Trending that caught Doug’s eye: Memorable quitters

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This article was published 18/10/2014 (4027 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When it comes to quitting your job, some people know how to walk away with dignity and class.

But Gary Keating is definitely not “some people.” If that name rings a bell, it’s because Keating made headlines across Canada last week when he quit his job — excuse us while we activate the caps lock feature on our keyboard — BEFORE HE’D EVEN STARTED!

On Tuesday, just 22 days after being elected as a new Liberal MLA in New Brunswick, and 10 days before he was to be sworn in, the former high school principal suddenly realized he wasn’t cut out to be a politician, citing the negative impact it would have on his family and health.

In a statement, Keating, who won the riding of Saint John East by just eight votes, the slimmest margin of victory in the provincial election, confessed he couldn’t face the long hours and travel associated with the job.

“After careful personal reflection and the unconditional love and support from my family, I have decided, at this particular point in my life, that my family must come first and be my priority,” he wrote.

He also apologized to voters and said he hopes they understand his reasons for bailing out. “I wish to offer my deepest apologies to the people of Saint John East,” he said. “They placed their trust in me and I cannot help but feel that I have let them down.”

That’s one way to go, Gary, but it’s not nearly as well thought out as the memorable manner in which our Five Favourite Quitters abandoned the stage:

5) The riled resignee: Jonathan Schwartz

The righteous resignation: As CEO of Sun Microsystems, Schwartz was considered an outspoken evangelist for technology, a big-shot who enjoyed using the Internet as a soapbox. According to the website of the New York Times, he was the first executive of a major company to put up his own blog. So it is not overly surprising that, when he decided to pull the plug at Sun, Schwartz let the entire world in on his decision, becoming the first Fortune 200 executive to resign via a tweet. In February 2010, a week after Oracle bought the company and the new boss made it clear there wasn’t room in Silicon Valley for two chief executives, Schwartz not only submitted his resignation in 140 characters or less, he did it via Japanese-style haiku, tweeting this deeply moving 17-syllable poem: “Financial crisis/Stalled too many customers/CEO no more.” Schwartz’s poetic curtain call earned him a spot on several online lists of the world’s greatest resignation letters. He went on to launch a web startup and smartphone app called CareZone that, among other things, helps caregivers keep track of doctor appointments and medications for loved ones. You would have thought he’d have a great future writing cards for Hallmark.

 

4) The riled resignee: Andrew Lahde

The righteous resignation: Back in 2008, after the small California hedge fund he managed made a killing betting against the subprime mortgage market, Lahde decided to pull the plug in a very public manner. He wasn’t the first mogul to have his letter printed in a newspaper, but he’s the first we’ve heard of who confessed he was only in it for the money. Here’s part of his letter that was published in the Financial Times on Oct. 17, 2008: “Recently, on the front page of Section C of the Wall Street Journal, a hedge fund manager who was also closing up shop (a $300-million fund) was quoted as saying, ‘What I have learned about the hedge fund business is that I hate it.’ I could not agree more with that statement. I was in this game for the money. The low-hanging fruit, i.e. idiots whose parents paid for prep school, Yale, and then the Harvard MBA, was there for the taking. These people who were (often) truly not worthy of the education they received (or supposedly received) rose to the top of companies… and all levels of our government. All of this behaviour supporting the aristocracy only ended up making it easier for me to find people stupid enough to take the other side of my trades. God bless America.” And bless you, Andrew, for remembering to thank the little people.

 

3) The riled resignee(s): Doug Walker and Chris Holmes

The righteous resignation(s): You want resignations in writing? We got resignations in writing! For starters, we got a guy named Doug Walker, a Chicago-based comedian, writer and film critic who became an Internet sensation back in 2009 when, to celebrate the surprise success of his comedy website (thatguywiththeglasses.com) he quit his day job with a decidedly musical flourish and posted the results on YouTube. In the video, Walker marches into the cafeteria of his old illustrating company with a boom box blaring Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey, climbs on a table and, as the music climaxes, rips open his shirt to reveal the words “I quit” painted on his chest. As good as Walker’s effort was, Chris Holmes’ resignation letter was the icing on the cake. And we mean that literally. In 2013, when Holmes decided to bail on his job checking passports at Stansted Airport in the U.K. to become a full-time baker, he handed his employers a sweet form of farewell by piping his polite resignation in butter cream icing on top of a delicious carrot cake, which also served as a plug for his business, www.mrcake.co.uk. Yes, he knew he was leaving, so he baked a cake.

2) The riled resignee: Marina Shifrin

The righteous resignation: We can’t swear to it, but we suspect Shifrin is the first person in history to publicly shame her bosses through the medium of interpretive dance and then get invited on a daytime talk show to explain her resignation. In 2013, then-25-year-old Shifrin had grown weary of her job as a video producer for Next Media Animation, a Taiwan-based company known for producing cheeky animations of breaking news stories. So she decided to make her own video, in which she arrives at work at 4:30 a.m., cranks up Kanye West’s Gone, then dances around her empty, fluorescent-lit office, including in a toilet cubicle, while on-screen captions list her various grievances, ending with a dramatic “I quit.” As you already know, unless you’ve been living in drain pipe, her dance resignation — grumbling about how her company focused on quantity, not quality — went viral, racking up over 11.8 million views and 14,100 comments in just the first five days. What’s more, Shifrin earned a guest spot on The Queen Latifah Show (we actually saw that episode) and Latifah offered her a job. We get the musical salute, Marina. You been working so hard, punching your card … Now you gotta cut loose, footloose! Sorry, wrong decade.

1) The riled resignee: Steven Slater

The righteous resignation: If you want to learn how to leave a job with unforgettable flair, look no further than Steven Slater, the former JetBlue flight attendant whose F-bomb-laced, beer-toting slide down an emergency chute in 2010 turned him into an overnight folk hero. Our favourite job exit of all time began in August 2010, when a plane landed in New York and a rule-breaking woman tried to get her bag out before the crew had given permission, bonking Slater on the head with her luggage. The seasoned flight attendant asked for an apology, the stubborn passenger cursed him out, and that’s when things really took off. Slater famously grabbed the jet’s intercom, cursed the rude passenger, bid farewell to everyone else (“Those of you who have shown dignity and respect these last 20 years, thanks for a great ride… I’ve had it!”), grabbed a cold beer from the beverage cart, deployed the inflatable emergency evacuation chute, and slid his way to freedom and history. He was later sentenced to a year’s probation and graduated from a court-ordered treatment program, earning a pat on the back from the judge.

 

We’re not sure what Slater’s doing now, but we’d like him to know there’s an opening for an MLA in New Brunswick. The people of Saint John East could do a lot worse.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca