Rahat Talreja
Vice President – CSS India Operations
Yes, the topic is strange. At least the way it has been related. But do you know that resigning from a company has the same effect as a person’s death? Let’s evaluate.
Qualities of Death :
a) The person who dies suddenly becomes much greater than he was in real life. Or considered much worse than he was. Look around, and you will see the most prominent names in politics are either shown as super great or super useless, depending on which party the living person belongs.
b) Death brings along with it a sense of guilt to the living. Therefore they overcompensate by glorifying the deceased and crucifying those alive, almost to the extent of blaming them for the deceased’s problems and sometimes even calling them the reason for his death. A famous actor of Bollywood, who died last year, is experiencing this currently. None of his movies did as well, and suddenly once he passed away, supporters emerged from all holes, enough that if today he were alive, he would be bigger than any superstar, but when alive, he wasn’t even a fraction of the greatness by the same fans.
c) Victim mentality plays out within those living, and they start blaming the living powerful for their sorrows and empathizing with the dead. A man was always unhappy with his life and kept saying it’s better to die than to live like this. Then god heard him, and he died finally. But the moment he died, he started cribbing about the life of the dead. Roaming here and there over morgues, walking through doors without feeling them, being invisible to all living beings except their brethren and dogs ( who can see ghosts) So then god got confused and again gave them a rebirth. Since they came with so much misery, they already had health issues the moment they were born and caused great stress to their family from birth itself and again started cribbing about life and its better to be dead, so their cycle continued.
d) Those who die always have reasons like coronavirus, heart attack, grief, stress, cancer, etc, but that is what they focus on. What they forget are the several years they even lived. Death was just one moment, the rest of it was life. The focus suddenly is on the reasons for death. Till you were alive, god was great. When you die, god was mean.
Now let’s see the similar qualities when you resign or leave a company. You can compare with similar points above example a-a, b-b and can relate:
a) The person who resigns suddenly becomes greater than he was or considered worse than he was. The discussion revolves around how good he was by the naysayers within and how bad he was by the bootlickers within. The reality is that they existed with their good and bad when they worked for the company, and once they leave, the discussion is polarised, but the person isn’t. So futile to discuss.
b) After you resign, you have a sense of guilt, so you overcompensate it by glorifying the new company you join and crucifying the company you left. I once heard on youtube from the great investor Mr. Samir Arora of Helios Capital that: Warren Buffet decided to buy a company after reading 50 balance sheets over 50 years. This was regarded as a high conviction by all. But if it was a high conviction, why didn’t he buy it in the 49th year then. Why did he wait to read the 50th and only then buy? It is a case of no conviction since the rejection was 49 times. Similarly, if the new company you join is so great and the old one was bad, then why did you work for the old one for all these years?
c) A similar victim mentality plays out within the ones who are still working, who also are fed with the exiting employee’s negative pointers and their own anti-incumbency, and they start blaming in their hearts or private gossip- the management or boss for their grave sorrows and how they are enduring it with great pain. These people are similar to the dead than born, then dead, then born again type of livers.
d) Those who resign have several reasons like no growth, curtailment of their power pursuits, feeling worthless, primarily to hide their shortcomings and lack of sincere effort. So till they work and aren’t questioned, the boss is god. And when they are asked a little if they go astray, the boss is the devil.
So, friends, I hope you can read the overt and covert meaning of this article and walk on the path of true wisdom to reach a stage of neutrality where zero and infinity are the same, and you keep doing what’s required to be done without overthinking. Great leaders always follow this path!