts just about long enough to get 'permanence' for you yanks, read benefits

and three month's notice!

Getting a new job takes higher motivation and deception levels than I usually can muster but

on two key occiasions in 1998 and 99 I did just that and had some continuation on paper at

least. For the breasted of the species it is easier- one you can suck your way, two you have

someone kissing your pussy and three people accept women into temp-office roles way over men.

Men are labelled over qualified- read under beavered, over ego-ed.

Be Brave!

Deciding to quit a stressful or otherwise unrewarding job is about "searching for the hero in

side yourself, before you find the key to your life". You need to start by untangling some of

the financial ties you have- what I am doing right now - downsizing perhaps or moving to a

better job market. The other ties like geography are just chains to be broken. The real battle

is the sub conscious fight against homo sapien as a habitual creature. Changing a habit of

even a few months duration - commuting, logging on, being with the creeps at work - provides a

pyschic entropy which the core of us resists. So long as we are fed and warm humans will

resist changing environment at a very deep level. Extra stress will manifest itself in

nervousness, distrubed sleep and appetite. It is much better to leave but in a planned way. In

fact the very process of planning - tidying up your loose ends, prioritising any small success

stories for your CV, tellign the boss his wandering hands are unacceptable can change your

actual situation in the work place to a level where by you won't want to pull the trigger!

Organising to leave a job is the type of assertiveness and objectivity boost which can catlyse

change.