Resignation From Job Quotes

Jimmy: (in a low, resigned voice) They all want to scape from the pain of being alive. And, most of all, from love. (...) It's no good to fool yourself about love. You can't fall into it like a soft job, without dirtying up your hands.

So many amazing opportunities arise when a chapter of our life ends. When we resign from a job that we weren't happy in, or even get fired, it's actually a blessing because a better experience is waiting to happen. It's all about perspective.

If I were in an ‘Essential Job’, I would be considering resigning to protect my health from COVID-19.

That was the trouble now. People felt sad, so they got a pill. Work was hard, so people resigned. Marriages went through rocky patches and people got divorced. It was selfishness, pure and simple. And it was all justified by emotions. I’m unhappy. I’m stressed. I need to feel loved. Just having the emotion was enough justification for whatever people did. And it was useless. Didn’t people see that unhappiness came from within? A person could change jobs, but if they were an unhappy type then they would take their unhappiness with them.

Ty removed his fingers from Zane’s back as he saw the shiver run through him, and he pressed his lips tightly together, looking up and away in disgust as he resigned himself to what he was about to do. Broaching the subject could possibly cost him his job if Zane went tattling to the higher-ups about sexual harassment or some shit, but Ty was going to do it anyway. “Anything you need to say to me?” ... The visual of Ty’s nude body flashed behind Zane’s eyelids, and he spoke before he thought better of it. “Nothing you want to hear,” he murmured as he faced the mirror, hoping to diffuse the situation. “Thanks for the help,” he added, wanting desperately to get away from this tension. ... “You sure about that?” Ty asked as his stomach fluttered nervously. His voice finally betrayed the nerves. “Trying to be a real partner to you here, Zane. If you need to tell me something, then here’s your chance.

New Rule: Now that liberals have taken back the word "liberal," they also have to take back the word "elite." By now you've heard the constant right-wing attacks on the "elite media," and the "liberal elite." Who may or may not be part of the "Washington elite." A subset of the "East Coast elite." Which is overly influenced by the "Hollywood elite." So basically, unless you're a shit-kicker from Kansas, you're with the terrorists. If you played a drinking game where you did a shot every time Rush Limbaugh attacked someone for being "elite," you'd be almost as wasted as Rush Limbaugh. I don't get it: In other fields--outside of government--elite is a good thing, like an elite fighting force. Tiger Woods is an elite golfer. If I need brain surgery, I'd like an elite doctor. But in politics, elite is bad--the elite aren't down-to-earth and accessible like you and me and President Shit-for-Brains. Which is fine, except that whenever there's a Bush administration scandal, it always traces back to some incompetent political hack appointment, and you think to yourself, "Where are they getting these screwups from?" Well, now we know: from Pat Robertson. I'm not kidding. Take Monica Goodling, who before she resigned last week because she's smack in the middle of the U.S. attorneys scandal, was the third-ranking official in the Justice Department of the United States. She's thirty-three, and though she never even worked as a prosecutor, was tasked with overseeing the job performance of all ninety-three U.S. attorneys. How do you get to the top that fast? Harvard? Princeton? No, Goodling did her undergraduate work at Messiah College--you know, home of the "Fighting Christies"--and then went on to attend Pat Robertson's law school. Yes, Pat Robertson, the man who said the presence of gay people at Disney World would cause "earthquakes, tornadoes, and possibly a meteor," has a law school. And what kid wouldn't want to attend? It's three years, and you have to read only one book. U.S. News & World Report, which does the definitive ranking of colleges, lists Regent as a tier-four school, which is the lowest score it gives. It's not a hard school to get into. You have to renounce Satan and draw a pirate on a matchbook. This is for the people who couldn't get into the University of Phoenix. Now, would you care to guess how many graduates of this televangelist diploma mill work in the Bush administration? On hundred fifty. And you wonder why things are so messed up? We're talking about a top Justice Department official who went to a college founded by a TV host. Would you send your daughter to Maury Povich U? And if you did, would you expect her to get a job at the White House? In two hundred years, we've gone from "we the people" to "up with people." From the best and brightest to dumb and dumber. And where better to find people dumb enough to believe in George Bush than Pat Robertson's law school? The problem here in America isn't that the country is being run by elites. It's that it's being run by a bunch of hayseeds. And by the way, the lawyer Monica Goodling hired to keep her ass out of jail went to a real law school.

I think it is a duty I owe to my profession and to my sex to show that a woman has a right to the practice of her profession and cannot be condemned to abandon it merely because she marries. I cannot conceive how women's colleges, inviting and encouraging women to enter professions can be justly founded or maintained denying such a principle. [From a letter Brooks wrote to her dean, knowing that she would be told to resign if she married, she asked to keep her job. Nevertheless, she lost her teaching position at Barnard College in 1906. Dean Gill wrote that 'The dignity of women's place in the home demands that your marriage shall be a resignation.']

Sunday night is my personal weekly Halloween. I walk along slowly and drag my fingertips along the bars of chocolate. Goddamn, you sexy little squares. Dark, milk, white, I do not discriminate. I eat it all. Those fluorescent sour candies that only obnoxious little boys like. I suck candy apples clean. If an envelope seal is sweet, I’ll lick it twice. Growing up, I was that kid who would easily get lured into a van with the promise of a lollipop. Sometimes, I let the retail seduction last for twenty minutes, ignoring Marco and feeling up the merchandise, but I’m so tired of male voices. “Five bags of marshmallows,” Marco says in a resigned tone. “Wine. And a can of cat food.” “Cat food is low carb.” He makes no move to scan anything, so I scan each item myself and unroll a few notes from my tips. “Your job involves selling things. Sell them. Change, please.” “I just don’t know why you do this to yourself.” Marco looks at the register with a moral dilemma in his eyes. “Every week you come and do this.” He hesitates and looks over his shoulder where his sugar book sits under a layer of dust. He knows not to try to slip it into my bag with my purchases. “I don’t know why you care, dude. Just serve me. I don’t need your help.” He’s not entirely wrong about my being an addict. I would lick a line of icing sugar off this counter right now if no one were around. I would walk into a cane plantation and bite right in... “Give me my change or I swear to God …” I squeeze my eyes shut and try to tamp down my temper. “Just treat me like any other customer.” He gives me a few coins’ change and bags my sweet, spongy drugs.

