Odd and amazing stuff!
:: This is really cool. I wanted to embed the video, but I couldn't figure out how to do it without also embedding the entire post, which I didn't want to do. Anyway, it's a performing artist whose medium is...bubbles. Seriously.
:: The CIA has its very own Starbucks. Working there is weird.
:: Good piece by Emily Gould on the act of quitting your job on the spot. Salty language alert, because Ms. Gould's jumping-off point is an Alaskan teevee news person who decided that it was time to quit, so during her segment, she literally said: "F*** it, I quit."
Editorializing a bit: What a self-centered jerk (the teevee lady, not Ms. Gould). I'm sympathetic, really, to the fact that lots of times, people are in jobs that push them to a breaking point, but it's my view that quitting on the spot is rarely justified (as opposed to giving respectful notice). Quitting on the spot only screws your coworkers, and it's an indulgence of self-pity that's almost narcissistic. Plus, by saying f*** on the air, this woman put her station in a very troubling spot, through no fault of its own, as regards the FCC coming knocking on the door with a couple of buckets and saying "Fill these with money, please." It was a jerk thing to do.
Working in restaurants and retail, I've seen my share of people quit on the spot, or simply stop showing up for jobs. It's not hard to give two weeks, people. One boss of mine once told someone who announced that he was quitting that night, "You know, we're closing tonight at the same time as always and we're opening tomorrow at the same time as always. Same thing the day after, and the day after that. You're not hurting the company at all, you're only hurting the people you work with, and you're only hurting them temporarily." Another boss of mine responded to a guy who announced he was quitting because he wasn't getting enough hours, "Well, if you've convinced yourself that working zero hours is better than working twenty-five, be my guest."
Anyway, I'm not thrilled that this lady has become something of a folk hero. It's kind of like a video that went viral of some high school student getting up and walking out of his class after lecturing his teacher on how she should be doing her job. That video got a lot of praise too, but I always wondered, What kind of student was that kid, anyway? Because he struck me not as a guy standing up for himself, but as more of an attention-whore.
More next week!
The personal blog of author Kelly Sedinger, chronicling the adventures of one overalls-clad wanderer.
3 comments:
As someone who quit a job with three days notice (bank teller, which I HATED, and I had a better job), I'm not one to judge others on this.
I agree with you on the lady who quit so spectacularly.
We once had a situation of a person who was not going to get "re-hired" (as in, their performance was such that their contract was not being renewed) and there was great trepidation among the other faculty that this person might, in effect, drop the mike and leave the day they got their letter, leaving it up to the rest of us to juggle their classes for the remnants of the semester. (we are a school where the load is typically 3 or 4 classes per semester, so picking up 1 or 2 more is a burden). Luckily they did not.
But we also had someone, who was a temporary employee, just decide it wasn't worth showing up any more. Their office was next to mine and I got really tired of trying to explain to angry students that no, I didn't know where X was, I didn't know why they weren't showing up for office hours. (Apparently they still got paid even though they didn't show up.)
The people who get hurt are generally not the people who can be implicated in why the job is a problem in the first place....
Notice is a form of respect and respect must be earned. One sided respect usually ends bad.
I worked in restaurants and plastics factories which were similar in nature as they both are industries with high rates of turnover. My observation is that management EXPECTS people to quit in droves and works this variable into their business plan.
I was told on several occasions "the good people bring up the bad". In other words "pick up the slack"
This is fine if their is advancement opportunities but at dead end jobs, picking up the slack will eventually overwhelm even the best employee.
Lousy managers do not deserve the courtesy of notice and neither do lazy coworkers. Those coworkers that do get burned by a sudden resignation usually saw it coming a long time before it happened.
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