The Right (and Wrong) Way to Quit Your Job

game Plan. My name is Sam Grobart. I am a writer at Bloomberg business Week magazine, and I'm Rebecca Greenfield, a reporter at Bloomberg where I cover the workplace. So, Becca, you've left some workplaces before. Yes, I've left to workplaces and how did they go for you? I think it could have been better. It's just you don't know what you're doing at all? Is it's really delicate situation, and especially when you're young, you have no idea what you're doing.

What would you say looking back on the two occasions that you've left a job, what would be the main thing you would have done differently? Well, I've tried to do things differently. I think the hardest part is when you have that offer for your new job, and what do you do with it. My first time, I was very I was confused. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know the best way to handle it. So I went to my boss with those exact feelings, and

obviously that conversation did not go great for me. Right, I think there is an instinct to be overly communicative, like you're talking to a friend and you're not talking about mistaking the relationship, well, because that was the relationship you had up until that point, and you have to realize that you're the one who is now introducing a threat to that relationship, perhaps an ultimate threat to that relationship, because you're talking about ending it right, And I don't know.

I was worried about making people feel bad and that's not what got to be professional exactly. So then this second time I went to go leave a job, I was like more stone cold about it. But then that also wasn't appreciated. Something happened to me years ago one of the many jobs that I've left. I thought the

thing to do is to be super clear cut. Yeah, And then it turned out that I sort of had offended my boss because I didn't even explain the fact that I had this amazing new opportunity which he then later learned about and was like, Oh, if you had just told me that, I would have been like, that's wonderful for you. I'm very happy. Instead you were like,

I'm out of here, right. And I think that attitude that you're talking about, I mean, it's lucky that your boss said that, but it is more common than it used to be. I wrote the story maybe a year or so ago about the rise of the boomerang employee, where it's a lot more acceptable now to leave a job and come back to a job. And I think that's because employers realize, you know, they're not as obsessed with loyalty and you screwed me, so I'm never hiring

you again. Like they understand you've got a better opportunity and maybe one day you'll come back with even more knowledge right to benefit the company in an entirely new way. I mean, the truth is that we are now. And here's a little data point. You know, more people are changing jobs leaving jobs in than they have since two thousand eight, and that's according to the Labor Department. And that seems to be related to of course, and improving

economy and a lot more mobility and opportunities. So this is going to happen more and more. It's just a question of how do you manage it? Yeah, and it's really confusing and delicate, and maybe there is no exact way. I mean that, Yeah, there's no way to break up

with somebody and not hurt their feelings. I think that's the thing is, like in a breakup, you have to kind of come to terms with the fact that you're going to hurt someone and it maybe for the right reason because staying there would hurt both of you more later or would hurt you and frankly, you have to kind of look out for yourself, but you have to be willing to take on that role of being the spoiler. Um. Well, like you know obviously, Becca, we're very happy here. Yeah,

I will never quit a job again. I'm not going anywhere. So we can't speak about it, but we do have somebody who we're going to be talking to, Rayhan Hermancy, who is actually leaving a job basically as we speak. And full disclosure, I worked with Rayhon at one job that both of us have since left, and we're friends and she has left many jobs, and I looked at her as a stage and it's sort of a guide on breakups, professional breakups. So we're going to talk to

her in a minute. We're here with Rayhon Harmancy, the former editor in chief of Atlas Obscura. Rayhan, thank you for joining us today. Thank you, guys, and tell us a little bit about how long you've been the former editor in chief of Atlas Obscura. Um, I actually am still at Atlas Obscura for the next week or so. Do they know you're here? Have you told them yet

to find out? This is like when Rudy Giuliani like divorced his wife by in your press conference, Guys, Rudy always um no, I I did in fact give notice, so it won't be a total surprise. Um. So we're having you on because you just gave notice and you're going to leave a job. But I also know that you have left jobs before. How many jobs have you left? Oh man, I actually was counting on my way here.

I believe I have left seven jobs on good terms, on good terms, all in good terms, and you're always able to get another job, leading me to believe that you're leaving on your terms. And people aren't saying, don't hire this person. I mean, I hope. So I think that, as you guys know, media is a tumultuous business. In so I think a lot of people are leaving, or have leaving, or have left jobs. But I realize I've

left a lot of jobs. So we're interested in the tactics that you have related to all parts of this a game pan. So maybe from like when you know that you want to leave a job, but you haven't quite found a new job yet, how do you stay interested in your current job? This is something I've given a lot of that too. Obviously for me personally, all of these jobs and new jobs came about in different ways, but I always end up applying like a romantic relationship

model to this. When you know, you kind of know, and then when you start contemplating actually that conversation, it is very stressful. So you are currently in this sort of senior week of a job, right you You've given notice, but you haven't quite left yet. How are you feeling in this particular phantom zone. I'm feeling sort of sad.

