In the past six months I have witnessed an interesting phenomenon: friends and colleagues quitting their jobs with no immediate plans to continue working. This is especially confusing given that every morning I awake to the news that the dire state of the world’s finances is slightly worse than it was the day before. On reflection, perhaps there is more to life than earning a living.
One friend left his revered management position to spend more time with his infant daughter and wife, another to pursue a newly penned list of adventures and the last to spend more time with her boat (the Thick-of-it style euphemism my employers used to describe her departure). In all three cases, they are much happier for having made the decision to work on their terms, or for the time being, not at all.
To me it’s sad that all three chose to depart the working world on account of the actions (or inactions) of their respective management. In my relatively brief period of professional life I have found that companies are most successful when employers and employees work for mutual benefit, and above all they are open and honest with one another. There’s really not much more to it than that.
