So you’ve decided to resign. Gee, how I wish I was saying that to anybody in the Bush administration or Nancy Pelosi or any TV network executive who has been employed in the last ten years. Hey, a guy can dream, can’t he? If you have decided to resign you may be considering writing a letter of resignation. If you are resigning from a position of great responsibility in a company where you have worked a long time then it is not just appropriate but often mandatory that you write a letter of resignation. On the other hand, if your job is to add the sour cream to the top of a Fiesta Taco Salad at Taco Bell, well, a letter of resignation is probably not necessarily a requisite.
A letter of resignation should be addressed to the President if the company is on the small side. If the business at which you are soon to no longer be employed is larger then you would address your letter of resignation to the head of Human Resources or the Personnel Director. Regardless of the size of the company, a copy of your letter should also be sent to your immediate supervisor.
What should be included in a letter of resignation? The primary content of this letter should be focused expressing your intention to resign as well as the reason for resigning. Of course, you definitely need to provide the date that your resignation will become effective. When you outline the reasons that you intend to resign from the company, it is also advisable that you express some measure of appreciation for the positive aspects of your experiences. A resignation letter is not the place to make a list of grievances or to the grind your ax. And, needless to say, you do not want to insult anyone. No matter how bad your work experience may be, you know what they say about burning bridges. You may need these people to give you a good recommendation for your next job so don’t make the big mistake of acting like a jerk in your resignation letter. Instead, make some references to the friends you have made, to the experience that you have gained. You know, crap it up.
The thing is, a resignation letter goes into your personnel file and it can remain there long after you have forgotten about it. What that means is that through your career there may be any number of people outside the company who actually get the opportunity to read your letter of resignation. For this reason, it is imperative that you maintain a professional tone throughout. The idea here is to focus on the positive even when that seems completely impossible. For instance, if you worked in a situation analogous to the Bush administration and you discovered too late that you actually did possess a conscience. If you do realize that you were exploited and made to look like the biggest fool this side of a reality TV show you may be tempted to explain in your resignation letter exactly what a bunch of brain-dead troglodytes your employers were. Resist that temptation. There will be time enough to let everyone in your next job know just exactly how lacking in ethics, morals, values, decency and intellect they really were. Instead, phrase the letter so that you reveal just how much you learned about a world run by people lacking in ethics, morals, values decency and intellect.
