If you’ve just lost your job and are bursting with scores to settle and issues to get off your chest, Tory Johnson has this advice:
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“Sit down and write a letter you’d love to deliver,” said Johnson, CEO of Women for Hire, a New York company that organizes job fairs for women. “Put in every bad wish you have, everything you always wanted to tell them. It can be really cathartic.”
And then?
“Tear it to shreds,” Johnson said. “That momentary joy just isn’t worth it, especially if you want to have a long career. It’s human nature to be angry and to feel burned. What’s not OK is to take action based on those feelings.”
This wisdom, of course, is pretty conventional. Nearly every career counselor, psychologist and business professor offers similar guidance. Whatever that bridge is leading you to or taking you away from, it’s best not to burn it.
“Other than that brief moment when you feel good, it’s really pretty stupid,” said John DiFrances, who heads a Wisconsin company that counsels corporate executives. “But it’s amazing how many people do it anyway.”
DiFrances lists the disadvantages:
– Reputation. “It’s unprofessional and it says something about you as a person,” he says. “Word gets around the industry when you pull that kind of stuff.”
– Suspicion. “If something goes wrong, such as computer files missing, or if somebody stole something, you’re immediately the suspect, even if you didn’t do it. The first guy they come after is the guy who left mad.”
– Karma. Mr. DiFrances says he had a client who told off his boss on the way to a better job in another country.
“For about a year, everything was fine,” he said. “Then, one day, they introduced him to his new managing director. It was the guy he had ripped up and down when he left his old job. Well, he didn’t last much longer after that.”
– Litigation. “It gives others the opportunity to exaggerate what you said,” the consultant said. “Somebody could pick on something you said and it could be used against you.”