[Outdated, please look at pinned post] Casual Conversation

To whom it may concern,

I regret to inform you I must resign my position with (company), I’ve enjoyed my time here and appreciate the opportunities provided. If permitted I would like to give two weeks notice, that would place my last shift on (date two weeks from you sending this).

Thank you,

(Name)

There, I wrote a basic one for you, I’ve received a few of these as an it manager over the years and the basic ones are like this. You don’t have to provide a reason in the letter, in fact it’s often easier if you don’t, especially if part of the reason is workplace toxicity like you described. Just tell them you’re leaving, you appreciate the opportunity, and go after two weeks. The last part is important as you may need a job in dire straits one day and having left here in good terms may mean they’ll be willing to put you on payroll again. In some companies they don’t let you do two weeks due to security concerns but I don’t know your position well enough to say what will happen there.

There's a lot of cultural forces keeping people at jobs. We're told to never quit from everything. We're told it in school, movies, sitcoms and stories so it feel wrong and bad to quit. Especially true for work. The Office made Josh Porter the villain for quitting a failing paper company for a senior position at a successful company. And that's a feel good sitcom

Not too mention that our work is highly tied to our identities to a fault. The classic first question you ask anyone is what do you do for work. Not too mention the guilt business put on people to come in because their coworkers have to fill in. Since most people like their coworker this feels like letting them down. But it's the company letting them down by not replacing you or staffing at the correct level.

So everything you are feeling is normal especially if you have never quit a job before. It's hard but you are going to feel amazing when you do it. There's no feeling like quitting a job you hate

Submit it or not, getting your thoughts out on paper is a good idea.

In your notes, don't worry about what your boss would think, do any sort of self-censoring, just be true to yourself on how you feel about the job, your situation. Would you even want to go back if your job was secured? From what you say, I doubt it.

My suggestion would be a short succinct resignation letter. If something about the job that you wanted to talk about that caused you to resign, request an exit interview (though if they don't care about you or why you're leaving then you won't get one, and that's fine).

If you have the energy despite your sickness, you might as well spend time looking around for other jobs while recovering on sick leave/short term disability. Make sure you will have a plan to survive in the corporate healthcare hellscape that is the USA.

Lastly, take a moment to evaluate what you care about most: your job, coworkers and boss, your career, your S.O. and daughter, your physical and mental health. All the job related ones should be at the bottom to all the rest.

Why resign? Just let the maximum time lapse and let them terminate you when they decide it's time to make a stink about it. Then collect unemployment benefits.

I was lamenting our (I'm assuming you're in USA based on writing) need-to-work culture just the other day to my partner. My mother just had major surgery and described feeling guilty for taking things easy during recovery. This prompted me to think about how many times I've felt guilty calling-out when sick. It's a completely fucked up way of thinking. People in Europe often criticize our work-culture on forums.

Just do it. It's hard. Do it anyway. Just say, "I'm done." You'll be surprised how easy it was after and you'll realize it wasn't as big as you'd feared.

You use the scare words "18th century texts" but there's nothing inherently inappropriate about that. Shakespeare wrote his works around the turn of the 17th century, for example, and plenty of those are appropriate for junior high. What's the actual problem?

Don't quit. Tell them you're working 40 hours from home. Let them fire you if that's a problem. Maybe they will, maybe they won't.

Try this.

Set aside exactly an hour.

During the hour, you have two rules:

1.) You don't have to write your resignation letter.

2.) You can't do anything else.

After the hour you're free, see what happens.

My opinion is that life is too short to spend that much of it at some place you hate. I thought I was going to pursue nursing as a career, too college classes, I was working part time at a hospital, and I went home from my job and constantly complained about work and dreaded going back there. I liked most of the people I worked with and the patients but the bureaucracy of the whole thing made the job impossible from everyone. I’m not sure what switched but I finally decided that I didn’t want to work at some place that was going to make me miserable. I’m not sure if my sharing that story helps but that’s my two cents.

I voluntarily changed jobs last year, even though I wanted to leave, I found it hard to convince myself to start searching for a new one. When it came to hand in my notice, even though I had already informed people I was leaving, actually sending in my notice was one of the most terrifying things I have done.

First of all, if you get STD/LTD through work you shouldn't quit. Your job is protected while you're on FMLA and you will be paid 50+% of your wages. Even if they displace you after 12 weeks, you can continue to be paid wages until your doctor clears you to return to work. At that time, if they don't have a job for you, or even if they DO, then you can resign.

Edit: I didn't have a second of all.

youve got every reason to do it! itll be okay, it seems like youve got every plan in place!

I've read through the comments here, and I wanted to add.

You've said that you know what you're going to say, that you have it written in your head. Between the lines there, it sounds like you might have a "give them a little piece of my mind" in the works. Something like "I'm not coming back, and here's all the reasons why."

That can definitely be a hard thing to put in writing and deliver. It would be reasonably expected to create conflict. Perhaps it would satisfy some personal need to explain yourself, or a sense of responsibility to give them information on how they might make things better for the people still there.

If those things are standing in your way (and I might be completely off base, forgive me if I am), remember that you don't owe them anything. You're not at all obliged to give any reason for your departure. "I am tendering my resignation, effective immediately" is all you need to say. If they want to have some kind of exit interview, then you can decide whether you want to do that or not - but once you've separated, they have no power to force you to do so.

Doing it that way separates the "resignation" part from the "explanation" part.