I love Atlas Obscura, and I know that it will continue to do great things without me, but I'm also sort of stressed because there's there's a lot of work to be done, so you're you're not checked out, which is definitely what I've done, and I guess that's bad. I mean, I am currently with you guys, not in the office, so one might argue I'm checked out, but I don't think so. I think that unlike romantic relationship,

you actually do have to work until the last minute. Rayhan, tell me a little bit about how you conduct a job search while continuing to have a job. Are there any things you sort of make sure you do or don't do for your own sort of protection or benefit. Well, I mean, I want to make clear that I've been lucky enough to have been approached for jobs, so it's not always that you're conducting a job search. It's more that you're living in the world and you know, having conversations.

So I mean, I think that there are people leave jobs for all different kinds of reasons, and I think that if you're conducting a job search while you're still at work, I mean, I would advise that you be

sort of quiet about it. You are talking about that, Sam and I about how you definitely know people or you were that person who you're like, yeah, I have a lead on this job, and you tell your coworker and you just get really excited about it because you think they're your friend, and it's just a really bad idea.

You have to be careful who you tell about this sort of thing, right, Yeah, I think there's a lot of etiquette questions around when you tell your boss that you have been thinking about other jobs, been talking to other people, or you just give notice when you have like a job offer you've signed. I think there's a

lot of gray areas there. But I do remember from a time when Becca and I worked together a fast company someone telling me that once you tell a boss that you have a job offer, there's like some kind of research where says that, like, the outcomes are are bad. Even if you stay at the job, like you are more likely to leave within a year after having sort of broken that seal of saying I don't want to be here, I don't want to I cheated on your I'm looking around, You're not my one and only kind

of like a relationship, kind of like a relationship. Yeah, I've I've struggled with this. I've only left a couple of jobs. But I have done the tactic of I'm breaking up with you, I'm leaving, and my boss didn't like that approach, but I had been burned before with the oh, I have an offer, I'm not sure which I do convinced me to stay. Neither of those tactics worked for me. Yeah, I think it's super tricky. I've never personally leveraged a job offer for more money at

a current employer. I know other people that have, and I think that's great, and I think that a lot of times honesty is the best policy. But you have to be ready for all possible outcomes. Once you start broaching that conversation, you have to be ready to take that job that you're using as a negotiating Definitely, as they may turn around and go sounds like a great job,

you should go do it completely. And I when I've had experience managing people who have had job offers, you know, like, I don't get mad at them, but it is, uh, it is a weird feeling that makes you sort of you can't help but think that maybe they won't take

this offer, but they'll take another one. Ray Han, I want to ask you something because I was just reading an article recently in the paper about a situation where somebody was offered a new job, went and told their current employer, gave their notice, and then it turned out that the offer they had been given was rescinded because it went up the chain and some somebody else, some executive, said, oh, no, we're not actually hiring for that position. Do you have

any rules about when you actually give your notice? Oh that sounds like a bad situation. Um, yeah, I mean I think you have to have a firm offer in writing, don't exchange a few like Twitter direct messages and then like tell your boss about a job offer. You know,

I think just approaching that conversation is so stressful. I think you should go into it with an idea of what you want the outcome to be, you know, Like I wouldn't say, go fishing telling employer you have a job offer, like haven't writing know that there's at least a great chance you want to take it and steer the conversation. Maybe. Yeah, that was my problem in my first trying to leave a job. Not knowing what I

was doing was the problem. Really, I think being firm and knowing what you want is the best way to go into the conversation. But when you're like twenty four and have no idea how to live in the world, you can't do that. Apparently, Well, it's really hard. I mean, I think sometimes you're not sure what you want to do and you almost want to ask your boss for advice. But that is not a time you asked your boss

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continue your relationship metaphor a little bit. I mean, I feel like the conversation you're going to have with your current employer requires a certain kind of steel if you will within you same way that if you're going to break up with someone. In both cases, you are very well aware that you are in one way or another harming someone or causing them display sure, but you have to sort of make your peace with it because it's

better for you to be doing what you're doing. And yes, there are going to be consequences, some of which are going to be negative for other people. But that's just the way this whole sort of system works. Yeah, I mean, no matter how you I mean, I guess it does depend on how you feel about your employee. But you're severing a relationship, and most of the time, you know you want to sever it in like the sort of

cleanest possible way. And so it's really if you go into the conversation being like, I don't know, like maybe I'll take the job, you're not doing anybody any favors. That's very real in relationships too. I think we I think we've all experienced then they're good. So that is it does continue to be awkward though, once you've decided to take a job, because most people do give some

form of notice, like two weeks notice. I mean, like, and then you're still working at the job for two weeks, and I'm first of all wondering should we still be doing two weeks notice? Tick of a movie, by the way, two weeks I obviously don't get your reference as usual. Okay, that's not that old. Oh wait, I do remember that I thought you were alive when that movie came out. Yeah, but yeah, it's two weeks notice useful anymore. That's a really good question. I remember my first the first you guys,

