The resignation letter was finished.
Name, address, employee number, date.
Michael had even checked the wording three times.
I hereby give notice to terminate my employment at the earliest possible date in accordance with the terms of my contract.
All that was missing was his signature.
The file had been sitting on his computer for four months.
Kuendigung_final.docx
Two weeks later, he had created a second version.
Kuendigung_final_neu.docx
By now, there were five.
Michael was 54 and had been with the company for seventeen years.
If anyone had asked him why he wanted to leave, he would have had plenty of answers.
Too many meetings. Decisions that took longer and longer. A new boss he didn't really connect with. And since the restructuring, he increasingly felt that he was managing things rather than shaping them.
So he started looking at job openings.
Some of them were interesting.
He had even applied for two.
When the first invitation to an interview arrived, he was pleased.
When the second one arrived, he became uneasy.
That evening, Michael opened happinoa®.
"I don't know whether I should quit."
happinoa®
"What makes the decision so difficult right now?"
"That I don't know whether I'm making a mistake."
happinoa®
"Then perhaps we could try to find out which of the two possibilities feels like the bigger mistake to you."
Michael thought about it.
"If I stay and realize in two years that I've wasted two years."
Then he wrote:
"But if I leave and realize I've given up something that was actually pretty good, that would be just as bad."
happinoa®
"You've just told me a lot about what makes you want to leave. What might make you want to stay?"
Michael was about to answer:
"The security."
He typed the word.
Then deleted it.
"My people."
happinoa®
"Who are your people?"
Michael smiled.
"That's what I call my team."
There were six of them.
He had worked with Petra for almost twelve years. He had hired Jonas himself. When Jonas's daughter was born, the whole team had stood outside the hospital at seven in the morning holding up a completely botched banner.
Michael told happinoa® about a project the year before.
For three months, they had disappeared into a small meeting room together almost every day. It had been exhausting.
And pretty good.
"I miss that," he wrote.
happinoa®
"Your team?"
Michael looked at the question.
"No. They're still here."
He thought some more.
"Developing things together."
Now he surprised himself.
happinoa®
"Then perhaps you don't just want to get away from something. You're also missing something that used to be there."
Michael leaned back.
That sounded different.
The next day, he had his second interview.
Good company.
Likeable managing director.
More money.
Interesting role.
On the way home, Michael tried to imagine himself working there.
It was surprisingly easy.
That evening, he opened the resignation letter.
He changed the date.
Then the cursor remained blinking beneath the final line.
Michael didn't sign it.
Instead, he opened happinoa®.
"The interview today was good. I could imagine working there."
happinoa®
"And yet you still haven't signed the resignation letter."
"No."
happinoa®
"What are you still missing?"
The question irritated Michael.
"That's exactly what I've been trying to figure out for months."
A moment passed.
Then he wrote:
"Maybe I want to know whether what I'm missing here is really gone."
He read the sentence again.
happinoa®
"How could you find that out?"
The next morning, Michael stood outside his boss's office.
"Got ten minutes?"
"Sure."
Michael sat down.
For the first time, he didn't talk about all the things that bothered him.
He talked about what he was missing.
Developing things.
Responsibility that meant more than managing processes.
His team.
His boss listened for a long time.
Then he said:
"I thought you didn't want that anymore."
Michael looked at him.
"What makes you think that?"
"Because you've been keeping out of the new projects more and more."
Michael was silent.
That was true.
But he had seen it differently.
He had withdrawn because he believed there was no longer any room for him to shape things anyway.
His boss had apparently understood his withdrawal as a choice.
They talked for almost an hour.
When Michael returned to his desk, nothing had been decided.
The other job was still there.
So were his reasons for leaving.
He opened the folder containing his five resignation letters.
Then he created a new folder.
He called it:
What I want to keep
He didn't move the resignation letter into it.
It didn't belong there.