Mistake #2 – How to say goodbye

Today I’m going to risk sounding foolish on a public forum. I might try to justify it by saying I was just a kid back then but somehow even that doesn’t sound seem to make up for it. But I learnt a few valuable lessons and maybe someone reading this may too. Or maybe like last time – get a good laugh 🙂

So I’m going to be quick with this one or rather try to be. When I quit my first job, here’s how I did it – I dropped a resignation email to my boss. I genuinely thought that is how it is done. She was new. Over the past few months that she’d joined, I had very limited interactions with her. I didn’t know that I should have called and discussed it with her before I dropped the mail; especially since we worked out of two different locations. I did let my previous boss know though because I thought he should.

What followed after was a total nightmare. I received a nasty call telling me how wrong I was in dropping that mail with no prior discussion. Probably the only call that brought me to tears in my corporate life. It was also the most unforgiving call I’ve ever received from a manager.

I learnt two very essential lessons at that point of time:

1. Never put down your papers without a discussion with your manager.
2. Never place a nasty call that could make someone cry because you might just scar them for life. (Might be an exaggeration but one can never know.)

Tell me, have you ever made the mistake of dropping a mail without prior discussion? Please tell me I’m not the only one.