You may be ready to quit your job tomorrow…or better, yet, today. You know it’s not right for you anymore. Maybe it never was. At any rate, you’ve either outgrown the job or the job has changed. Maybe you’ve changed. Quitting can often save you a lot of time and energy on things that don’t work for you anymore. Or it could save your life, as it did for John Weiss when he quit martial arts, just short of his black belt.
The July 2018 Bureau of Labor Statistics Job Openings and Labor Turnover survey found that 3.6 million people quit their jobs in last year. It was a new all-time high. Did those people give notice before leaving or did they just decide to stop going into the office one day? It’s important to do it right, according to a separate survey of HR managers, where 83% said the way someone quits affects their future career opportunities.
Lynn Marie Morski, Founder of Quitting by Design tells people to “Quit until the life you want is yours.” To quit all those things that aren’t working for you, it’s been my experience that using positive language and communicating how you are, “running towards something,” rather than away from something can set the right tone and perspective for your approach to quitting. But for all those people who dream about crazy (and dare I say, impulsive and reckless) ways of quitting their jobs, here are some examples of what others have done. (Caveat – I don’t recommend any of these if you want a recommendation from your former employer!)
- You could quit your job by writing a public article in a newspaper, like this guy who quit his job at Goldman Sachs. “I knew it was time to leave when I realized I could no longer look students in the eye and tell them what a great place this was to work,” he writes.
- This guy quit his job by writing a note to his boss on toilet paper. “I have chosen this type of paper for my 2-week resignation as a symbol of how I feel this company has treated me, and ironically, where I feel the company is going,” the letter reads. The man also included a photo of a toilet, in case the message wasn’t clear enough.
- You may have heard about this one because I think it made the news. A JetBlue flight attendant quit after 20 years on the job. He yelled at a plane filled with people on the intercom, grabbed a beer, and rode the evacuation slide to the tarmac.
What if you really want to quit your job, but just can’t do it yourself? Yes, now you can outsource the task of quitting your job.
- Looking for a budget-friendly way to do it? Cameo.com offered an opportunity for someone to hire Matt Iseman, host of American Ninja Warrior, to help him quit his job…reportedly for about $15.
- Or, you can hire a Japanese company called Exit to quit your job for you. It’ll set you back $450. Unless you’re a repeat customer; then you get a $90 discount. “Quitting jobs can be a soul-crushing hassle,” Toshiyuki Niino, one of the Founders of Exit tells The Japan Times. “We’re here to provide a sense of relief by taking on that burden.”
Ready to quit…but not sure what you’d be running towards? Interested in learning about different careers and how to get into something else while you get up the courage to quit your job? Check out what we’re doing at Scout a Career and start paving the path to your next career.