I Politely Quit My Job. Apparently, I Burned All My Bridges

There’s always one job departure you’ll never forget.

For me, it was my second last employment, the one that convinced me to open my business.

The job was so bad — terrible hours, disrespectful bosses, and unreasonable pay — that I decided I could no longer work for anyone else. (I did go on to work one more job, but that’s for another day)

But despite my disdain for my employment, I parted ways in the nicest way possible when the time came.

• I gave the boss four weeks' notice but offered to extend it if they needed it.
• I shed a tear as I delivered the news.
• I took all the blame for the decision, even though they deserved to know it was them.

The boss took it well.

But on the last day, the night they promised to throw me going-away drinks, I sat in the bar. Alone. No one came to say goodbye to me. No one contacted me again.

I assumed I had politely quit my job. It turns out I was burning my bridges.

Here’s what I’ve learned about burning your employment bridges, which every employee should know.

The shoe on the other foot

By the way, I haven’t always been an employee. That’s why I feel so passionate about burning your bridges; I’ve done the burning, but I’ve also been burned.

• I’ve hired and fired staff.
• I’ve been the person hired, and the person fired, too.
• I’ve managed and trained staff. I’ve been managed right out the door.

I know what it’s like to be on the end of an employee quitting whilst watching them politely deliver the news.

With seventeen different jobs on my twenty-year resume, I’m becoming an expert on burning your professional bridges.

Maybe that could be job eighteen — a burning bridge expert.

Agree with you? The boss says no

In the weeks leading up to my resignation, my boss and I had some tough conversations. She knew the job wasn’t suiting me anymore, and I struggled with the idea that I was letting her down.

It was genuine guilt; as much as I hated the job, I didn’t want to disappoint her. As a former manager, my empathy felt real.

My boss hugged me, told me she had been through this before, and begged me to look after myself. I was thankful. Every conversation, including the resignation, felt cathartic.

And let's be honest: The boss saw it coming. If you asked me, we were in agreement.

But she disagreed with me. In my final days, it was clear from her demeanour and cold shoulder that she didn’t support my decision. If I had any doubt, she told other employees she didn’t get it, and with her inability to support my decision, the bridge went up in smoke.

Your decision to quit is the catalyst for burning your bridges. If the boss fundamentally doesn't understand why you want to move on, everything else you do after this moment is useless.

But here’s what we need to remember — they don’t have to agree with your decision to quit. They’re not your family; they’re not obliged to like or agree with what you do.

Quitting a job is also a tough decision. You can’t expect everyone to agree with it.

But surely the boss is human?

Don’t underestimate how many employers don’t understand why you would want to quit their workplace, which causes the bridges to burn.

As much as they’re human beings who’ve likely quit jobs before, they take your decisions personally (and professionally, which I will get into under “Frustrations for the boss”).

Your boss thinks:

• They have a great workplace — If they’re the owner or if they’ve cultivated the current working structure, they delude themselves into thinking they’re the best. Of course, they’re biased — as if they would want to believe their baby is ugly. For example, no one could tell me my writing business wasn't the best workplace ever. It would break my heart.
• Everyone else is happy — Why would you quit when everyone else wants to stay? “There must be something wrong with you.” I had a boss say this to me when I quit my job as a waitress—word for word. The only way I couldn’t have offended my boss was if there was a mass exodus of staff. Even then, I’m not sure he would have understood.
• You should love the business like you do — Bosses often think everyone works for the love of it. We all know that isn’t the case, but they can lose themselves in their obsession. As much as I liked waitressing, for example, it wasn’t my passion. It was a bill-paying job.

These are just a few examples of your boss's thoughts about their staff quitting. If this is just a tiny portion of what they think, it’s obvious you’re screwed when you leave.

They’re too emotionally attached for you not to burn bridges.

(And yes, before you come for me, not all are like this. But in my experience, irrational bosses are breeding like rabbits.)

Not-so-nice conversations

I’ve referred to my oh-so-nice departure from my job as a polite resignation — kind, thoughtful, and free of negativity or hate.

At least, that’s how I saw it.

I appreciate that another person was in that conversation, and they might not have shared my optimistic outlook.

Like a breakup, one party can feel satisfied by the relationship's ending, and the other can fly off the handle from the hurt and pain.

It’s easy to read between the lines. During uncomfortable conversations like resigning, it’s not uncommon for someone to read into thoughts and feelings that aren’t there.

When I said the job no longer suited me, perhaps my boss thought I disparaged the workplace, the job, or even the boss.

We can’t control how our boss interprets our explanation for leaving. But we’re silly for thinking they might misinterpret what we’re saying.

It’s only normal.

Frustrations for the boss

We assume we’re quitting the right way.

Our boss smiles and pretends to be happy for us (in their mind, they don’t understand or respect our decision). But in reality, we have given them a gigantic headache and left them with a massive problem they must solve.

No matter how nice we were about the departure, the boss hates you because of what happens next.

During a December Christmas rush, one of my team quit on me, leaving me a staff member short in the retail store I managed. It was the worst timing imaginable:

I was left high and dry—I had to work extra hours to cover their shifts, which added physical and mental strain on me during an already stressful period.

I didn't have the time or capacity to hire a replacement — Pre-Christmas sales are the worst for most businesses. Leaving at this time meant I didn’t even have time to write an advertisement for a new staff member, let alone host interviews or read resumes.

I didn’t have the time to train a newbie—Even if someone else did the hiring, I didn’t have the capacity to train them, bring them up to speed with the job, or get them ready for the busy time.

Imagine you’re the staff member who quit on me. Can you imagine my resentment toward you as the work piled up?

Their decision put me under strain daily, and I couldn’t feel sympathy towards my ex-staff member.

Quite the opposite.

