Imagine you've just been fired. You're hurt. You're angry at your employers. You feel your dismissal was unjustified. What would you do?
Less than a full day after Carol Bartz was fired as Yahoo's chief executive (over the phone, no less), she offered her uncensored take on what happened.
Channelling her inner Howard Beale, she let out her own "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more" diatribe to Fortune.
"These people fucked me over," Ms. Bartz said.
She also complained that she was the scapegoat for a board of directors that was unhappy being casted as the "worst board in the country" and referred to them as "doofuses."
Ms. Bartz is not the first person to fulfill what is many people's secret fantasy of letting loose on an employer after leaving a job. The saying "pulling a JetBlue" briefly entered into regular parlance right after JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater made an impressive exit after quitting his job.
After going on an expletive-ridden rant to a group of passengers, Mr. Slater grabbed a beer, chucked his luggage down an inflatable emergency slide and took off across the tarmac.
However, not all dramatic, public exits have to include the feisty f-bomb, former CTV reporter Kai Nagata wrote an anti-love letter to his old job explaining why, at the age of 24, he couldn't go on doing what he considered soul-sucking work.
But soon after the media backlash to his public adieu, Mr. Nagata took a step back and apologized.
"I want to apologize to my former colleagues and employers for the drama. I know I pulled the rug out, and I'm sorry. I hope we can reconcile," he wrote on Sept. 1.
Like Mr. Nagata and Mr. Slater, Ms. Bartz's response may be bold, but is it wise? Should she be applauded for standing up for herself? Or will she regret her colourful comments once her anger subsides?
Tell us: Is it possible to leave a job gracefully when you feel you've been treated unfairly?
Wency Leung