It’s best to make sure farewells stay fond

Feb 28 2008 by Peter McCusker, The Journal

DANIEL Bouton, head of Societe General, will continue to lead the French bank, despite having twice offered his resignation following the £3.7bn losses, allegedly caused by rogue trader Jerome Kerviel.

In a newspaper interview, he said his resignation was ‘no longer on the table’, and added: “I stay, I am the pilot, I drive on”, presumably anxious to leave no room for misunderstanding.

Resignation, or rather talk of resignation, is very much in the air at the moment.

Such a mixed bunch as the President of Pakistan, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Speaker of the House of Commons and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, all face calls for their resignation.

All, however, at the time of writing, seem to be adopting the Daniel Bouton approach.

But, for most of us, resigning is usually voluntary and often pleasurable.

Wisdom dictates, however, that any enjoyment we do derive from the process should be downplayed, and any temptation to get things off one’s chest strongly resisted.

Shun the approach of Inetta ‘the Moodsetta’ Boykin Hinton, of Alabama radio station WBLX-FM 92.9, who announced her resignation on air with the line, ‘I quit this bitch’ and, over the ensuing 90 seconds, went on to enlarge on her reasons, complaining she only made US$6 an hour and only got a rise after six years. “I refuse to walk around and watch people on my job looking over my shoulder. People lying to me. People talking about me,” she said.

Sadly, few of us are ever in the happy position of an employee of Port Huncliffe in New England, whose resignation letter accused the recipient, his boss, of having an intelligence below that of a ground squirrel.

He added: “You will never understand computers.

“Something as incredibly simple as binary still gives you too many options. You will also never understand why people hate you...”

Although the author makes a manful attempt to explain exactly why in the ensuing paragraphs.

Don’t, however, try this at home. Not unless, like the Port Huncliffe author, you also have kept a copy of your boss’s internet ‘favourites list’, which also includes similarly raunchy sounding websites.

Otherwise, you will certainly not get a good reference.

And your leaving present is likely to be pretty rubbish, too.