Preparing to Tell Your Boss “I Quit” - Nihar Chhaya and Dorie Clark, HBR

This resource first appeared in issue #121 on 07 May 2022 and has tags Managing Your Career: Other

So knowing that, you’re going to take that new position anyway? Great! You’ve got this. Now you just have to tell your boss.

(And by the way — you have to tell your manager before your peers or your team members. You just do. I’ve seen people try to do it the other way. It’s worse for everyone.)

Like preparing for any awkward conversation at work, there’s really no way forward but through. Think about what you’re going to say, and it’s good to be prepared for a few different kinds of reactions so you can know how you’ll respond rather than playing it by ear in the heat of the moment. Chhaya and Clark lay out the possibilities. But don’t spend hours or days dwelling on it - just do it, the sooner the better, and do it as “face-to-face” as the situation allows.

These conversations tend to be awkward but generally positive in the research computing world, in my experience. Yeah, your manager will be surprised and disappointed, but the research environment is kind of built around trainees (undergrads, grad students, and postdocs) doing their thing, building their skills, and them moving on to the next thing.