take you back in time. The first time I left a job. I was working in a newspaper I had worked for for seven years, and I was just in my young, deluded brain. For some reason, I was so scared to give notice. Like they were doing rounds after rounds of layoffs. I'm sure they were like reassured that I wanted to leave, but I was very upset and like didn't know what to say and how to say goodbye. Um. So I was like, I can work here for six more weeks, and my boss at the time was like,

well great, I mean we need you around. You're the youngest love was paid employee here, so no need to rush out. And then I worked. I was in a union, and according to union rules, though I had to, I gave notice on like a Tuesday, and then I got a no the next day. There's like if you're not out by Friday, you're going to not get your pension, which or ira A or some union front of money

I didn't really know existed. So then I suddenly went from being like, oh, I'll have like a long goodbye to like, you have three days to pack up your stuff and you've worked here for seven years. But in retrospect, that was the best possible outcome, right, it's kind of good to make the clean break, don't you think? Yes?

I think that, Like when you again you think maybe I don't know people do I would do things out of guilt a lot, So like, maybe out of guilt, I'll be like, I'll stay as long as you need me to stay. But the truth is, I think two weeks is it's way enough time to tie things up unless you have a very specific project. Yeah, And I don't know what you're doing by giving them two more

weeks of your time. Really, I don't know. You're not really helping and it's just awkward, which brings me to my next question, which is, how do you tell people you're leaving? And when do you tell them you're leaving besides for your boss, who obviously you need to tell. Great question, Becca, this is thing that you're not giving notice once at a job, you actually have to give notice, like as many times as you need to to tell the people around you, and like the way you want

to tell them. So yeah, so I mean, so I give notice to your boss first. Do not let your boss here about it from anybody else. I think that is a really bad look. So tell your boss first, get that conversation out of the way, and then decide who needs to be told in person and who needs to be told in a group. Because once the information is released, it really wants to be free, and it wants to be free over email, and I wants to be free over slack, and it wants to be free

in any possible way. So I feel like there's a little bit of a race after you give noticed your boss to then start telling other people in a way that is not too harsh or weird. Yeah. I don't know how many times I have this is horrible gossiped and g chatted somebody, Oh my god, did you hear so? And so I was leaving, only to have them say, oh, yeah, I already knew that. Yeah. Have you ever taken steps before even giving notice but knowing that you would be

getting your affairs in order? Maybe you're you know, forwarding information to your regular private email account, or do you ever worry about, you know, not having everything if they tell you hit the bricks. Yeah, if you think you are going to take a job offer but you're not ready to say yes, you're not at a place yet. I also think it's only human to not let it

be a total shock for your boss. Like at some point, I think if you are thinking or unhappy, like you owe it to your employer to make your feelings visible in some way, Like, I mean, at least that's something I personally hate surprises. So I think that if you think there's something you want out of another company that your current employees possible for them to give to you, I think don't have that conversation like with a gun to their head necessarily, you know, like have that conversation

in advance. That's something that Sam and I were also talking about that I definitely struggle with being honest with the current employer about like constructive things that you want. I mean, I've had employers say, oh, like you didn't really ask us for that, How do we know that you would have wanted it? And now you're just leaving to go to another company to get it. We could have maybe fixed it six weeks ago, but I'm too scared. Well, it helps to feel like there's another suitor, right, Like,

it helps to feel like you have options. So when you have that conversation, you're doing it like with the private knowledge that like just so you have options. Yeah, leverage basically exactly. And I think in many cases, you know, certainly surprises can happen. But if you begin a job process with another employer, there is a point at which it's moved past the sort of preliminary and you realize, like this is advancing, and you know this looks to

be heading somewhere. Yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, it's you know, you met, you like each other. May you're going to fall in love, you know, But until anything is signed, I would not assumption. I can't tell you how many people I know, bright, smart, disciplined people who go and tell their employers that they're leaving before they have the written job offer. And you never know because sometimes that offer, while it is definitely heading your way, gets delayed for

the most silly of reasons. Right the person who needs to sign the form went on a two week vacation and no one else can sign the form, and so now the whole thing drags out and they're stuck. You know, they've told their employer, but they they're not leaving. It's awful. Yeah, No, that's terrible. That's terrible and should be avoided at all costs. Also, like until you get the written job offer in the case of your time at rescinding, I don't even know

how you deal with that. That seems like that's pretty sort of sex macin that kind of way. Yeah, but like there's no there's no guarantees, and that your future employer, I mean, isn't you Guys, business is brutal, Like they're talking to other people too. You know, you don't know what the behind the scenes are. Are you taking any

