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Subject:Re: The Longest Goodbye Ever! From:Sarah Lee Bihlmayer <sarahlee -at- CONTENTMANAGE -dot- COM> Date:Tue, 17 Sep 1996 13:43:28 -0700
Moshe writes,
>After I spilled my guts out telling everyone about the project I walked
>out on (oh no, it's got me in such a state that I end with a preposition!),
>it comes back to me that I have to find a way to ease out with more grace.
>Why? Because the Israeli market is small and limited, and some people have
>more power than others. It's a quid pro quo market, and having it written
>in the annals of history that I jumped ship may come back to haunt me.
Well...if you're in a small and limited market, I'd hazard a guess that most
people either know each other or at least know of one another--correct? If
so, one way to get out gracefully might be to write a lengthy, _extremely_
detailed letter of resignation to your client--addressed to everyone at the
company with whom you had any supervisory contact--describing the entire
history of the project and what went wrong in respectfully value-neutral
terms,and explaining your financial situation and your impending full-time
work commitment. In such a letter, it would also probably be wise to
emphasize some of the points that people on the list have made--especially
when it comes to your level of responsibility for the client's mismanagement
of the project (again in value-neutral terms). _Keep copies_. This can
then serve as documentation of your experience working with this particular
client, and you'll be able to show it to anyone whose misconceptions may
need to be dispelled. I've had a few similar situations in my own
freelancing history, and even in my market (which I suspect is _much_
larger) this graceful bow-out method has proven to be very effective when it
comes to preserving my professional reputation.
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