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Hello, and welcome to biz Your Work Life Sorted. I'm m Vernon and today we're talking about revenge quitting. Apparently it's going to be twenty twenty five's biggest career trend. And honestly, look, I have some thoughts. So you know how when you're just like really angry about work and you have that fantasy where you dramatically quit your job and leave your terrible boss in the lurch. Well, according to TikTok, people are actually doing that, like a lot
of people. So today our career coaches Michelle Battisby and Sophhurst are breaking down whether revenge quitting is actually worth it. Michelle is an entrepreneur who launched Bumble in Australia and now runs her own startup called Sunroom, and sof took the leap from Google to launch work Baby. It's a career coaching program for people in their early career era like myself. So Michelle actually did a video on revenge quitting. She posted on TikTok and it went viral. Here's what she had to say.
Revenge quitting it's essentially where you get fed up resentment has built up, and you leave abruptly with no warning. Experts are saying that this is happening predominantly amongst young people, and they're saying it's because younger people don't know how to deal with complex issues in the workplace and they want to leave their employers in shitty positions.
They're kind of doing it out of spite.
You don't owe it to your employer to hang around if you're not happy.
Everyone is replaceable. I know that can feel hard to hear.
You do owe it to yourself, though, to get the best outcomes and revenge.
Quitting is all over TikTok. Right now, this is your sign to quit your job.
I've just quit my full time job and I've got.
No plan, no money, no next job, but I feel free away from toxicity.
WHOA, I'm going to be submitting my noticement else day is going to be on Friday. Also, didn't give two weeks. I just got a text that said the short notice leaves a sour taste up departure. How are you going to lay people off and give them no notice but them when I am giving you all like four days notice.
I was so scared to leave my toxic job, for fear of having that gap in my resume, for fear of having people ask why I was only there for eleven months, for fear of having people ask why would I leave a title end company that were successful? Why would I walk away from that? But the reality is the title, the job, the status, all of it was not worth my mental health. I would cry almost daily having to walk into that office. I mean, I blew up my life quitting that job, but I don't regret it at all.
I have a spoiler. There might actually be a way to get revenge on your toxic workplace without totally destroying your career. Let's get it to it.
Michelle, you posted a video on TikTok. It's kind of gone viral. I think it's up to close to a million views. Now what is going on?
I have no idea, but I think it means it's a hot topic.
It's wild.
There's like five hundred messages. I feel like you've been flooded with dams.
There's a bit of a generational war going on in the comments. There are a lot of gen Z's showing a lot of pride around the fact that they have revenge quit and then there's definitely what appears to be older generations saying, you know, don't burn bridges, it's not worth it. What are you going to do if you ever need a reference? Everything comes back around and those
sorts of things. But I think in amongst all of that, some of the comments that have really stood out to me are the ones that are talking about the state of the economy and that it still is a bit more of an.
Employer market out there.
And so there are some people that have done this and they haven't been able to find jobs since. A bit of a word of warning there, which we'll definitely get into. But I'm curious, So, if you've ever had anyone in the teams you've managed quit in a way that would be detrimental to their future employment.
Yeah, I guess I've never worked at a company that's been bad enough that people would want to quit in that way. But what I have actually seen, Michelle a lot is people, especially young people, will leave a job without having a conversation around what is actually making them unhappy, and then the leaders will like in a super genuine way, say we just wish they had have told us because
we could have changed XOSA. So definitely. Not all problems can be solved at a company, you know, egotistical founders, leadership problems, culture fit, ethics, But I do think some
problems can be solved. The number one reason that people hate their job, there's some stats behind this, but is often their manager, right, So I think it's seventy five percent of people in a study that will link the show notes said that their manager is the most stressful part of their job and that their manager, their direct manager, actually has more of an impact on their mental health
than their therapist or a doctor. Managers have a massive impact on people and it can make people really unhappy. That is actually sometimes solvable, not all the time, but sometimes it might be can you move teams? Can you get yourself into positions where that person is not managing you? And some times it can be smaller things that are
leading to bigger problems. So I'm pretty pro it's so hard, but try and have a conversation, working out the courage to actually have a conversation with the person that you have a problem with, and at least exploring or exhausting your options before you leave a job.
