Exit Interview Quotes

There should be exit interviews for dating. Just a brief evaluation of the highlights and challenges of the relationship, and maybe a few questions like “So what exactly was it that motivated you to dump me?

You try so hard to be good at things you don’t actually want to do. You never ask yourself if maybe you should just stop doing them.

There are no perfect life plan formulas. It’s a roller coaster with various exit ramps.

Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.

My family had two settings: Everything Is Fine, and Screaming Fights with Lasting Damage.

If there was an exit interview on the hour of our death I would like to be asked the question, "Was it worth it?" To which my response would be, "Yes, emphatically yes...but just barely.

good luck and please do read those books, watch The Office, and believe in the people who disagree with you…Lying is a disgusting habit, and it flows through the conversations here like it’s our own currency. The cultural disease here is what we should be curing before we try to tackle obesity…I mean no ill will towards you, since you believe in what I was doing and hoped I would succeed at Theranos. I feel like I owe you this bad attempt at an exit interview since we have no HR to officially record it.

So there I am standing in the wings. All atremble with these two little pills in my pocket … And I took them out and looked at them and said, ‘I’m going to do this on my own. I am not going to take any pills. I don’t want any aid from anybody but God,’ and I just flung them across the entire backstage and strode out, and that’s the last thing I remember until the end of the concert when I saw the entire audience there, standing and cheering and screaming. But from the time of my entrance until the time of my last exit I remember nothing. There’s nothing I can tell you. It was all a dream.

Kovner lists risk management as the key to successful trading; he always decides on an exit point before he puts on a trade. He also stresses the need for evaluating risk on a portfolio basis rather than viewing the risk of each trade independently. This is absolutely critical when one holds positions that are highly correlated, since the overall portfolio risk is likely to be much greater than the trader realizes.

Here is how I got every single one of those jobs: I sat across a desk from a man old enough to be my father and I enveloped us both in a force field of earnest competence, the kind I’d been practicing since kindergarten with my hand permanently raised in class, the kind that says I will die before I let you down, and at some point in each of these interviews the man pronounced me “impressive” and gave me a job and the prophecy came true. I never let him down.

I never fail, because I never take on anything I’m truly unsure I can handle; even when it looks as if I were stretching myself, I keep a secret 10 percent in reserve. So if I take this job and I blow it, will it mean I destroyed myself out of hubris, and deserve whatever misery comes my way?

I start to worry I’ve become the thing Calista once warned me about: someone who wants a promotion too much. “They can smell it on you, and if they can smell it, they won’t give it to you,” she said. “It’s not fair, but it’s true.” I need to pretend that external recognition is just a cute little extra bonus and that consistently delivering world-changing greatness for Amazon’s benefit is its own intrinsic reward. But everyone I know here is trying to get promoted. True, most of us grew up as hyper-achievers. Amazon didn’t create our yearning for recognition, but it exploits it for maximum return by holding the rat pellet just out of reach and then frowning on any rat who looks hungry.

So, absent the chance to make every job applicant work as hard as a college applicant, is there some quick, clever, cheap way of weeding out bad employees before they are hired? Zappos has come up with one such trick. You will recall from the last chapter that Zappos, the online shoe store, has a variety of unorthodox ideas about how a business can be run. You may also recall that its customer-service reps are central to the firm’s success. So even though the job might pay only $11 an hour, Zappos wants to know that each new employee is fully committed to the company’s ethos. That’s where “The Offer” comes in. When new employees are in the onboarding period—they’ve already been screened, offered a job, and completed a few weeks of training—Zappos offers them a chance to quit. Even better, quitters will be paid for their training time and also get a bonus representing their first month’s salary—roughly $2,000—just for quitting! All they have to do is go through an exit interview and surrender their eligibility to be rehired at Zappos. Doesn’t that sound nuts? What kind of company would offer a new employee $2,000 to not work? A clever company. “It’s really putting the employee in the position of ‘Do you care more about money or do you care more about this culture and the company?’ ” says Tony Hsieh, the company’s CEO. “And if they care more about the easy money, then we probably aren’t the right fit for them.” Hsieh figured that any worker who would take the easy $2,000 was the kind of worker who would end up costing Zappos a lot more in the long run. By one industry estimate, it costs an average of roughly $4,000 to replace a single employee, and one recent survey of 2,500 companies found that a single bad hire can cost more than $25,000 in lost productivity, lower morale, and the like. So Zappos decided to pay a measly $2,000 up front and let the bad hires weed themselves out before they took root. As of this writing, fewer than 1 percent of new hires at Zappos accept “The Offer.

