| Intentionally? Quit a job after finding out a coworker had been fired, and that the entire review process (which I'd been pushing for for a while) was being done as a pretext to that. A few more minutes of thinking showed me that the only difference between two weeks' and walking then were that I'd be two weeks of sad down the road. So, I walked, after a cooldown moment in the bathroom. Couple years later I met up with that exec again, and we got on just fine. Both acknowledged it was a shitty thing on both sides, and otherwise just went our separate ways. We were both polite about it. Unintentionally? My last startup dissolved after running out of boostrap funds and communication failures between my cofounder and I. It sucked, it hurt, and it was hell coordinating anything during the winddown. I was too ashamed and scared to talk to him about things really productively, and I suspect he may have felt similarly. I occasionally check up on him through a mutual acquaintance, but we don't talk and probably never will. :( ~ Basically, the notion of "burning bridges" is kinda silly. There are a few people I could list that, were they on fire, I wouldn't piss on to put out, but overall anybody that I've written off (or who has written off me) invariably seems to show up again, eventually. Do what seems right, be reasonable about it, and don't be surprised if you meet that person again. For what it's worth, there isn't a secret ledger that'll haunt you--in most industries. |