Yeah, I love that, and I think it ultimately comes down to what kind of person you are, I think, and what the circumstances are, and how much you love the company or the mission, and if you feel like it's worth working on. It's a little bit like a relationship, you know, like if you really love someone, you I want to have communicated clearly before you decide to walk
out the door, so you leave with no regrets. There are many different ways to look at this, and I think it yeah, kind of comes down to how much you want to work on it.
Yeah, I totally agree. I think even if someone's like, well, that conversation sounds really hard, I don't even know what I would say. And again, this is really hard. I'm not saying it's easy, but it could be the type of thing where you say to a manager, I've got some feedback on how we work together. Our relationship is really important. I want to invest in making it good.
Can we have a conversation around how we communicate, how we work together and I can share some of these things and just then, you know, taking observable examples and talking about how it impacts you. Just trying to do that before you quit a job can be helpful.
I love that so much, all right, so we are also going to chat to an HI expert on all of this because we've got our own opinions, but we also want to make sure that everyone is hearing from someone who's seen it a million times before, and if there is a right or wrong way to quit your job.
Yeah, I cannot wait. Quiet quitting made me sad, and revenge quitting is making me honestly scared. Michelle, what is revenge quitting and how is it different to just regular quitting.
Yeah, so revenge quitting is you're wanting to drive the knife in, like you're wanting to do a bit of damage. I think the key difference is regular quitting you're not really trying to stir the pot. You're just leaving quite amicably. You're giving your notice, you're working on your closing tasks handover.
But revenge quitting might.
Show up like you strategically leaving at a time where you know the business really needs you or they'll be at a loss without you on a certain project, and it's usually coupled with some damaging the behaviors like deleting work before you leave, maybe some it breaches, or potentially warning to publicly slam your ex employer either via social media, glassdoor reviews and things like that.
Yeah, this is the part that actually scares me because it's like there's almost this normalization that happens because people are seeing other people talking about this a lot and showing their behaviors of how they're revenge quitting on social there's almost this normalization of that behavior that does scare me. Michelle. In the dms that people were leaving, did anyone give examples of how they revenge.
Quit or there wasn't necessarily examples, but there was coming back to that a lot of pride, like I did this and don't regret it for a second.
I must be a trendsetter because I did this last year. I do love this one. I'm revenge staying out of spite. There are other people.
Saying, you know, people forget that when you apply to a new job they ask for reference answers.
Be careful.
There's people praising the younger generation, like I kind of love the younger gen for this, though companies show no loyalty to their employees, so it's just being reciprocated. And that is something that I also touched on in this TikTok Is it can be really hard to hear this. A lot of people don't like hearing this, but everyone is replaceable in the workplace, Like at the end of the day, it is a transaction. And so that's why
I have never subscribed to just hanging around. You're not happy, you're not being appreciated, you're not being developed because you think you have to or you have to, you know, reach a certain number and write that on your CV, Like, I don't subscribe to that. But I also don't think I subscribe to revenge quitting in the way it's been showing up in my comments, where it's like people think
they have the upper hand when they revenge quit. I don't know if I'm really picking up through these comments that they necessarily do have the upper hand in the employment relationship. There were people naming and shaming, and I don't know if it's amazing. I'd love your opinion on
this as well. But the social media shaming, I think can come across as a little bit emotional, and it's a little bit short term gain, like drive the knife in and drag someone through the mard, but long term, I think it could be really detrimental.
Emotion is okay, at work, but you always want to be low drama. And I think the best piece of advice that I've ever had around this is that as much as possible at work, you want to respond, not react, and so react is high emotion. You're often in an unemotionally regulated state, and it's like this quick reaction. Responding is when you let those emotions settle and you actually kind of decide how you want to show up and
how you want to respond to something. And just back to your point, Michelle, I think you know whether you want to react, to respond combined with this feel good short term just to have really long lasting impact on your career, Like that combined together is sort of what revenge quitting is, which what makes me nervous about it.
I do agree that like there is something in this and that it's probably going to feel pretty good if an employer really has fed you over, so I'm not like totally against it, But Michelle, beyond just the kind of like how it's making people show up, there are actually some potential more serious dangers people should be aware of, Like what other things should people be thinking about if they're planning to revenge quit.