…for now I float in a sea of undifferentiated information and pray no one asks me something I should know, but don’t. That’s how I feel for weeks on end, actually, only I’m not floating on the water, I’ve been shot from a cannon to the bottom of the sea and have to make my way back to the surface, mostly unassisted, and weighted down by salt and seaweed, by figuring out which starfish and shells and old cannonballs I need, and how they fit together. It’s not that I’m being hazed, my coworkers are kind and helpful, but they are above the surface, so to reach one I have to stretch my arm up blindly and hope I’m grabbing at the right person, and that they have time to come hang with me under the sea. And even when they do, I can tell from their eyes that they don’t really have time. That every minute spent orienting me is one where something else might be blowing up, just out of sight. And Arjun is right, everyone here is operating on partial information, no one really knows what the fuck is going on.

Music brought the war in Vietnam right into our bedrooms. Songs we heard from America made us interested in politics; they were history lessons in a palatable, exciting form. We demonstrated against the Vietnam and Korean wars, discussed sexual liberation, censorship and pornography and read books by Timothy Leary, Hubert Selby Jr (Last Exit to Brooklyn) and Marshall McLuhan because we'd heard all these people referred to in songs or interviews with musicians. [...] Music, politics, literature, art all crossed over and fed into each other. There were some great magazines around too [...] Even though we couldn’t afford to travel, we felt connected to other countries because ideas and events from those places reached us through music and magazines.

When I interviewed one of the mathematicians in the study, he asked me if I knew how to define a function. I confessed that my knowledge was a little rusty, and that the definition I remembered memorizing in college didn’t spring immediately to mind, something about variables being related to the values of other variables. “But can you explain the basic concept in your own words?” he persisted. I stammered and began looking for the nearest exit. At that point, he tossed a pen in my direction, which I instinctively reached out to catch. “How did you catch that?” he asked. “I opened my hand and then closed it around the pen at the right moment.” “But how did you know when to open your hand and when to close it?” he pressed. After a little struggling, and some additional questioning from the mathematician, I stumbled to the conclusion that I predicted where the pen would be by observing its flight. “That’s a function,” he exploded. “You took information about where it was at this point, this point, and this point, and predicted when it would arrive in your hand.” He then turned to the board and wrote a formula. “I could have explained it this way, and that’s the way it’s ordinarily done. But when we do it that way, students just memorize formulas or definitions and really don’t grasp what’s involved in the concept.

THE NIGHTGOWN was only the first of the garments in the box. There were seven nightgowns, in fact—one for each day of the week—of delicate silk, lovely georgette, and beautiful tiffany. As Alexandra pulled them out, she draped them on the bed. She’d never seen a nightgown that wasn’t white, but these were almond and pale blush pink, powder blue and soft peach, with delicate edgings of lace and intricate, exquisite embroidery. “They’re stunning,” she said. “Madame Rodale has nothing like them in her book of fashion plates.” Tris just grinned. He seemed different tonight. More relaxed, less worried. She didn’t know what had prompted his sudden good humor, but she didn’t want to question it. She’d rather enjoy it instead. After the afternoon she’d had—starting with Elizabeth’s letter and ending with three fruitless interviews—she wasn’t about to risk the one thing that seemed to be going right. “Are you going to try one on for me?” he asked. Her face heated. He chose a nightgown off the bed, palest lavender with black lace and violet embroidery. “This one,” he said, handing it to her. “Do you require assistance with your dress?” “Just the buttons,” she said, and turned to let him unfasten them. She shifted the nightgown in her hands. It felt so light. “There,” he said when the back of her green dress gaped open. He kissed her softly on the nape of her neck, then settled on one of the striped chairs, sipping from the glass of port he’d brought upstairs with him. “Use the dressing room. I’ll be waiting.” In the dressing room, she shakily stripped out of her frock, chemise, shoes, and stockings, then dropped the nightgown over her head and smoothed it down over her hips. The fabric whispered against her legs. She turned to see herself in the looking glass. Sweet heaven. She’d never imagined nightgowns like this existed. Her nightgowns all had high collars that tied at the throat. This one had a wide, low neckline. Her nightgowns all had long, full sleeves. This one had tiny puffed sleeves that began halfway off her shoulders. Her nightgowns were made of yards and yards of thick, billowing fabric. This one was a slender column that left no curve to the imagination. It was wicked. “Are you ready yet?” Tris called. Alexandra swallowed hard, reminding herself that he’d seen her in less clothing. And he was her husband. Still, wearing the nightgown for him somehow felt more intimate than wearing nothing at all. She was as ready as she’d ever be. Drawing a deep breath, she exited the dressing room, walked quickly through the sitting room, and paused in the bedroom’s doorway. She dropped her gaze, then raised her lashes, giving him the look—the one Juliana had said would make men fall at her feet. Judging from the expression on Tris’s face, it was a good thing he was sitting. The way he looked at her made her heartbeat accelerate. He rose and moved toward her. She met him halfway, licking suddenly dry lips. “Will you kiss me?” she asked softly, reaching up to sweep that always unruly lock off his forehead. It worked this time. He kissed her but good.

