And when I told her where I was going, she was very supportive and told me it was a good fit and wished me well
During her remaining six weeks at the bank, Nancy put together a detailed spreadsheet of all her accounts and went over this information in several meetings with her boss. “I wanted to be a team member until the very end,” she says.
She is also the youngest African American female to ever launch a line with Sephora, the cosmetics chain. “Even though what I do now is very different from my old job in finance, I use a lot of what I learned there in my day-to-day – how to be strategic, how to see a project through from start to finish, and how to communicate. “It was the right grateful to have worked there.”
Case study #2: Be open about your plans When it was time for Ben Sullivan* to give his notice, he felt a mixture of giddy excitement and guilty dread.
On one hand, Ben was ecstatic to be leaving his company. Not only had he just landed his dream job at a well-funded San Francisco-based start-up, he was also happy to be rid of his old firm. His two-year tenure at the technology company had been frustrating. Ben reported to two different supervisors – one in HR and the other in legal. His managers did not get along particularly well and they often disagreed on company strategy.
He knew his absence would put his team in a bind – particularly with the holidays coming and his closest colleague soon going out on maternity leave. In light of that, he planned to give three weeks’ notice.
After he delivered the news to his first boss, she immediately tried to persuade him to stay. “I told her I was flattered but I wasn’t interested in more money,” he says. “I had already accepted an opportunity at another company. ”
His second supervisor’s response was underwhelming. “He just shrugged and asked me when my last day was,” says Ben. “He had always been a difficult person to work with, and his reaction was typical. It actually helped me feel that I made the right decision.”
When word got out that Ben was leaving, his colleagues from other business units were naturally curious. besthookupwebsites.org/atheist-dating/ Ben was forthcoming but professional. “They asked a lot of questions about what I’m doing next and what perks I was getting,” he says. “They were happy for me.”
As his last days neared, Ben says he was prepared to offer constructive feedback to his bosses. He had specific ideas on how to improve the reporting structure of his position as well as advice on how they could more efficiently delegate responsibilities to his eventual replacement. “But no one asked,” says Ben. “It’s probably just as well.”
Don’t gossip “There are no secrets and no off-the-record conversations in the workplace,” says Schlesinger. If you give different reasons for your departure to different groups – if your boss hears one story, for example, while your close colleagues hear another – expect that you’ll be Topic A at the water cooler. “Learn the essential lesson of being a politician: There is only one story, told one way, and you stick to it,” he says. “That way nobody can ever say they heard anything different.”
On the other hand, Ben felt guilty about announcing his departure
She planned to give a month’s notice because she knew from experience that abrupt departures “cause turmoil” on a team. When the moment came, she was honest with her boss. “I said I was going to pursue an entrepreneurial venture in the beauty business -that it was something I’d been wanting to do for a while and that now was the right time.” Her manager took the news well but she did ask whether Nancy would be willing to extend her notice period by two weeks. Nancy agreed on the spot. “I knew I could spare the time and it would help smooth the transition.”