I am off to a life where I can exist in a room and not have to pretend I want to be there. I am off to hear people who have something to say. I don’t even have to agree with it— I just want to know what it’s like to listen to a real sentence. I long for a time where I don’t wish the day would be over. This means leaving the company. I can wonder, or I can wander—and it’s time for me to get lost. Reinvention is hard. To let it go? To admit you don’t love something anymore? That’s the stuff that kills you. But I must run before another workday asks for me again. Things are hard so that we can start. I feel like fate is blindfolding me. My arms reach out not knowing if I’ll impale myself or secure my foothold—but all great things come from motion. Nothing begets nothing. And I’m scared, but I have the movies with me. The things we love require us. I wonder what would happen if everyone in the world did what they loved. Would things fall into place and leave no empty spaces? Would there be harmony in the work field? Sustainable marriages? Children with parents? Dirty water? Would there be resignation letters?

Our lawsuit is saying, “Google, you fucking ripped off the iPhone, wholesale ripped us off.” Grand theft. I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go to thermonuclear war on this. They are scared to death, because they know they are guilty. Outside of Search, Google’s products—Android, Google Docs—are shit. A few days after this rant, Jobs got a call from Schmidt, who had resigned from the Apple board the previous summer. He suggested they

The word 'inauthentic' is used by Heidegger to describe the ostrich-like attitude of the man who seeks to escape from his inescapable self-responsibility by becoming an anonymous member of a crowd. This is the normal attitude of nearly everybody. To be 'authentic' a man must be constantly and deliberately aware of his total responsibility for what he is. For example, a judge may disclaim personal responsibility for sentencing people to punishment. He will say that as a judge it is his duty to punish. In other words it is as an anonymous representative of the Judiciary that he punishes, and it is the Judiciary that must take the responsibility. This man is inauthentic. If he wishes to be authentic he must think to himself, whenever he sits on the Bench or draws his salary, 'Why do I punish? Because, as a judge, it is my duty to punish. Why am I a judge? Is it perhaps my duty to be a judge? No. I am a judge because I myself choose to be a judge. I choose to be one who punishes in the name of the Law. Can I, if I really wish, choose not to be a judge? Yes, I am absolutely free at any moment to stop being a judge, if I so choose. If this is so, when a guilty man comes up before me for sentence, do I have any alternative but to punish him? Yes, I can get up, walk out of the courtroom, and resign my job. Then if, instead, I punish him, am I responsible? I am totally responsible.

February 20 MORNING “God, that comforteth those that are cast down.” — 2 Corinthians 7:6 AND who comforteth like Him? Go to some poor, melancholy, distressed child of God; tell him sweet promises, and whisper in his ear choice words of comfort; he is like the deaf adder, he listens not to the voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely. He is drinking gall and wormwood, and comfort him as you may, it will be only a note or two of mournful resignation that you will get from him; you will bring forth no psalms of praise, no hallelujahs, no joyful sonnets. But let God come to His child, let Him lift up his countenance, and the mourner’s eyes glisten with hope. Do you not hear him sing — “ ’Tis paradise, if thou art here; If thou depart, ’tis hell”? You could not have cheered him: but the Lord has done it; “He is the God of all comfort.” There is no balm in Gilead, but there is balm in God. There is no physician among the creatures, but the Creator is Jehovah-rophi. It is marvellous how one sweet word of God will make whole songs for Christians. One word of God is like a piece of gold, and the Christian is the goldbeater, and can hammer that promise out for whole weeks. So, then, poor Christian, thou needest not sit down in despair. Go to the Comforter, and ask Him to give thee consolation. Thou art a poor dry well. You have heard it said, that when a pump is dry, you must pour water down it first of all, and then you will get water, and so, Christian, when thou art dry, go to God, ask Him to shed abroad His joy in thy heart, and then thy joy shall be full. Do not go to earthly acquaintances, for you will find them Job’s comforters after all; but go first and foremost to thy “God, that comforteth those that are cast down,” and you will soon say, “In the multitude of my thoughts within me Thy comforts delight my soul.

He understands the powerlessness felt by this young inspector who needs something out of the ordinary to happen so his day will be worthwhile, this inspector who's suspicious about the whole scene and has to resign himself to not doing his job, this inspector who's clearly not corrupt, who never would have accepted a bribe, who's an honest man because there are a few things he doesn't understand yet, this inspector who reminds him so much of himself when he was young (before the processing plant, the doubts, his baby, the series of daily deaths) and thought that complying with regulations was what mattered most, when in some inaccesible corner of his mind he was glad about the Transition, glad to have this new job, to be part of this historic change, to be thinking about the rules that people would have to comply with long after he'd disappeared from the world, because the regulations, he'd thought, are my legacy, the mark I'll leave behind. He never would have imagined he'd break the very law he established.