Now, I know it wasn’t my departing staff member’s problem; it’s the perk of being a former employee. You get to stop caring. Being a staff member down also comes with the territory of having employees — you’re aware they could quit on you at any time.

But as the boss, this logic doesn’t apply when the stress affects them, nor does it stop them from blaming you for putting them in this situation.

We need to understand that their resentment stems from the fact that they wouldn’t have had this problem if you hadn’t quit.

It’s another time where it doesn’t matter what you say — your reasons, your heartfelt goodbye, your sweet exit — you’ve done enough by quitting.

Money woes

It’s not cheap to replace a staff member.

When I managed a chain shoe store in my early twenties, two staff members quit simultaneously. They were university students who quit for placement opportunities nearing graduation.

I couldn’t fault their need to leave the job; they weren’t physically available to work.

I approached my area manager about finding new staff but was met with budget constraints. She informed me that the company didn’t have the money to begin the hiring process.

Here’s what we had to pay for:

• Using a recruiter to find suitable candidates — Not all businesses need recruiters but at the time, we were seeking multiple staff, so we needed a professional to simplify and speed up the process.
• Training hours—Training a staff member costs money in two parts: you need to pay the staff member as you train them and the person giving the instruction. The shoe store had an extensive training program, so it wasn’t cheap.
• Uniform — Every new staff member needs a uniform. In the shoe store, it was a new pair of shoes. When I worked at a cinema, for example, it was an entirely new set of everything: shirt, pants, apron, and customised badge. As I discovered, many uniforms can’t be recycled, as former staff members either don’t return their uniforms or if they do, they’re in no state for someone else to wear them.
• HR onboarding — The hours and resources to add a staff member can add up, too. Sometimes, you must pay to set up staff profiles in programs, such as an extra email address or computer user.

If a boss can put aside their personal beef with you leaving, sometimes the money will get them. Any cash-strapped business will lament spending money to hire and train a new staff member.

It’s enough money to put a sour taste about you and your untimely exit in their mouth. They spent money hiring, training, and replacing you.

For some bosses, you’re a money pit they want to forget.

Rehire you? Perhaps not

When I quit my last job to pursue my business idea, I thought about possibly working for the same boss again. Call it a backup plan. Call it delusion.

Here’s what I thought: ‘If I play my resignation nice, one day they might rehire me.’

I didn’t want to assume failure, but you’re silly to think your plans might implode. The pandemic taught us that — anything can happen, and we’re at the mercy of the world we can’t control.

But when my boss didn’t put up a fight and was happy to let me go, I wasn’t filled with confidence that could happen. When I say he didn’t put up a fight, I mean:

He didn’t ask me to stay, not even the slightest request to extend my working tenure. He asked for the date of my final day in the office and noted it in his diary.

He didn’t offer me more money.

He didn’t ask what the business could do to make me stay. He wasn’t interested in learning why I wanted to leave.

He didn’t care about the handover process or who took over my work.

He didn’t express the need for an exit interview, nor did I have one.

He didn’t offer to have going-away drinks, the type of send-off everyone who’d left before me had experienced.

I didn’t need him to spell it out—he wanted me gone or realised my departure wouldn’t affect him or the business one bit. It’s safe to say if he was happy to see me go, he was unlikely to rehire me.

How many quitters have they rehired?

Some bosses aren’t the rehiring type.

I’ve only been rehired by one former boss, and that particular woman cried the day I said I was heading overseas with an indefinite return date. When I returned, she was also in the middle of a hiring crisis, unable to fill an important role, and my return proved the stopgap she begged for.

She was the exception, in my experience.

Every time I’ve been the manager, I’ve never wanted to rehire someone who quit on me.

Why?

No, it’s had nothing to do with feeling hurt by their original decision. My ego wasn’t the problem, either.

It’s simple — I couldn’t trust they weren’t going to quit on me again. Ignoring the idea of history repeating itself is foolish. People rarely change.

Why should they do you a favour?

Rehiring you is a favour to you, not them.

As much as they need someone to fill a role, the power dynamic has shifted, and you’re no longer in the driver’s seat. You must constantly prove you’re loyal and won’t cause them another headache.

You’ll spend your time proving they can trust you, taking away from everything else you do.

It’s not a healthy dynamic. And as you can tell, I’ve been there, with my return to the shoe store, even with their urgent need for me. It was the constant elephant in the room neither of us could overcome.

Quitting is quitting

Or so thinks the person who has employed and nurtured you, who you’ve just walked out on.

You have broken up with your boss. They’re professionally heartbroken.

For some reason, we seem to accept when an ex doesn’t want to remain friends. When my ex-boyfriend and I parted ways, we agreed friendship wasn’t on the cards and went our separate ways. We didn’t care about burning bridges because we both understood what the interaction was — a breakup.

How is quitting any different? You’ve told someone that spending every day with them no longer brings you joy, so you’re leaving them.

Sure, money and professionalism are involved. The business world isn’t meant to have feelings.

But this cliche doesn’t transpire to the real world so easily.

So how do you quit?

I can’t blame you for wanting to switch jobs or leave a job that doesn’t bring you happiness. Everyone, even your frustrated boss, understands this deep down.

Yet, your polite departure doesn’t unwind the pain, hurt, disappointment, and stress you leave behind. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t quit nicely, but don’t do it only to keep your options open with them.

Because, in reality, the options might not exist, anyway.

I advocate for quitting with respect. Don’t change your approach. Yet, use this realisation to determine whether quitting is for you.

If you don’t want to lose respect, loyalty, and a connection with your boss, maybe quitting isn’t right. If you don’t want to lose a future opportunity with a great boss, find a way around it.

Because quitting is the end, and you can’t go backward.

---

I write about writing, the long way — from the middle of the work, not the finish line.

More here: https://linktr.ee/ellenfranceswrites