A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I worked for a fictitious company. Let’s call it Dun & Bradstreet for want of a better name. The company was nice to me. The boss was nice to me. Working conditions were decent too, but I’ve mentioned before that I’m crazy so it may come as no surprise that I wanted to be on the radio. I became a stringer for the best local news operation in the area. A stringer gets paid by the story. The more you work, the more you make. I worked so much that my full time job was interfering with my stringing. I made more money stringing than I did from meaningful employment.
One Monday morning, I arrived early at my place of business. My desk normally had a rack on it which contained about 500 files. That Monday morning, no files, no rack. A few minutes later, my boss walked in with my rack and my files under his arm. My poor boss. Because he bore the mantle of leadership, he had taken my files home and spent the weekend reviewing them. He told me as he walked past my desk that he wanted to talk to me in his office.
I never found out what he wanted to say. You see, I wanted to talk to him too and as I entered his office I told him it would probably save some time if I went first. My full-time job, I said, was seriously interfering with my career, so I quit.
Perfect timing!
All that babble with the boss!
I had somehow acquired a giant cloth varsity letter “R” for who-knows-what. I handed it to the boss and when he looked at me quizzically, I told him it was my letter of resignation.
If I had heard of that one, I would have used it too. I love a bad pun.
I think we all have firing and quitting stories, especially those of us who’ve worked in radio. One boss told me I was fired and I said, “If that’s the way you feel about it, I don’t want to work here anymore.” After that, In job applications, if they asked my why I left that job, I said, “mutual agreement.”
When I was in the Army, someone of superior rank was required to give you a re-enlistment talk within 30 days of your discharge date. So, I received such a talk. In return, I insisted on giving my lieutennant my two-weeks notice, 14 days prior to my discharge date.