When Dad came home a couple of days later, Mom told him about the fish I’d caught and how much money we’d made. I could see the smile on his face. But then he went outside to check his boat and noticed that a paddle was missing. Instead of saying, “Good job, son,” he yelled at me for losing a paddle! I couldn’t believe he was scolding me over a stupid oar! I’d worked from daylight to dusk and earned enough money for my family to buy a dozen paddles! Where was the gratitude? I was so mad that I jumped in the boat and headed to the nets to see if I could find the missing paddle. After checking about seventy nets, I was resigned to the fact that it was probably gone. But when I finally reached the seventy-ninth net, I saw the paddle lying in a few bushes where I’d tied up a headliner, which is a rope leading to the net. It was almost like a religious experience for me. What were the odds of my finding a lost paddle floating in a current on a washed-out river? It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. I took the paddle back to my dad, but he was still mad at me for losing it in the first place. I have never liked the line “up a creek without a paddle” because of the trouble boat paddles caused me. I swore I would never lose another one, but lo and behold, the next year, I broke the same paddle I’d lost while trying to kill a cottonmouth water moccasin that almost bit me. My dad wasn’t very compassionate even after I told him his prized paddle perhaps saved my life. I finally concluded that everyone has quirks, and apparently my dad has some sort of weird love affair with boat paddles.

Back home, Chris struggled to readjust, physically and mentally. He also faced another decision-reenlist, or leave the Navy and start a new life in the civilian world. This time, he seemed to be leaning toward getting out-he'd been discussing other jobs and had already talked to people about what he might do next. It was his decision, one way or another. But if I’d been resigned to his reenlistment last go-around, this time I was far more determined to let him know I thought he should get out. There were two important reasons for him to leave-our children. They really needed to have him around as they grew. And I made that a big part of my argument. But the most urgent reason was Chris himself. I saw what the war was doing to him physically. His body was breaking down with multiple injuries, big and small. There were rings under his eyes even when he had slept. His blood pressure was through the roof. He had to wall himself off more and more. I didn’t think he could survive another deployment. “I’ll support you whatever you decide,” I told him. “I want to be married to you. But the only way I can keep making sense of this is…I need to do the best for the kids and me. If you have to keep doing what is best for you and those you serve, at some point I owe it to myself and those I serve to do the same. For me, that is moving to Oregon.” For me, that meant moving from San Diego to Oregon, where we could live near my folks. That would give our son a grandfather to be close to and model himself after-very important things, in my mind, for a boy. I didn’t harp on the fact that the military was taking its toll. That argument would never persuade Chris. He lived for others, not himself. It didn’t feel like an ultimatum to me. In fact, when he described it that way later on, I was shocked. “It was an ultimatum,” he said. He felt my attitude toward him would change so dramatically that the marriage would be over. There would also be a physical separation that would make it hard to stay together. Even if he wasn’t overseas, he was still likely to be based somewhere other than Oregon. We’d end up having a marriage only in name. I guess looked at one way, it was an ultimatum-us or the Navy. But it didn’t feel like that to me at the time. I asked him if he could stay in and get an assignment overseas where we could all go, but Chris reminded me there was never a guarantee with the military-and noted he wasn’t in it to sit behind a desk. Some men have a heart condition they know will kill them, but they don’t want to go to the doctor; it’s only when their wives tell them to go that they go. It’s a poor metaphor, but I felt that getting out of the Navy was as important for Chris as it was for us. In the end, he opted to leave. Later, when Chris would give advice to guys thinking about leaving the military, he would tell them it would be a difficult decision. He wouldn’t push them one way or the other, but he would be open about his experiences. “There’ll be hard times at first,” he’d admit. “But if that is the thing you decide, those times will pass. And you’ll be able to enjoy things you never could in the service. And some of them will be a lot better. The joy you get from your family will be twice as great as the pleasure you had in the military.” Ultimatum or not, he’d come to realize retiring from the service was a good choice for all of us.

I’m afraid that your sister, Marissa Ferguson, was gleaned by Scythe Curie today at one fifteen p.m. I’m very sorry for your loss.” The man didn’t seem upset or shocked, merely resigned. “Is that all?” “Is that all? Didn’t you hear me? I just told you that your sister was gleaned today.” The man sighed. “That which comes can’t be avoided.” If she didn’t already dislike the Tonists, she certainly did now. “Is that it?” she asked. “Is that your people’s ‘holy’ line?” “It’s not a line; it’s just a simple truth we live by.” “Yeah, whatever you say. You’ll need to make arrangements for your sister’s body—because that’s coming and can’t be avoided either.” “But if I don’t step forward, won’t the Thunderhead provide a funeral?” “Don’t you care at all?” The man took a moment before answering. “Death by scythe is not a natural death. We Tonists do not acknowledge it.” Citra cleared her throat, biting back the verbal reaming she wanted to give him, and did her best to remain professional. “There’s one more thing. Although you didn’t live with her, you are her only documented relative. That entitles you to a year of immunity from gleaning.” “I don’t want immunity,” he said. “Why am I not surprised.” This was the first time she had ever encountered anyone who refused immunity. Even the most downhearted would kiss the ring. “You’ve done your job. You may go now,” Brother Ferguson said. There was only so long Citra could restrain her frustration. She couldn’t yell at the man. She couldn’t use her Bokator moves to kick him in the neck or take him down with an elbow slam. So she did the only thing she could do. She picked up the mallet and put all of her anger into a single, powerful strike at the tuning fork.