I think when you're in that short term reactive mindset, you're not thinking that you're ever going to need that employer's reference ever again. But you made an amazing point the other day where you would just be blown away with how the ghosts from your network come back around further down the track, and you just can't bank on that. You can't bank on someone not back channeling and maybe going and asking about you, or you actually needing a reference from that workplace in the future.
Your reputation is the thing that walks into a room before you and so leaving and damaging your reputation either with like individual people or with a company. It actually just closes doors. Right if you're early in your career, like you haven't experienced this yet, it will explode your brain the way people from your work past then like get reintroduced to you. Someone will be like, oh, you're
working on this new project. Here's the stakeholder that you're working with, and it's someone that you screwed over, or in reverse, it's someone that screwed you over, and you're like, hello again, old friends. So protect your reputation and just like quickly also think about some more serious dangers, things like company documents are the property of the company. So you go in deleting files or like taking things with you, there are some potential legal risks you so like some
stuff is serious and think about that. But also just yet, as you said, Michelle, like not having that reference burning those bridges.
I think there is also another way to look at all of this, which I touch on in the TikTok, which is some accountability does need to be taken by the employers as well.
And I think if you are the.
Kind of employer or you're a manager where this sort of thing is happening time and time again in your team or company, then you are actually the problem.
That is a huge red flag, and I think.
That's when the reputational side of things actually flips, and you, as an employer will start to get a bad reputation and you won't be able to attract top talent. Because backchanneling happens in all areas of the employment relationship. Glassdoor is obviously like a huge one, and sometimes these stories do go viral on social media where it is a pretty serious and pretty bad look for the employer.
I agree.
I actually think there's some power in it, and I sort of started thinking like could revenge quitting actually be a good thing? And there were some comments on your video, someone saying I revenge quit and my company took me back for fifty k more. Another person saying, my boss's cared both times I revenge quit, they called me to join a week later on a higher daily rate. But also someone else just saying younger generations are much more
courageous than us. Millennials need to do better. And I do think there is some power in that, in saying you can't treat a whole workforce badly without there being ramifications, and we are going to talk about it and we are going to have our voice. I do think there is a positive side to it too.
Both of us don't think that you should stay in a work environment where you're not feeling appreciated, you're not feeling like you can work collaboratively with senior.
Leaders, you're not growing. It is not worth it.
And because everyone is replaceable, that really drives that home for me again, like it is not worth your sanity to stay in that kind of an environment. I'm all for getting up and walking out the door when it no longer serves you, but doing it with grace. We'll take you further later down the track.
Okay, so you've heard from the perspective of Michelle and I. I think it's time we bring in an expert. Up next, we speak to a recruitment and talent expert who knows all about the art of quitting.
Okay, we are joined by Nichola Squires, who is a recruitment and talent expert with ten years experience in banking and finance.
And Nikola was also my first work wife.
So this is a live demonstration of your network coming back around a decade later.
Nikola, Welcome to VIZ.
Thanks for having me. Michelle, it's great to be here.
We are talking all about quitting and specifically if there is a right or wrong way to quit your job. So Nicola, be straight up with us. Do you think there's a right or wrong way to quit?
I don't necessarily think there's a wrong way to quit, but there is most definitely a wrong way to exit an organization. So we call it managing your exit now, especially if you're in a role you feel like you've made a really significant contribution to an organization, you felt underappreciated, you decided okay, it's time to move on. From the firm. You've gone out, You've secured a fantastic role in another organization, You've got an incredible pay rise, you're really excited about
the team that you're going to be joining. You then land in a position where you're standing staring down the barrel of a one two three month notice period and maintaining motivation through that period is supremely challenging, but it is so important. Essentially, you will be remembered for your last work, and if you're not managing that process well, you will then undermine all of that hard work that you've done over your career in that organization, or you
can do. I mean, then there's so many elements to it. You really need to go out strong. You need to work in partnership with your management team as you're leaving. This is things like wrapping out and doing candovers, making sure that any work that only you are holding or you have the key to is wrapped up in a really nice end to meet way. It's also about communication, so, for example, firms might want you to communicate your departure in a specific way. You need to stick to that.
It could be very tempting, especially if you feel underappreciated that specific situation to go around talk about the new opportunity you got, all the reasons why, and start bad mouthing individuals within your management hierarchy. That is a definite no.
