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How to Resign Gracefully

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Re: How to Resign Gracefully

#31

Post by JanezStupar »

cletus wrote: post #8
btilly wrote: post #7

You Will Get Yelled At A lot of comments on TechCrunch revolved around being treated badly. If you’re lucky you have a boss that’s passionate about what they’re doing. If so, such bosses will get heated and yell because they care. Yeah, right. I don't work well while being yelled at. I don't want to deal with that. And so I refuse to work in environments where I get yelled at. Seriously, if you're my boss and you yel…

Expecting to be in a job where there's never any conflict is a lot like expecting to be in a relationship without ever fighting.

There is a big difference between a heated debate between passionate enough individuals that grows into an yelling match, which then somebody tries to break ("Stop arguing!!") when both actors turn on the mediator ("WE'RE NOT ARGUING!!!").

Or on the other hand - a straightforward domination attempt - where individual A (with possibly higher socio-economic rank) approaches individual B and proceeds to tear them a new one without any forewarning.

Case 1 - Good: indicates passion and willingness to break stalemate.

Case 2 - Bad: me big gorilla approach.

Personally when situation 2 arises, I kindly notify the would-be Alpha. Just like the parent. That nobody and really nobody yells at me and gets away with it. I'm prepared to go extraordinary lengths to satisfy people or to avoid mistakes or even make them up - just to avoid getting yelled at - so whenever situation 2 arises there are only 2 options:

1. Somebody needs somebody else to release their steam on.

2. Somebody wants to prove a point that I'm a looser without even giving me option of proving them wrong.

In any case - yelling at (not with) people is bad, really really bad.

Re: How to Resign Gracefully

#32

Post by elblanco »

ericd wrote: post #29
elblanco wrote: post #5

Early on in my career, I learned a lesson from a retiring colleague -- a former Army Colonel, "never be loyal to a company because the company won't be loyal to you." You can be loyal to individuals, and people can be loyal to you. But the company? Nah. Lots of people get burnt really early in their careers thinking that showing intense loyalty to an organization will be rewarded when no such thing happens -- an "org…

Your post is probably accurate for most megacorps, but I should hope that employees at a startup or company of less than 10 people don't feel this way about the company. At that level, it's very much a personal relationship rather than a company-employee relationship where loyalty only goes one way. Not all companies are about the creation of profit at any cost... some actually like creating an environment that is pl…

You'd be surprised at how fast that all can go away though. Everybody thinks they are all a bunch of friends, hanging out and building something cool, until they can't make payroll. I've worked at a few startups with that kind of nice "let's make it great here" vibe. And sure enough when the investment money runs out, and it's time to start turning the results from the monthly accounting report black...well the company's loyalty will only stretch about so far.

Re: How to Resign Gracefully

#33

Post by btilly »

cletus wrote: post #23
cglee wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He didn't say that.

Actually that's exactly what he said: > Seriously, if you're my boss and you yell at me, my resume is being updated that night and I'm going to shop it around. Yell at him once and he's gone. Note: I didn't say you will get yelled at a lot or even often but it will happen. If you pack your bags the first time you get yelled at well that's a pretty good argument that you should be yelled at sooner rather than later to…

I'd be happy to be filtered out by that criterion if my employer thought that was an important filter to test for. See http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1233385 for an admittedly biased description of the person you've just decided you didn't want in your organization.

As for whether yelling happens, of course it does. But not bloody often in healthy organizations. I think I've been yelled at by 3 people in the workplace in the last decade. None of whom I reported to. One of whom apologized fairly rapidly. I accepted it - he had a lot of other stuff going on in his life. The others my manager arranged buffers with so I wouldn't need to have interactions.

In the same period I've yelled at 2. Once at a social event when someone dumped water on me without checking whether I had electronics I cared about on my person. (As soon as the shock passed I apologized for yelling, and the other person apologized about my cellphone. Which luckily was not harmed.) The other case involved someone who physically hit me without provocation or warning. (He had mental problems which I had not known about.)

If your average is significantly worse than that, I suspect you have an issue that is worth looking into.