After my dad started making duck calls, he’d leave town for a few days, driving all over Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Texas trying to sell them. He left me in charge of the fishing operation. I was only a teenager, but it was my responsibility to check almost eighty hoop nets three times a week. Looking back now, it was pretty dangerous work for a teenager on the river, especially since I’d never done it alone. If you fell out of the boat and into the river, chances were you might drown if something went wrong and you were alone. But I was determined to prove to my father that I could do it, so I left the house one morning and spent all day on the river. I checked every one of our hoop nets and brought a mound of fish back to Kay to take to market. I was so proud of myself for pulling it off without anyone’s help! When Dad came home a couple of days later, Mom told him about the fish I’d caught and how much money we’d made. I could see the smile on his face. But then he went outside to check his boat and noticed that a paddle was missing. Instead of saying, “Good job, son,” he yelled at me for losing a paddle! I couldn’t believe he was scolding me over a stupid oar! I’d worked from daylight to dusk and earned enough money for my family to buy a dozen paddles! Where was the gratitude? I was so mad that I jumped in the boat and headed to the nets to see if I could find the missing paddle. After checking about seventy nets, I was resigned to the fact that it was probably gone. But when I finally reached the seventy-ninth net, I saw the paddle lying in a few bushes where I’d tied up a headliner, which is a rope leading to the net. It was almost like a religious experience for me. What were the odds of my finding a lost paddle floating in a current on a washed-out river? It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. I took the paddle back to my dad, but he was still mad at me for losing it in the first place. I have never liked the line “up a creek without a paddle” because of the trouble boat paddles caused me. I swore I would never lose another one, but lo and behold, the next year, I broke the same paddle I’d lost while trying to kill a cottonmouth water moccasin that almost bit me. My dad wasn’t very compassionate even after I told him his prized paddle perhaps saved my life. I finally concluded that everyone has quirks, and apparently my dad has some sort of weird love affair with boat paddles.

Unconditional blame is the tendency to explain all difficulties exclusively as the consequence of forces beyond your influence, to see yourself as an absolute victim of external circumstances. Every person suffers the impact of factors beyond his control, so we are all, in a sense, victims. We are not, however, absolute victims. We have the ability to respond to our circumstances and influence how they affect us. In contrast, the unconditional blamer defines his victim-identity by his helplessness, disowning any power to manage his life and assigning causality only to that which is beyond his control. Unconditional blamers believe that their problems are always someone else’s fault, and that there’s nothing they could have done to prevent them. Consequently, they believe that there’s nothing they should do to address them. Unconditional blamers feel innocent, unfairly burdened by others who do things they “shouldn’t” do because of maliciousness or stupidity. According to the unconditional blamer, these others “ought” to fix the problems they created. Blamers live in a state of self-righteous indignation, trying to control people around them with their accusations and angry demands. What the unconditional blamer does not see is that in order to claim innocence, he has to relinquish his power. If he is not part of the problem, he cannot be part of the solution. In fact, rather than being the main character of his life, the blamer is a spectator. Watching his own suffering from the sidelines, he feels “safe” because his misery is always somebody else’s fault. Blame is a tranquilizer. It soothes the blamer, sheltering him from accountability for his life. But like any drug, its soothing effect quickly turns sour, miring him in resignation and resentment. In order to avoid anxiety and guilt, the blamer must disown his freedom and power and see himself as a plaything of others. The blamer feels victimized at work. His job is fraught with letdowns, betrayals, disappointments, and resentments. He feels that he is expected to fix problems he didn’t create, yet his efforts are never recognized. So he shields himself with justifications. Breakdowns are never his fault, nor are solutions his responsibility. He is not accountable because it is always other people who failed to do what they should have done. Managers don’t give him direction as they should, employees don’t support him as they should, colleagues don’t cooperate with him as they should, customers demand much more than they should, suppliers don’t respond as they should, senior executives don’t lead the organization as they should, administration systems don’t work as they should—the whole company is a mess. In addition, the economy is weak, the job market tough, the taxes confiscatory, the regulations crippling, the interest rates exorbitant, and the competition fierce (especially because of those evil foreigners who pay unfairly low wages). And if it weren’t difficult enough to survive in this environment, everybody demands extraordinary results. The blamer never tires of reciting his tune, “Life is not fair!

Anna Chapman was born Anna Vasil’yevna Kushchyenko, in Volgograd, formally Stalingrad, Russia, an important Russian industrial city. During the Battle of Stalingrad in World War II, the city became famous for its resistance against the German Army. As a matter of personal history, I had an uncle, by marriage that was killed in this battle. Many historians consider the battle of Stalingrad the largest and bloodiest battle in the history of warfare. Anna earned her master's degree in economics in Moscow. Her father at the time was employed by the Soviet embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, where he allegedly was a senior KGB agent. After her marriage to Alex Chapman, Anna became a British subject and held a British passport. For a time Alex and Anna lived in London where among other places, she worked for Barclays Bank. In 2009 Anna Chapman left her husband and London, and moved to New York City, living at 20 Exchange Place, in the Wall Street area of downtown Manhattan. In 2009, after a slow start, she enlarged her real-estate business, having as many as 50 employees. Chapman, using her real name worked in the Russian “Illegals Program,” a group of sleeper agents, when an undercover FBI agent, in a New York coffee shop, offered to get her a fake passport, which she accepted. On her father’s advice she handed the passport over to the NYPD, however it still led to her arrest. Ten Russian agents including Anna Chapman were arrested, after having been observed for years, on charges which included money laundering and suspicion of spying for Russia. This led to the largest prisoner swap between the United States and Russia since 1986. On July 8, 2010 the swap was completed at the Vienna International Airport. Five days later the British Home Office revoked Anna’s citizenship preventing her return to England. In December of 2010 Anna Chapman reappeared when she was appointed to the public council of the Young Guard of United Russia, where she was involved in the education of young people. The following month Chapman began hosting a weekly TV show in Russia called Secrets of the World and in June of 2011 she was appointed as editor of Venture Business News magazine. In 2012, the FBI released information that Anna Chapman attempted to snare a senior member of President Barack Obama's cabinet, in what was termed a “Honey Trap.” After the 2008 financial meltdown, sources suggest that Anna may have targeted the dapper Peter Orzag, who was divorced in 2006 and served as Special Assistant to the President, for Economic Policy. Between 2007 and 2010 he was involved in the drafting of the federal budget for the Obama Administration and may have been an appealing target to the FSB, the Russian Intelligence Agency. During Orzag’s time as a federal employee, he frequently came to New York City, where associating with Anna could have been a natural fit, considering her financial and economics background. Coincidently, Orzag resigned from his federal position the same month that Chapman was arrested. Following this, Orzag took a job at Citigroup as Vice President of Global Banking. In 2009, he fathered a child with his former girlfriend, Claire Milonas, the daughter of Greek shipping executive, Spiros Milonas, chairman and President of Ionian Management Inc. In September of 2010, Orzag married Bianna Golodryga, the popular news and finance anchor at Yahoo and a contributor to MSNBC's Morning Joe. She also had co-anchored the weekend edition of ABC's Good Morning America. Not surprisingly Bianna was born in in Moldova, Soviet Union, and in 1980, her family moved to Houston, Texas. She graduated from the University of Texas at Austin, with a degree in Russian/East European & Eurasian studies and has a minor in economics. They have two children. Yes, she is fluent in Russian! Presently Orszag is a banker and economist, and a Vice Chairman of investment banking and Managing Director at Lazard.

