Utterly Spiteful Sower

The Sin of Resigning

You would have learnt over the last few weeks that I resigned my appointment from a cable company in early June and in previous blogs I highlighted reasons why I had to go.

This is all documented the listed blogs

The man and his institutions
Resignation?
No Sir! We would not take the rap
The psychology of resignation
The context of career development

However, I will entertain you to a commentary of events that took place after my last review of the situation in the next few blogs.

Meanwhile, it transpired that my boss who did nothing in the spirit and letter of developing his team decidedly held me to the letter of my notice period, details of our exchanged correspondence and the unfortunate impotence of our Human Resources department in conflict resolution would appear hereafter.

So yesterday, after so much angst expressed by colleagues who felt concerned that a replacement was not being found for my role, I called them into a meeting to help me decide the best way to address this issue.

We finally decided on clearly delineating what is left to be done and highlighting that fact to my boss. I reproduce the complete communication below, you might recognise some of the jargon or even the company this pertains to, if you do, you at least know what enquiries you have to make before joining that department.

My Concern about Handover issues

Sir,

For all intents and purposes, I think I need to address the following basically for your information.

My last working day is the 30^th of July 2004 and there are quite a number of projects and activities that I am involved in and trying to complete, especially those just recently raised.

These activities concern the following:

• The EuroPC for ECC – Completion of the application repackaging set to be deployed on the client – Remedy, Contivity VPN Client testing and refining other applications after the first testing is performed, hopefully soon.
• Repackaging of the Q.mail client, configured for the replacement of the existing server and a client version upgrade.
• Repackaging of the Clarify eFrontOffice client SR1.8 – this would deal with outstanding Derby issues, remove the development tools and conduct the cache cleaning in a better managed way.

Furthermore, I had ideas for the SC&D which would have been in the pipeline execution in the next few months.

• Working on Mozart 2.0 – refining the image, Java Runtime and Acrobat Reader updates, probable Office 2003 upgrade.
• Upgrade to SMS 2003

Whilst, I would strive to complete these outstanding issues, I am not aware of anyone who would carry on any of these functions after I have left, it would be unfortunate that after having given what is effectively 7 weeks notice, this issue has yet to be properly addressed. It is unlikely that I can fulfil the outstanding issues, conduct a handover and fully document SC&D by the time I leave.

The functions PEBO covers are just the operation of the SMS environment.

Finally, considering how understanding and favourable you have been towards my departure, I have now taken the liberty to withdraw the offer made in my resignation letter to help out whoever takes over my role after I have left.

I trust I have duly acquainted you with the situation at hand.

Thanks and regards.

His reply

Hi Akin,

Thanks for sharing your concern for SC&D after your departure, I am sure the company will survive.

Best regards

My response

Sir,

That is fine with me, I never considered myself indispensable. It has been a pleasure working for you.

My best regards

His final response

Akin,

All the best wishes.

Best regards

Commentary

I did forward this to HR just to highlight the fact that our relationship had deteriorated to such a level that one would really wonder what might have gone on before now.

The whole episode speaks volumes, but hey! I only have 8 more days of working for a man who in not coming to terms that I had resigned has mismanaged what could have been the most amicable parting and it only shows that my 2 years of service to him amounted to nothing when the reckoning was made.

It is a good thing I jumped; I wonder what would have happened if I was pushed, I probably would not be here to tell the tale.