Career Suicide is the New Killing It (Honoring Navy Captain Owen Honors)

As I return to my humble job today after two weeks off (yes, a derivative of the education field), there will be moments when I pause to imagine if there is some other, better use of my time. As I prepare a simple spreadsheet for distribution, I will wonder if that guy in Manhattan at some internet social media startup is living the life I should be living. As bankers smile over their bonuses on Wall Street and holders of private Facebook shares thank the gods for their employ (and Goldman's new $500 million investment) at that left coast giant, envy floods my soul, drowning my contentment.

At this time when the year somersaults, I always fall under the delusion that anything is possible, and that I can just chuck it all. My imagination has me quitting, and heading out on the open road to explore some previously unattainable task that I should have been working toward ages ago. Nike slogans like "Just Do It" fill my head, along with distant memories of kung fu movies that inspired leaping off of walls, swings and monkey bars with abandon.

The delusion became more inflamed yesterday when someone I know who is on meager hourly wages and lacking a computer asked me to type a resignation letter for them. Phil (not his name, but let's call him that) works at a company that changed owners or outsourced or something too convoluted for my attention span. Salaries for long time workers were cut by two dollars, which, if you are earning say, $50/hour is tolerable, and if you are making maybe $9 per hour is pretty much a scalping.

"Uhm, do you want anything else on your letter, like an explanation of departure," I asked, looking at the white space filling the page. "Nope," said Phil,"Just say 'I quit'. I am done with those "bleeps" and have nothing to say. Don't need to be treated this way."

Ah, now that is power (or stupidity). Being able to just walk away. No two week notice, no sitting with the committee to explore your exit reasons. You walk in, get a coffee, sit at your desk, shoot the breeze with your fellow workers, then say, "Oh yea guys, I am quitting in ten minutes, right after I look up golf club prices on Amazon" and just walk out the door ten minutes later. Maybe come back in for a second saying, "Oh yea, forgot my pencil" and then re-leave.

All of which brings me to this piece of Navy news hitting the internet, with a certain Navy officer landing in a heaping varietal bowl of NSFW by participating in a comedic video that crosses the line into bad taste, unprofessional conduct, and violation of several perceived phobias and "isms". Upon viewing it, I can't imagine that this guy really thought he could be a part of this and have a career left. Yet, as goofy as the video is, he is no moron. So I am thinking that he was just fed up with the job, and this was his way of quitting. You can quit quietly, but in this day and age there is so much money to be made when you make noise enough to catch the attention of our media culture.

So Captain Owen Honors, we honor you with your ability to take your career by the tail and just kill it. It takes a certain devil may care confidence to do that in this type of economic climate. You are either brilliant and cocky or incredibly, incredibly sea drunk and immature. I like to think you knew exactly what you were doing when you were doing exactly what you shouldn't have been doing.