I don’t have any interest in helping you keep your job,” I say, shifting my weight onto my heels, suddenly tired and resigned. “But I promise to do what I can to keep you from being fired over false pretenses. If you get thrown out of here, it’ll be your fault, not mine, and not Mr. Dade’s.” “You say that now—” “—and I’ll say it tomorrow.” I turn and pull open the door. “Good night, Asha. Go home and get some sleep.” “I’m not tired.” “Then go to the park and pull the wings off butterflies,” I say with a sardonic smile. “That seems like the kind of thing you would enjoy.” She smiles back, shakes her head. “Butterflies are too weak.” “Then shoot a coyote, whatever,” I suggest. “But your work day’s over. We all need our rest and if I’m going to be a dictator, I’m going to try to be a benevolent one.

at the seat. Instead of blowing his top, he picked me up in his arms and said, "You did it?" I nodded, "Yes I did it!" "But, look son." He tried to explain, "I can't go out with a bottomless pajama — I am a man". I whispered, "And so am I". He just stared, and embraced me. And from that day I got proper pajamas to wear. Dad was a great friend, a very understanding and loving person. Time flies fast — my father's leave was almost over, but the construction work still remained incomplete. He had to go back to Amritsar to resume his duties, and my mother badly needed more money. Two days before his departure he took a loan of Rs. 1,500 from a friend, a Zargar (ornament maker), to somehow finish the construction work, and mortgaged our part of the haveli for this amount. This Rs. 1,500 brought a lot of trouble and hardship to the family as the interest for the loan went on adding. My father resigned his job as a postman and searched for a new clerical job. He did his best to pay off the loan; he but could not. Destiny's smile had changed into a fearsome frown. Soon my little sister Guro was born. While my father slogged in Amritsar to support the family and pay the monthly interest, my mother and grandmother somehow managed to survive. I fell sick, very very sick and the chubby child was soon a bundle of bones. The fair skin was tarnished and looked quite dusky. The handsome Kidar Nath became an ugly urchin. Lack of nourishment also made me a dull boy. The only thought that kept me alive was that my father was my best friend, and that I must stand by my best friend and help him to surmount his difficulties. Having found a tenant for the rebuilt Haveli, we all moved to Amritsar. Across our house lived a shop-keeper known for being a miser. He called a carpenter to fix the main door to his dwelling, because the top of the frame had cracked. A robust argument ensued because the shop-keeper would pay only half a rupee, while the carpenter wanted one. His reason being that an appropriate piece of wood had to be cut to match the area being repaired and then he would have to level the surfaces at a very awkward angle. But the owner was adamant and said, "Just nail the piece of wood, do not level it or do any fancy work, because I shall pay you only half a rupee", as he walked away in a huff.

Then she stood in front of Elizabeth, her hands on her hips. ‘Now, this is the plan.’ Thank God. There was a plan. She didn’t have to try to figure out this horrible mess herself. She just had to follow the plan. ‘I’ve told work you’re not coming in for a few days. Your sister has organised for John to be out of the house for the next two hours. We’re going to your place and we’re packing three suitcases of your things. Then you’re coming back to my house for two days, and I will feed you cups of tea, chocolate, ice cream and vodka on constant rotation as the mood necessitates. You can resign from your job when you feel ready. Then you’re getting on a plane.’ ‘A plane?’ ‘Your parents have organised a ticket home to London.

Despite the many troubling facts exposed by “Dark Alliance,” the media campaign against the story effectively ended Webb’s career as a journalist. He resigned from The Mercury News in November 1997 and never again worked in a newsroom. In the years following, Webb worked as an investigator for the California State Legislature and published the occasional story as a freelancer. He was laid off from his job in 2004 and shortly after was found dead in his home with two gunshot wounds to the head. Coroners ruled Webb’s death a suicide, to the continued disbelief of many.

That experience rattled me so much that I privately started a research agenda to see if the man’s fate was inevitably mine as well—or rather, if there was something I could do to avoid it. I wound up making major changes in my life. I resigned from my job and jumped into a liminal state, moved to work that focused on my crystallized intelligence, and chipped away at my attachments. I developed my friendships and family relationships and deepened my spiritual life. I vowed not to objectify myself and to be defenseless about my weaknesses so I could truly learn my new vocation and dedicate it to lifting up others.

