How to quit your job during a pandemic

Photo by Craig Garner.

We should start by saying that not all of us need to quit our jobs. That would be quite disruptive.

Disruptive in the deeply individual sense. Where quitting means turning off income and benefits and a source of social interaction in the midst of a global pandemic. At a time when income and benefits and social interaction are scarce.

And disruptive in the global sense. We cannot all rage quit this week or massive elements of our world would grind to a halt. Food and medicine and school and (not essential but still oh-so-essential) management training all rely on us showing up.

We're hearing from more folks who know they need to quit. Who have held out for as long as they could but can't do it indefinitely. People write us to say the last few newsletters have cut close. That they see themselves in the discussions around burnout and unsustainable work habits. And they reach out because the space between knowing it's time to quit and actually quitting feels overwhelming. They need help figuring out how to do it.

If you don't need to quit during a pandemic, this one isn't for you. The rest of you who are still here, welcome.

This is the unofficial guide for how to quit your job during a pandemic.

Step one: Pick a date

How long do we have? We talking hours? weeks? months? years? We can build a plan around any of those, but the timeline will inform everything else. So the first step is figuring out when you plan to quit.

It's common to struggle with this question. Even when you know you need to quit, nailing it down feels impossible. But like many things in life, you can use sliders to figure it out. Do you still expect to be working there in a year? Is your work unsafe, unhealthy, or creating an urgent need for you to leave immediately?

Most folks who are planning to quit aren't talking hours. And once they've decided to move on, many folks experience physical discomfort at the idea of putting in another year.

Pick an actual date. Not a month, not a season, not a rough gesturing. A date. Like one that a human person could have been born on.

Not because we say so. But because a date brings a bunch into focus. Once we know when we want to be out, we can build a workback plan. If you know your last day, you can figure out when you need to talk to your boss. In many places you're only required to give two weeks notice. But this is a global pandemic and your boss might need more than two weeks.

A word about long goodbyes

If two weeks feels unspeakably short and you have a good relationship with your boss and trust them not to flip out, you can talk to them sooner. You can choose to give more notice. But be careful:

Everyone overestimates how long it will take them to wind up. And underestimates the discomfort of staying once the news is out.

We have both done long exec transitions. Partly from not wanting to let our CEOs down. And partly from genuinely caring about the orgs and wanting to leave them in a good spot. Those are lovely things. But once your team knows you're leaving, they stop giving you new work. And your calendar clears up pretty fast.

So get yourself to a last date, and a date when you plan to tell your boss. Even without being on the other side of the hard conversation. The process of picking dates helps a lot of folks feel lighter. It shakes off some of the weight of knowing you need to quit but feeling stuck. You can't control the pandemic. But you can start to make decisions, even while the future is unclear. The pandemic can be out there pandemic-ing, but after that date, you no longer have to remember your login credentials.

Step two: That shame feeling

There's this push-pull thing that happens in your head when you start to think about leaving, though. Not for everyone, but for enough people that we have to talk about it.

At first, the idea of leaving, the clarity of leaving, is so appealing. You get a date, you write a plan. It feels like relief when you hold it in your head -- to be able to put it all down.

But the closer you get to that plan -- the more it becomes a concrete thing with some next steps -- the more new anxieties appear. You usually feel it in your stomach, and it feels like shame.

There are generally two piles of stomach-shame feelings at work. You may have one, both, or neither.

One kind feels like, "The people I work with will have to carry the stuff that I put down. And they're fried, too." Or, sometimes, "My boss has actually been really good throughout this and I can't do this to them right now." The abandonment shame.

The other kind feels like, "I don't have a new job lined up yet. It's irresponsible to leave this one without finding something new." The recklessness shame.

If you let them, these feelings will put you right back where you started. They'll push you off your dates. You'll be back at, "I need to quit, but I can't."

Taking care of yourself is not abandonment

The thing to understand about the shame of abandoning your team is that it's absolutely true. Yes, when you leave your work will fall onto other people. And yes, they may be running at their own burnout red line. Those things could be true. So now what?

There's a beauty to solidarity. Standing with our colleagues is how we protect the most vulnerable among us, and agitate for change. It's a way to lend our strength to other people. But when you've got no strength left, it's okay to protect yourself, too.

Whether it's tomorrow, or next month, or 10 years from now. At some point, if you're ever going to leave this job, your work will fall to other people. That's not a reason to never leave. It's a reason to write the transition plan while you still have the energy to do it well.

Taking care of yourself is not reckless

As for the recklessness shame, well there's no general answer to that one. Everyone's money situation is different, and we are not here to tell you to "chase your dreams" into debilitating credit card debt. Maybe you really do need to gate your entire plan on finding something new. It's not our place to tell you otherwise.

We can tell you the true thing, though. The true thing is that you're too fried to be creative about what the next thing ought to be. That you need real time, months probably, to recover from this thing before you start that thing. That it would be healthy to start from a place of, "how might we design my departure so that I have that time?"

It's at least worth doing some work in a spreadsheet to see how long you could go if you had to. You might have to. The quitting might not wait that long. And it will help you to know what's what, anyway.

Our experience is that the stomach-shame feelings tend to fade in the face of a plan that anticipates them.

That Conversation

Bosses, we told you months ago to expect turnover. That people would hang on as long as possible. But that many of them were starting to get crispy. And how they kept repeating the same mantra: I'm lucky. I'm fortunate. I'm grateful. So many other people would be happy to be in my place right now.

Maybe you thought we were overplaying the hand. That your teams would be spared. Maybe they will. But if someone comes into your next 1:1 ready to have That Conversation, well, we're sorry. We've been there, and it's no fun, even during a normal year.

You can do all the standard things as a boss. You can try to negotiate. You can try to re-allocate workloads or fast track the promotion you've been sitting on. Just. Just remember what's behind that decision right now. Remember that you may be looking at someone at the end of a dozen rounds of burnout and stomach-shame-feelings trying to take care of themselves.

And if you're the one bringing this conversation to your boss. If you're the one quitting. We feel for you, too. We're here if we can help. And we hope you'll get some rest.

- Melissa and Johnathan