No.
I love what you said.
You'll be remembered for your last work, and we put our best face forward when we enter an organization.
I do feel like we should do the same when we leave. But a question that popped.
Up as you were speaking, actually, do you think you should always have a new role before you resign?
No, not necessarily. I mean with everything here, it's so circumstantial. If you're in a position where you know an organization isn't right for you anymore, and you feel comfortable from a financial position that you can actually wrap things up well there and then use some downtime to really search. Especially if you have finessed exactly what it is that you want for your next role, you know that you're going to need to put time, effort, and energy into that.
If you want to say, look, let's part ways here, I will do a handover, I will wrap up here and then start exploring other opportunities. I don't think there is any issues with that at all. In fact, it's actually very appealing as someone who's hiring to have a strong profile in front of you and know that they can start immediately. That is something that is a huge advantage or can be a huge advantage.
Yeah, that is an effort peak perspective that I think would help a lot of our listeners. This leads into my next question, which is how do you know that it's the right time to leave a role.
I think if we just look at a standard scenario, it's when you feel like you have capped out your great potential in that particular role. And that's not for everyone. Not everybody wants to continually move all of the time. But I think roughly, you're in a role in a seat for twelve months, you have kind of done a full cycle, You've mastered it, you understand what needs to happen there. You then have six to twelve months more of operating with like your full masterfull ship under your belt,
and then it's time to start looking. Now. That can be a lateral move within the organization. You might be going from a sales seat into a product team or something along those lines. It could be a jump to a managerial role, and if those opportunities don't exist in the organization that you are sitting under. That's when you need to start looking externally. That's kind of a generic
of circumstances. I think if you're in an environment where there's been a cultural change which means you are no longer enjoying the role, so that could be a changing strategy of the firm, which means fundamentally your day to day job looks completely different and it's not what you want to be doing, then that is a good trigger. But moving on from a role could be a management change. Do you now have a manager whose style does not align with the style in which you like to be managed.
That could be a trigger to move on from a role. There's a variety of triggers and it really just depends on the circumstances. Yeah.
I love that you brought up twelve months because I think traditionally people have felt like they have to stick it out to reach a certain number that I don't know, maybe was implemented by society.
I think back in the old days, people would work.
At companies for five, ten, fifteen years, and I think it was really our generation. I've even forgot what general we are gen why are we gen Why started to jump around.
When millennials I'm a millennial. Yeah, I think you're a customer millennials.
As we'll go with that, we started to kind of jump around a little bit more. Do you think that there is a certain amount of time you need to stick it out in a role that looks good or maybe is a red flag on paper?
I think your CV essentially needs to tell a story. So if you're staying seven months in a role and then moving to a new organization, a completely new organization in a lateral role, doing the same thing, and then you move again, well, to me, it's like, what is
the story behind this? And it's likely that there is an alignment issue and potentially that is a issue if you're not staying in a role because you're moving to the next opportunity, So your role changes because you're staying within the same organization and it's a broader scope, you've got a bigger portfolio of clients, or maybe you've been promoted into a leadership position. I mean that tells a lovely story in terms of being jumpy on your CB. If I look at somebody's profile and I can see
why they've made the move. I'm like, Okay, they were at this organization and they moved after seven months, fifteen months, sixteen months. They haven't stated this organization so very long, but it's clear to me, Okay, they've moved from this seat into a completely different seat in a different organization. Then you can see the flow through and it makes sense.
But you have to be cognizant of that fact that your CV tells the story and you, once you get to interview, have the opportunity to provide supplementary information to that CV, but it's still the CV that will be screened on.
Yeah.
Such a good point.
Okay, So we've been speaking a lot in this episode about revenge quitting, which is this new trend set to be twenty twenty five's biggest career trend.
Have you seen this trend?
I've seen the commentary around it. I think revenge quitting, I mean, there's a few elements to it, in my opinion. To be truly revenged quitting, your absence has to be mourned by the previous employer, So it needs to be handled with that level of finesse that I was speaking about earlier in terms of managing your exit process and going out and really being like using a notice period to be like, here's everything that I do for you. Here it is, I've wrapped everything up, I've played the game.