You do know who I am, don’t you, Trip? You understand how serious I am about protecting my clients while paving their way into history. Can you really be that stupid to think I would take you at your word? I protect my investments…even from themselves.” “I have a wife, daughters.” “You should have thought of them before you hired two sex workers in less than twenty-four hours.” He was visibly shaking now. “I warned you what would happen if you crossed me,” I reminded him. “I didn’t cross you. This isn’t what it looks like,” he sputtered. “The girl you hired this morning? She turned eighteen last week. Your oldest daughter is what? Sixteen?” I asked. “I-It’s a sex addiction. I’ll get help,” Trip decided. “We’ll keep it quiet, I’ll get treatment, and everything will be fine.” I shook my head. “I see it’s not sinking in yet. You’re finished. There’s no way for you to throw yourself on the mercy of the court of public opinion, because they’ll eat you alive. Especially seeing as how you missed the vote on veterans benefits because you were paying to have your cock sucked.” Little beads of sweat dotted his forehead. “You threw it all away because you couldn’t keep your dick in your pants. Your career, your future. Your family. Your wife will leave you. Your daughters are old enough that they’ll hear every salacious detail of Daddy’s extracurricular sex life. They’ll never look at you the same again.” I nodded at the open folder in his lap. “I’ve already had a press release drafted about how my firm was forced to sever ties with you after learning about your sexual exploits.” He closed his eyes, and I had to turn away when his lip began to tremble. “Please. Don’t do this. I’ll do anything,” he begged. He was yet another weak, pathetic addition to the long list of men who risked everything just to get off. “I’ll give you a choice. You’ll resign from Congress immediately. You’ll go home and tell your wife and daughters that you had an epiphany and that your time together is precious. You don’t want to work a job that keeps you away from them so much anymore. You’ll go to fucking therapy. Or you won’t. You’ll save your marriage or you won’t. One thing you won’t do is ever cheat on your wife again. Because if you do, I’ll deliver copies of every photo and every video to your wife, your parents, your church, and every member of the media between here and fucking Atlanta.” Trip put his head in his hands and let out a broken moan. I almost wished he’d put up more of a fight, then smothered that feeling. “Get out. Go home, and don’t ever give me a reason to share the information I’ve collected.” “I can be better. I can do better,” he said, rising from the chair like a puppet on strings. “I don’t give a fuck,” I said, leading the way to the door. He was weak. No one could build a foundation on weakness.

He couldn’t spot them, and the minor foot traffic on the sidewalk was not enough to hide. They must have entered a building or alley. Rather than searching all of them, he let his nose do its job. Big breath in. Filter the smells. Aha. There, up the sidewalk a few more storefronts then into an arcade. The wolves that dragged her probably hoped to hide their scent and sneak out the back. Except Hayder knew this place. He knew where the door to the alley was, thus, when the steel door swung open, he stood there, arms crossed waiting for them. “Shit, he’s here. Get back inside,” the chubby one grunted. “Oh, don’t leave on my account. I insist you stay.” And to make sure they did, he kicked the door shut. The two thugs backed away from him, the one who needed to invest in a treadmill holding Arabella, who hung limp in his grasp, before him as a shield. She was alive. However, her eyes bore a resigned expression Hayder didn’t like at all. “Baby, are you all right? Did they hurt you?” The answer was moot. At this point, he was going to punish them no matter what, violently. They’d done the unforgivable when they’d taken Arabella and scared her. However, if they’d actually hurt her, or if she cried… We’ll make them wish their mother had a headache the night they were conceived. Rawr. Her reply emerged so soft he almost missed it. “I told you this would happen. They’ll never let me be free.” How utterly convinced she seemed and miserable. Totally unacceptable. “Don’t you dare take this without a fight,” he growled. The chubby one should have spent more time on expanding his mind instead of his waistline because he showed no sense at all when he said, “Bella here knows her place, and after the next full moon, it will be on her knees, serving the new alpha of the pack.” Hell no. Hayder didn’t even think twice about it. His fist shot out, and it connected to the idiot’s nose with a satisfying crunch, and that left one wolf. An even dumber wolf that seemed to think the switchblade he’d pulled out of a pocket and waved around would really make a difference. “Are you stupid enough to think you can take me with that puny knife?” Hayder couldn’t stem the incredulity in his query. “Stay back, cat, or else. It’s silver.” Silver, which meant painful if he got sliced with it. Harder to heal, too. But a three-inch blade wasn’t going to keep Hayder away from his woman. As beta, though, he did try to give the idiot a chance. Show patience before acting, or so he’d been taught as part of those anger management courses Leo made him take. Hayder employed one of the tricks to control impulsive acts. He counted. “Three.” “I’ll cut you.” Slash. Slash. The knifeman sketched lines in the air. “Two.” “I mean it.” “One. You’re dead.” Hayder took a step forward even as the last dumb wolf took a step back, one hand clamped around Arabella’s arm. Lightning fast, Hayder shot a hand out to grab the wrist of the guy wielding the knife. This fellow had slightly faster reflexes than his pack brothers and actually managed to score a line of red across his palm. The blood didn’t bother Hayder. ’Twas but a scratch. However, the coppery scent did something to Arabella. Up snapped her head. Her nostrils flared. Her brown eyes took on a wildness. Her lips pulled back in a snarl. “Don’t. Touch. Him!” With a screech, she turned on her captor and then proceeded to go rabid on his ass. How cool.