Re: How to Resign Gracefully

#34

Post by cglee »

cletus wrote: post #30
prodigal_erik wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not talking about conflict. He's talking about yelling, which is a monkey dominance game for someone who has lost interest in finding the right answer. It's just a hair below shoving on the "cannot control himself, belongs in a cage" scale of warning signs. What am I made of? I'm a human being, not a slave, so I demand zero tolerance for this in any workplace.

And the relationship analogy still applies: sure most (hopefully) conflict isn't settled more amicably but tempers do blow up and things get said in the heat of the moment. Expecting that to never happen makes you look thin-skinned, naive or both.

I think it can be expected in a professional setting in the US. Given your line of thinking, almost any behavior can be excused.

I'll also add that it depends on the expectation of the job when you applied. Normal white collar work in the US usually doesn't entail being yelled at. Being a football player does. So does signing up to be a Marine.

Re: How to Resign Gracefully

#35

Post by tallanvor »

elblanco wrote: post #5

Early on in my career, I learned a lesson from a retiring colleague -- a former Army Colonel, "never be loyal to a company because the company won't be loyal to you." You can be loyal to individuals, and people can be loyal to you. But the company? Nah. Lots of people get burnt really early in their careers thinking that showing intense loyalty to an organization will be rewarded when no such thing happens -- an "org…

Agreed. Whether you work for a startup or a large corporation, you have to do what's best for yourself. Anyone who kids themselves into thinking that a company is going to put you before the business is an idiot, especially when the boss blogged about laying off almost 10% of his workforce and saying what a smart move it was.

Re: How to Resign Gracefully

#36

Post by swombat »

Let's play word-replace...

A lot of comments on SocialCrunch revolved around being treated badly. If you’re lucky you have a husband that’s passionate about you. If so, such husbands will get heated and yell because they care.

Yeah, sounds just as lame.

Re: How to Resign Gracefully

#37

Post by kelnos »

ericd wrote: post #29
elblanco wrote: post #5

Early on in my career, I learned a lesson from a retiring colleague -- a former Army Colonel, "never be loyal to a company because the company won't be loyal to you." You can be loyal to individuals, and people can be loyal to you. But the company? Nah. Lots of people get burnt really early in their careers thinking that showing intense loyalty to an organization will be rewarded when no such thing happens -- an "org…

Your post is probably accurate for most megacorps, but I should hope that employees at a startup or company of less than 10 people don't feel this way about the company. At that level, it's very much a personal relationship rather than a company-employee relationship where loyalty only goes one way. Not all companies are about the creation of profit at any cost... some actually like creating an environment that is pl…

It's a personal relationship with the people, not with the company. You feel a personal connection with the founders, with the other early employees. You're passionate about the product. You want to build something amazing, and make more money out of it than you put in, and maybe change the world doing so.

Your CEO probably cares about you. It probably kills him when the company is running out of money and he has to let you go. But the company doesn't "care." It shows no loyalty to you, and you should feel no loyalty to it. That doesn't mean you can't work for a company and love the work, but it does mean you shouldn't get wrapped up in it to the point where you lose sight of your own interests.

Re: How to Resign Gracefully

#38

Post by akkartik »

+1. I haven't seen another article or comment pointing out that resigning over email is a terrible idea.

I said recently that egregiously bad behavior should be publicized (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1274033). This is not an example of such behavior. You resigned over email and received a harsh response? Airing it in public will only cause you harm.

(None of this is a defense of don't-hire-job-hoppers. See http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1287253)

Re: How to Resign Gracefully

#39

Post by ErrantX »

> Had it remained private, which it should’ve, Jason may have calmed down and mellowed about the situation over time.

Honestly, I find that highly unlikely.

Why shouldn't the guy post it online, really? I believe he was "verbally" abused on twitter and "yelled at" rudely in an email. It's important to know these things about an employer.

> you that if there was anything urgent there (eg prescription medication) that he would’ve gotten that ASAP

Yeh, he lost me there. It's a huge assumption that may or may not have held out - you can't make a point off the back of it.

Re: How to Resign Gracefully

#40

Post by exit »

it's ironic, given the tweet from calacanis, how it's the employers demonstrating the sense of entitlement in reacting to all of this.

"So ignore any comments about the at-will issue. It’s irrelevant."

no, my legal rights are never irrelevant. go screw yourself.

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