I was an a grade employer, and now I'm going elsewhere because I haven't been appreciated for the contributions I was making here. I think for it to truly be revenge, you have to handle it in such a way that it's probably not known that that's actually what is happening. Oh I love that, and then on reflection they will be like, Okay, wow, we probably should have done more for this person.
Oh that is totally it's nikola because there's been a lot of like pride coming through in some of the comments on TikTok, like these people feeling like they really drove the knife in and they're making it a lot about themselves.
But it really needs to be yeah, the employer mourning your loss.
Exactly, and if you show a level of immaturity during that period of time where they're going to be like, oh, she probably wasn't or he probably wasn't right for the organization. Anyway, we probably weeded out someone who wasn't a fit for our culture. Whereas if you do it, handle it with complete grace, then that is when it's true revenge because they look back and go, damn, wow.
You've answered my last question, which was going to be can you revenge quit with grace? And you can, and I think you must for it to truly be revenge quitting.
Absolutely absolutely, you would need to be super mindful about how you handled the entire process, and I touched earlier around how you handle your communication. Everything would need to be I don't want to use the word strategic, but in an element it would need to be. And if you're letting emotions come in outwardly throwing your toys out of the pram, the revenge isn't going to come off quite in the way you wanted it to.
Oh okay, I love this. This is so helpful. Thank you so much, Nikola the worries.
Thanks for having me.
That part hit home for me where it was For it to truly be revenge, the employer must mourn you, and if you are immature on the way out, that won't happen.
That's it. It's like, the best revenge is you showing up, you know, a year later with this amazing role and you're just smashing it and had your employers like, oh god. Just a couple of other points that I thought were absolutely brilliant. I just loved hearing her perspective. Okay, the myth busting around, you know, do you have to have another job lined up before you quit. I've always thought that hiring managers might see it as a bad thing
if someone's unemployed while they're going for a role. But it's actually the opposite, she's saying. You know, it's kind of enticing because you know this person can start straight away, which I think is cool. Also think that gaps on CBS in general are becoming more normalized, and I love seeing people actually take pride in putting like, you know, six months off, one year off gaps on CBS and talking about what they did in their life you know that wasn't working in that time.
The other point that.
I absolutely loved is really it's not so much about the quitting, it's to really think about your exit. And if you're in a truly toxic environment, you're not thinking about this like fully planned exit where you're going to be showing up at your best. It's like toxic environments are a different ballgame, and I do think they're very serious and there's a lot of PTSC and trauma that
can come from that. So but in a normal work environment, I do think really, you know, responding thinking rationally and thinking about how you want to show up as you exit. Just her practical advice around you know, proper handover, don't badmouth a leaders is just yes, so good.
Another myth she busted, which I loved, was around if you leave a role after seven months, but you've moved to a different company doing something completely different, that doesn't tell a bad story. Or if you've moved because you've taken on a role that is larger with more responsibility,
that also paints an amazing story. So I think that's good for people to know as well, because I think sometimes they are sticking it out in potentially toxic work environments because they think twelve months might look bad or six months might look bad. But I think, yeah, it's about how you tell the story.
Oh man, your career is way too important and your life is way too precious to be unhappy every day going to work. So yeah, definitely make the change if it has to happen.
Okay, so've hit us with the action points.
Okay, so number one, explore your options before you leave, talk to your manager. If your manager is the problem, then talk to a different leader. Realign the expectations for your role, talk about what's making you unhappy, and try to make some changes. Number two, design your exit. So think about the people that you want to get references
from before you leave. Think about your handover, think about the people that you want to stay in touch with, and even book in coffee catch ups with them before you leave, so you can retain that relationship and that network that you've built and worked for. And then number three, make them more new. So think about how you are showing up in a way that when you leave, they're going to say, we cannot believe we've lost this person. Make them more new.
That line about true revenge is when your employer mourns your loss hits so hard. It's so simple. Just be good at your job, and instead of revenge quitting, you can leave so gracefully that they realize exactly what they're losing. If you're sitting there thinking about quitting your job revenge style or otherwise, definitely check out our newsletter this week. We've got practical steps for exploring your options before you
make any dramatic exit. And don't forget Our Biz Inbox episode drops this Thursday, where we answer all of your career dilemmas. So check our show notes to find exactly how to submit your work questions. See you next time. Mamma Maya acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is recorded on