Harriet had lost count of the times she’d read a note Eben Pulsifer had sent her: “I so much enjoyed the time we spent together. You sparkled with brilliance, the best company I’ve had for months. As unlikely as it seems, I believe we can form a friendship.” She asked herself what she knew about him. They were the same age; he was divorced. Very ambitious, he wanted to be president of the university, but that was a second choice, after other avenues closed to him. It didn’t seem that he was so crude that he wanted her friendship to secure her vote. Did he actually like her? Did she like him? She called Pulsifer: “I’ve read your note. Thanks. It’s flattering. If we keep on seeing each other, either I’ll have to resign from the search committee – or you’ll have to stop dreaming of being president of the school.” “How about if I set you up for the job instead? ” Pulsifer asked. “Don’t think about it. That’s the poorest joke I’ve heard in months.” “Thank you,” Pulsifer said. “I needed to know what you think. Everyone wants what’s best. But not everyone sees all the problems. Russian missiles in Cuba, tests of nuclear weapons. Sensitive people are frightened, especially young ones. Why bother to do our best if the world is about to get blown up? Why don’t we worship idols? That might do some good. Or live for a good time?” “It sounds like you’re running for essayist-at-large,” Harriet said. Pulsifer’s voice deepened. “What happens if weapons fall into irresponsible hands? We need to develop a new kind of person – smart, flexible, sturdy – who can live with the fears that run through mass society and help others overcome them.” “How do you propose to build this new kind of person?” “I’m not sure yet,” Pulsifer admitted. “A president knows how to do things not just point to problems.” They talked on, hardly aware of undercurrents in their conversation. They’d had a brief romance as undergraduates, then went separate ways. Old feelings revived, potentially deeper, but new romance seemed unlikely, so different were they from one another. “What do you say to dinner tonight?” Pulsifer asked. “I was thinking about seeing Macbeth again.” “Let’s do both,” Pulsifer offered. Maybe he really does want a friend, Harriet thought. Like a sophomore all at sea.

When I boarded the plane, I found to my surprise that Tatum had decided to return to Norman with the team rather than go to Maryland. .... When I saw Tatum on board, I had momentary regret that I had abandoned [my other flight]. I had no desire to spend several hours on the flight with him; I had learned from past encounters that he could talk endlessly, with exhausting intensity. Hoping to avoid him, I walked to the front end of the DC-4 and took a seat on the right side next to the window; but I had scarcely sat down when Tatum plumped down beside me. He spent the first few minutes telling me how unethical he thought I had been to offer one of his assistant coaches the head coaching job at OU before he resigned and only hours before his team was to compete in a bowl game. He was offended and hurt, he said, by such treatment. I listened patiently, with the unhappy thought that there would be several hours of such conversation before I could find relief at the journey's end. However, shortly after takeoff we ran into turbulent air. The plane rose over a series of updrafts and dropped violently between them. Tatum, who was not a good air traveler, soon began to feel the effects. When he stopped talking for a moment, I glanced at him and noticed that he had begun to turn a little pale. The paleness soon turned to a greenish cast, and I had a feeling that my problem might be solved. Finally, when he became noticeably ill, I signaled for a hostess and suggested to my sick friend that we remove the armrest between the two seats so that he could lie down. I would find a seat elsewhere. He accepted the suggestion, and when I left him he was in a semireclining position with his head on a pillow, holding a sick sack. We soon got out of the rough air, and I enjoyed most of the rest of the trip, visiting with as many members of the squad as I could.

I got a job teaching seniors at an inner-city high school. My task is to get them ready for college. This school doesn’t have that great a track record of graduating people from high school, let alone getting them into college, so my job can be intimidating to say the least. This is the most consuming job I’ve ever had. In fact, compared to this, my position at the megachurch was a walk in the park—but I wouldn’t trade my current job for anything.

Resigned that I wasn’t going back to sleep, I rolled up and got out of bed once another glance at my phone confirmed it was seven thirty and instantly peeked out the window. There was a dull, repetitive sound coming from out there. It was Mr. Rhodes. Chopping wood. Shirtless. And I mean shirtless. I’d expected something nice beneath his clothes from the way he filled them out, but nothing could have prepared me for the sight of… him. Reality. If I wasn’t already pretty sure that there was dry drool on my face, there would have been five minutes after seeing all…. That through the window. A pile of foot-long logs were tossed around his feet, with another small pile that he’d obviously already chopped, just to the side. But it was the rest of him that really drew my attention. Dark chest hair was sprinkled high over his pectorals. The body hair did nothing to take away from the hard slabs of abdominal muscles he’d been hiding; he was broad up top, narrow at the waist, and covering all that was firm, beautiful skin. His biceps were big and supple. Shoulders rounded. His forearms were incredible. And even though his shorts grazed his knees, I could tell the rest of his downtown area was nice and muscular. He was the DILF to end all DILFs. My ex had been fit. He’d worked out several times a week at our home gym with a trainer. Being attractive had been part of his job. Kaden’s physique had nothing on Mr. Rhodes though. My mouth watered a little more. I whistled. And I must have done it a lot louder than I’d thought because his head instantly went up and his gaze landed on me through the window almost immediately. Busted. I waved. And inside… inside, I died. He lifted his chin. I backed away, trying to play it off. Maybe he wouldn’t think anything of it. Maybe he’d think I’d whistled… to say hi. Sure, yeah. A girl could dream. I backed up some more and felt my soul shriveling as I made my breakfast, making sure to stay away from the window the rest of the time. I tried to focus on other stuff. You know, so I wouldn’t want to have to move out from shame. Was I tired? Absolutely. But there were things I wanted to do. Needed to do. Including but not limited to getting away from Mr. Rhodes so my soul could come back to life. So an hour later, with a plan in mind, a sandwich, a couple bottles of water, and my whistle in my backpack, I headed down the stairs, hoping and praying that Mr. Rhodes was back in his house. I wasn’t that lucky. He had a shirt on, but that was the only difference. Darn.