time off between Atlas and your next move? Well, you know, before I started Atlas, my soon to be former boss, David Plotts, insisted that I take time off between jobs, and I really deeply appreciated that in the wisdom of that. So I'm taking a few days off. I should be taking more time off, but but I'm not. I'm a huge advocate of taking as much time off as you can afford. It is a rare, rare thing to not be at work and not necessarily have work on the

other side of it. Obviously, starting a new job requires some new things, but you don't have that coming home from vacation dread of like, oh that thing that I let you know slide for two weeks is still there, and now you have sort of open territory. Precious. I've actually considered going to grad school just for that time between applying to grad school and hopefully getting into grad

school and knowing you're going to grad school. Same. I'm so only jealous of my friends who went to law school because they seem to have this like months long time between taking the bar and starting their jobs, so they get to travel places. But that is not a reason to go to law school. It's not. And then they have to go be first year associate somewhere and so who zoom and who right? What's a vacation now, Buddy Rahn, thank you so much for joining us. Oh

my god, thank you guys so much. This is fun. You know. One thing we didn't get a chance to talk to Rayhan about, although perhaps it's happening imminently, is the whole issue of the goodbye drinks. I don't know back if maybe you've been invited to this because you're friends with her. Well, we we we had been talking about the phenomenon of the going away drinks, and it's something that happens. It's like un necessary, But does anybody really want it? I really, I really like to sort

of I could buy a job. I think that's better. It's just kind of awkward. Yeah, I think it's better to have like small lunches and coffees with the people that you want to make sure that's right, you're explaining everything to and maintaining relationships with right. And I think that maybe the best version of the goodbye drinks, if there can be a good version, is it just in

the office. Yeah, somebody runs out and buys a few bottles of cheap prosecco and you raise a glass and it's a twenty five minute thing and everybody goes back to work. Yeah, because going to drinks after work can seem like a burden to a lot of people. Yeah, it's not really the best way to get together because, of course, the undertone to this is like I'm leaving all of you, assumably for something better, which means that

what you have is something worse piece out losers. Yeah, I would say that the big takeaway I got from our conversation is the importance of keeping your mouth shut when you have a new offer and making sure that you don't announce your departure before the new job is really solidified. Yeah, there's the importance of certainty, certainty and where you're going, what you're doing, what you want to do before you make any moves. I think that'll be

the best. As we discussed, this is business, and the two words that pop into my head are stone cold right, like, you want to be a nice person, you want to be open, you want to share, but in fact, the kind thing to do is to keep it to yourself until it's really all set up, and then be very clear and inform people at the right time and cut the cord, rip off the band aid and other metaphors as well. And now it's time for half baked takes,

half fake takes. So Becca, do you have any half formed opinions or ideas or thoughts that you would like to share with the group. To bring it back to one of my favorite topics, my sad desk. One one way to brighten up your sad desk lunch is to have a really great glass tupperware, Like the salad just tastes so much better when it's not a sad like deformed plastic thing that's been through the dishwasher ten too many times. You're not even supposed to put those in

the dishwasher. But like you, it sounds like you're sort of applying this sort of business class logic, like the soda tastes better in glass exactly than in a plastic and it does. It totally does the little things. Well, I'm glad you're finding, you know, ways to improve. Well, my glass tupperware was recently stolen here at Bloomberg and it really got me down. Anyway. That's my half bay take.

What's my half bake take is decades after I graduated from grade school in high school, I'm coming back around to the backpack. Welcome to the world, backpack. Yeah no, no, I for years now have been doing the messenger bag thing, but have suddenly mostly thanks to my wife, who bought a backpack recently and has been extolling its virtues. I think that I'm going to make that make that leap. I think it just seems like a more practical easier

to carry sort of system. Okay, So as a backpack user myself, I need to tell you the one thing is that backpack users are really annoying on the subway because they don't take them off right, And I'm incredibly conscious you always bring it down and but a lot of people don't. Don't. Don't. Don't be that guy. Oh I will never be that guy. I take them off in elevators. That's nice. Yeah, even shoulderbacks. Maybe I should do that. Well. Great, Okay, this has been half baked takes,

half baked takes. All right, you've been listening to game Plan, whether you're leaving a job or staying when. We hope you've enjoyed this episode. I am Sam Grosbart. You can find me on Twitter at Sam Grobart. And I'm Rebecca Greenfield. You can find me on Twitter at rs Greenfield. If you liked our show, head on over to iTunes and rate and subscribe and review. Game Plan is produced by Liz Smith and Magnus Hendrickson. The Head of Bloomberg Podcast

is Alec McCabe. Thanks for listening. See you next week. Get the most from your people, and send your business soaring with corn Ferry from executive search to talent strategy, leadership development, rewards and succession planning. Corn Ferry knows up is more than a direction, it's your future. Learn more at corn ferry dot com. Slash up Oh yeah, you need to get a dropping on me. I'll go home.