8 ways to quit your job in style featuring the best public resignations ever

Want to quit your job? Can’t stand another year doing the same thing? Jade Craven brings you some tips inspired by the best public resignations we could find on the web.

In January 2007, YouTuber Jo Low uploaded a video titled ‘My Manager Quits‘, in which a Moe’s restaurant employee wears an “I Quit” t-shirt while dancing to ‘Ice Ice Baby’ by Vanilla Ice. The video sparked a trend and ultimately a public resignation meme aka “the act of quitting one’s job in front of an audience in real life or on the internet, which is usually manifested in the form of an open letter or video recording of a speech.” Source: Know Your Meme.

So without ado, here’s how to follow suit and quit your job in style:

1. Do an interpretive dance

When Marina Shifrin decided to quit her job at a Taiwanese viral news video company, she did so through a video of her own.

You’ve likely seen it. The clip, best known on the internet as the ‘I Quit’ video, has racked up 15 million views (and counting) since its original posting on September 28 and has rocketed Shifrin to stardom. It generated a lot of discussion – and also gave savvy brands the opportunity to be part of the conversation. Her former employers created a video announcing that they were hiring. Queen Latifah offered her a job as a digital content producer.

The video was, most likely, an attempt to launch her comedy career. It’s certainly working. Source: Mashable.

2. Write a hashtag-filled email

Fast Company said “The internet is great because it can elevate complaining into an art form”. Enter Glory, a disgruntled auditor from Texas. She sent her entire team an ‘I quit’ email full of hashtags that accused her coworkers of being fake.

Glory told her PricewaterhouseCoopers colleagues auditing is ‘for people who truly don’t have any other options’ and followed up with a two-part Q&A in response to the questions surrounding the incident. You can see the first of them here. Source: The Daily Mail.

3. Take the inflatable slide out of a plane

When Steven Slater snapped at work he made sure that everyone knew how upset he was. Unfortunately for his employers, he was a flight attendant on a JetBlue flight.

He furiously argued with a passenger and hurled obscenities over the plane’s public address system – before grabbing two beers and making an astonishing escape via an inflatable emergency slide. Talk about an exit strategy! It was reported that he was being pursued for a reality series. You can find out everything about the incident at a dedicated Wikipedia page. Source: News.com.au.

4. Publish an op-ed in a major newspaper

Greg Smith famously resigned from Goldman Sachs with a damning op-ed in The New York Times. The publicity led to a book deal and multiple opportunistic parodies, as well as responses from Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Like other examples, many viewed his resignation as a publicity stunt.

William Cohan, author of the definitive Goldman Sachs history Money and Power, has blasted Smith as a “hypocrite”, his facts are being questioned and the bank has cast Smith as a disgruntled one percenter who turned nasty after his bosses turned down his call for a $1m bonus. Source: The Guardian.

5. Go all out with a marching band

Most of us have dreamed of telling our bosses what they can do with this stupid job, perhaps with the help of a marching band.

So what happens to the guy who actually does it and lives to post a video of the stunt on YouTube? Joey DeFrancesco has become a veritable internet celebrity, a hero and a viral video sensation. The original YouTube video of “Joey Quits” earned more than two million views a week, which includes 18,092 likes and 438 dislikes and counting.

He ended up creating a Tumblr for hotel and restaurant workers to talk about abuse. Not everyone agreed with his methods. Dan Schawbel wrote about Why the ‘Joey Quits’ Video Is A Seriously Bad Career Move at TIME.com. Source: CNN.

6. Or an a capella group

This example is reportedly fake but who cares? It’s still pretty fun.

7. Bake a cake

Not all resignations are laced with drama. Sometimes, the departure is circumstantial.

Meet Chris Holmes. Instead of sending a regular resignation letter or email, he iced his message on the top of a cake in a two-hour marathon effort.

After posting the image on his personal Facebook page and was picked up and posted on Reddit, quickly going viral. Source: Daily Mirror. He was also later interviewed by The Guardian.

Want more? Check out 6 Spectacular Resignation Cakes.

8. Create a game

Jarrad Farbs decided to leave his position as a developer at 2K Australia in order to take up independent game development full-time.

He stayed up all night working on his resignation, a short, playable flash game featuring Mario delivering the news along with a very nice farewell message. “Thank you 2K Australia!” the game says at its conclusion. “You gave me a paycheck, an incredible project and a world-class team to learn from. But my princess is in another castle.” Source: The Escapist.