When Brad and I had moved to Sacramento for his job, I had resigned myself to caring for my mom in her declining years. She had moved to Sacramento from my smaller hometown, not far away, after I graduated from high school. I never intended to end up back in Sacramento Valley, but that's where my husband found a tenure-track position. When we relocated, I quit my job as associate food editor at a Bay Area-based magazine, and I was worried I wouldn't be able to find writing work in the smaller Sacramento area.

Should I resign?” he asked Colin Powell, who had been the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1989 to 1993 under President George H. W. Bush. “Fuck no!” Powell said. “I told you never to take the job. You never should have taken the job. Trump’s a fucking maniac.

You will spend 90,000 hours of your life working. That’s more than you will spend doing anything else except sleeping. And you know you owe it to yourself to make those hours the most meaningful that they can possibly be. You know you can’t resign yourself to a listless job. You don’t want to spend your one life grinding out work you care little about, a sad office-humor cliché. You’re here because you want more out of your career, even as you’re facing a stupid-tight and ever-shifting job market, nagging self-doubt, the challenges of rampant sexism and racism in the workplace, a persistent wage gap (particularly for women of color), a lack of precedent for female leadership in most careers, a lack of mentors, and mansplaining men everywhere you look. You’re here because you’re tired of feeling quite so delicate, one professional rejection away from emotional cataclysm, a floor puddle of Chunky Monkey and Netflix. Because you want to get stronger and more sure-footed. Because you don’t want to be tripped up by small things like what to say in an e-mail, and big ones like how to ask for a raise. Because you don’t yet know when you need to stand up for yourself and when you definitely don’t need to stand up for yourself. You’re here because you haven’t realized yet that you’re not alone, that even your heroes think they are impostors, that we all think we don’t deserve to be here, we all believe, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that we are irrelevant, incompetent trash people, and soon THEY ARE ALL GOING TO KNOW. You are here because no matter how nasty the self-talk and shitty programming that’s intermittently popping off in your brain, the voices that tell you you’re lazy, untalented, the worst, you need to find empathy for yourself, you need someone to tell you how you are feeling is normal. That you belong. That you CAN do this. Because you can.

The Great Resignation was big. Millions of people around the world quit their jobs rather than returning to the status quo of their working lives before the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting global lockdown. The pandemic only accelerated trends that had been building for most of the century. Over the last four decades, the half-life of learned skills has dropped from 30 years to fewer than four, in large part because of the accelerating pace of change driven by the tech revolution. According to noted business visionary John Seely, this trend will continue to accelerate in the years ahead. While employees were forced to work at home, the reason they could work at home was thanks to technological breakthroughs like Zoom, smartphones, ultra-high-speed broadband, and more.

What are we not thinking about during all those hours of jobseeking, networking and CV-building? What interests, worries and fantasies might we otherwise have? What books might we read (other than self-help manuals), what conversations might we have with colleagues and friends about topics other than work? How differently might we perceive our current jobs without this constant needling insecurity? What kind of dangerous spaces might open up, in what kind of jeopardy might we put ourselves and this dynamic system, if we resigned from our jobs as jobseekers?

My first job out of college was at 211 W. Fort St. in downtown Detroit. The guy that hired me made about 150k a year and didn't really know, by his own admission, what was going on in his office (Room) during regular business hours. When I resigned, he was kind enough to send me a letter stating that I was in good standing while I was there. The letterhead (211) reminds me that as an alcoholic, I can go ahead and steal Steel Reserve High Gravity beer from Kroger, and they probably aren't going to be any more sophisticated than a Director at the United States Dep. of Labor. Thank God, they are not. That's what Success means to me. You can get your beer, and not worry about catching Covid19 from the Cashiers at these establishments. If you believe it, You can achieve it!!!

Less amusing was an interview in which Billy Shaheen, the co-chair of Clinton’s campaign in New Hampshire, suggested to a reporter that my self-disclosed prior drug use would prove fatal in a matchup against the Republican nominee. I didn’t consider the general question of my youthful indiscretions out of bounds, but Shaheen went a bit further, implying that perhaps I had dealt drugs as well. The interview set off a furor, and Shaheen quickly resigned from his post. All this happened just ahead of our final debate in Iowa. That morning, both Hillary and I were in Washington for a Senate vote. When my team and I got to the airport for the flight to Des Moines, Hillary’s chartered plane turned out to be parked right next to ours. Before takeoff, Huma Abedin, Hillary’s aide, found Reggie and let him know that the senator was hoping to speak to me. I met Hillary on the tarmac, Reggie and Huma hovering a few paces away. Hillary apologized for Shaheen. I thanked her and then suggested we both do a better job of reining in our surrogates. At this, Hillary got agitated, her voice sharpening as she claimed that my team was routinely engaging in unfair attacks, distortions, and underhanded tactics. My efforts at lowering the temperature were unsuccessful, and the conversation ended abruptly, with her still visibly angry as she boarded her plane.

Spicer was trying to reframe Trump’s argument into something more plausible—by pretending Trump said more people “witnessed” the inauguration, a figure that could feasibly include anyone who saw photos or videos of it on television or online, than actually attended it. (Remember the “play pretend” strategy in the Surrogate Secrets chapter?) After resigning from his White House job, Spicer said that he “absolutely” regrets telling this lie. That doesn’t negate the fact, however, that during that time, the White House team was totally committed to spreading it.

After refusing numerous hostile demands for my resignation, the toxic management team changed my job description multiple times to be distinctly different from the rest of the team. I regarded it as a form of harassment and discrimination.