Stay Interviews There is a growing trend toward conducting employee-stay interviews in place of, or in addition to, exit interviews. This is primarily due to unsuccessful attempts to gather trustworthy feedback from people on their way out the door. It turns out that current employees are much more likely to give human resources the time of day and even sit to talk about the work environment. Also, they are more likely to provide balanced feedback.

Hire not on cultural fit, but on cultural contribution. When leaders prize cultural fit, they end up hiring people who think in similar ways. Originality comes not from people who match the culture, but from those who enrich it. Before interviews, identify the diverse backgrounds, skill sets, and personality traits that are currently missing from your culture. Then place a premium on those attributes in the hiring process. 7. Shift from exit interviews to entry interviews. Instead of waiting to ask for ideas until employees are on their way out the door, start seeking their insights when they first arrive. By sitting down with new hires during onboarding,

Is every woman you see someone designed to spend her life catering to someone else’s needs? This is the moment it finally truly lands that I will never outrun my gender. Of course on some level I’ve known that for years, but never so starkly. I will never overcome the belief that the presence of women means a slower, softer, weaker Amazon. There is nothing I can do to make these men any smarter or less blind, because they’re the norm and I’m a deviation. Or a deviant, a kidless mom, an outlier.

I try to see him through the eyes of one of the newer VPs, or a Facebook friend who thinks he should be in jail for unspecified crimes. I know he’s wealthy to a degree I can’t even conceptualize. I know his company runs on fear and superhuman expectations. I know he’s the architect of practices that have harmed a lot of people and that he has done almost nothing with his unfathomable wealth to mitigate that harm. And yet I’ve been here too long to see him as the planet-owning villain or ominous cartoon character the world at large does. He’s just the guy who runs this company and has made some decisions I support and an increasingly large number that I don’t.

Asked about how he got into pictures, Brennan replied to a Columbia University interviewer, “I got in purely from hunger. I went over the back fence. Nobody took me by the hand. I worked in this atmosphere and from there on, which many others did. Cooper did, too, the same thing, you know, and Gable, and several of them worked that way.” Walter became a tramp, drifting from one studio to another, with casting directors pointing out the exit as Walter wondered what to do next.

All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts . . .   —William Shakespeare, As You Like It

if the product category is emerging, with decades’ more growth ahead of it, making a strategic move within the market rather than exiting the market might be worthwhile—even if competition is intense and substitutes exist. The early years of the smartphone and the tablet computer illustrate this line of thinking perfectly.

Shift from exit interviews to entry interviews. Instead of waiting to ask for ideas until employees are on their way out the door, start seeking their insights when they first arrive.

I also think about what to say in the exit interview. I know not everyone gets invited to do one in person, that a lot of employees just get a form to fill out. But I’m in the ninety-eighth fucking percentile. I’ve worked across five different organizations and had a hand in hiring many hundreds of people. Plus I’m a woman in leadership, that population Amazon keeps saying it’s trying to grow. Of course I’ll get a real exit interview, right?

At AMG and in my liberal arts background, ambition is considered uncool and even a little embarrassing. I’m supposed to see work as a necessary evil. But I can’t help it. I like to work, and I want my work to leave a wake.

I love playing a board game called What Shall I Be? The Exciting Game of Career Girls, in which you draw cards qualifying or disqualifying you for six possible outcomes: model, actress, nurse, teacher, stewardess, and ballerina. (“You are overweight” is the worst card to draw, because it alone eliminates two-thirds of the options.)

And just so we’re clear: if gender discrimination did exist at Amazon, Nick would be leading the charge against it, because he is—yes—the father of a daughter. But it doesn’t, because it can’t, because science.

Arthur is twinkly and avuncular and calls me brilliant and inspiring and other things the lonely daughter inside me is dying to hear.

There’s a saying in tech that some people are builders and some are operators.

Yessssss. I-5 is backed up, a secret relief. It means more time to prepare myself for the maelstrom, not to mention to enjoy the BMW John surprised me with on my birthday last year. I’ve always appreciated a nice car, but I was never a car person until I drove this one for the first time. Maybe this is how it feels when a woman who never cared much for babies meets her baby and falls in love at first sight. It’s just so heavy and solid and safe, like having a really good dad.

Shared values, whether codified or uncodified, tie an organization together. A firm should determine its own basic set of nonnegotiable values, the minimal constraints. Leaders, not just boards of directors, should look to the meaning of a firm’s principles to define corporate ethics and guide employees’ actions, and try to determine objective ways in which to check deviations from the original meaning (for example, attrition rates, independent client interviews, independent exit interviews with departing employees).9

Please view my tv interview per Exit Zero http://www.my9nj.com/story/24682220/r...

Another great source of intel came from contacting employees who had quit or been fired. I often thought of myself as Silicon Valley’s HR department, conducting exit interviews right as people were ready to spill. It was time-consuming, but the effort paid off over and over. Remember: People always like to tell their side of the story.