4/20/97 - UN-QUITTING YOUR JOB (A TWELVE STEP PROCESS...)

Remember my 02/07/97 piece? That's the one where I told you I quit my job at State Farm, was selling the house, and was heading to Business school. Well, a lot has happened since then, and although I'm still going to B-School in August, it suddenly looks like I am NOT quitting State Farm...hmm...

I've been trying to analyze precisely how I was able to "un-quit" a job, as I think this has some very practical application in the business world. As best as I can tell, it's a nine-month process (just like having a baby), and what follows is a step-by-step guide on how to do it. If any one of you out there decides to try this, please let me know how it goes. You should know that I still haven't tested whether this process can be replicated, so if you try this and don't get your job back, don't blame ME!

A TWELVE-STEP HOW-TO TO UN-QUITTING YOUR JOB:

1. Nine months before your "un-quit" date, get a new PC and sign up with an ISP. Surf the net. Surf some more. Get bored with surfing, and look into building your own home page. (If you already have your own home page, skip to #3)

2. Eight months before your "un-quit" date, start building a home page. It doesn't matter if it's boring or ugly...nobody will see it except for you, anyway. Keep adding pages until you run out of good ideas for your site (this should take just a day or so). Then start using your bad ideas (this could last you for years...).

3. About six months before your "un-quit" date, get invited to a dinner meeting with your bosses. Talk about the weather, be sociable, don't get sloppy drunk. At dinner, pay attention when one of your bosses says, "it'd be pretty neat to have an Intranet site for ourselves, wouldn't it?" Agree that this would be neat. When your boss asks if you know anything about the Internet, say: "I have some experience with it, why?" Ignore that for you, "some experience" equals "three months"--volunteer to build the page.

4. Start building the company's Intranet site using the free webspace your ISP provided with your dial-up account. Use your own PC at home, and do the work on your own time. You will have to do this because in all likelihood, your company will not be ready to provide you with their "Corporate approved" equipment for this purpose. Tell your bosses to check out the site and simultaneously upset your Corporate office by showing them that sites CAN be built without using "Corporate approved" equipment (this part is critical...make sure you antagonize the Corporate Systems department whenever possible, as it makes them more efficient). Shortly after Corporate discovers that you are using your own equipment, they will send you their equipment--your site will also quickly be moved to the Corporate development server, as the pages you have on your ISP's space poses a Corporate security risk.

5. About four months from your "un-quit" date, RESIGN giving five months' notice! Two weeks notice is standard, but giving an extended five month notice is critical to the "un-quit" procedure. Continue developing the website, and by sheer telepathic force of will, convince everyone who sees it that the site is "really cool."

6. About three and a half months from your "un-quit" date, it will become evident to both you and your management that nobody is prepared to take over your site's development after you leave. Suggest that the site needs to be turned over to somebody. Suggest that the "somebody" really needs to be three people, since the site is snowballing into a big project and not everybody will be so crazy as to work on the company's website on evenings and weekends (as you have been doing). These statements may sound like jokes, but they are FACTS.

7. Three months before your "un-quit" date, your company will still be struggling to find your three replacements. To speed the process along, volunteer to teach a web authoring class to whomever they pick. Keep developing the site...if you've been working at it diligently, it should be massive by now.

8. Two months before your "un-quit" date, you will realize that the three replacements your company has picked have relatively little Internet experience. This is a concern because of the "learning curve" issue that everyone will have to deal with. At the same time, it will be critical to you that the company's Vice-President of Operations (a bigwig) sees your site, loves it, and tells your boss that he would like to see it develop into a "standard setter" for the company's other Intranet sites. Your boss will relay this message to you, and you will remind him that you are leaving in two months.

9. One month before your "un-quit" date, the Intranet activity will continue to pick up. More bigwigs will see your site, and you will be two weeks away from teaching your web authoring class. Long-term site maintenance issues will pop up like flies, and it will become obvious to everyone that they will need your help even after you leave the company.

10. Ask your boss if there's anything you can do to help after you leave the company.

11. Wait.

12. Congratulations, if you've followed all the above procedures you should receive a phone call "un-quitting" you from the company, proving once and for all that 1). Corporations are still very confused about Internet technology, and that 2). it IS possible to make money off of the Internet.

(Now you just have to figure out how to maintain a snowballing website while going to Business school...hmm...)

:-)