Sometimes it becomes clear that a job just isn’t going to work out. You might be moving, have… Sometimes it becomes clear that a job just isn’t going to work out. You might be moving, have a conflict in your schedule or simply don’t enjoy your co-workers or the atmosphere of the workplace any longer. In these cases, it just might be time to turn in your two-week notice and leave entirely.

Quitting is something that almost everyone who has had a job has experienced. Whether it’s a summer job and you’re leaving to go back to school or simply can’t handle your 18-credit workload on top of three hours a week, almost everyone has had to leave a job behind. What isn’t as shared or as easy, though, is dealing with the different strategies and attitudes that different people have toward quitting.

Some people see quitting as a sign of weakness and will continue to slog on through hostile work environments and the complete loss of their personal lives in order to never have to resign, or they will take tremendous cutbacks in their hours before admitting that they might not be able to hang on to the job.

What needs to be remembered is that jobs are not a competition, but a way to survive in the rest of the world. We do work for people in order to get money to survive, not to prove to ourselves that we are the absolute best secretaries in the world and can take all the sexual harassment the bosses want to throw out. It’s not a race to see who is the best or who can last the longest but rather a way for you to live.

Similarly, some people will hang on to a job or be reticent to leave because there’s no replacement for them, and if they were to quit the boss would be in a bind to hire someone new.

I can attest that it’s hard to leave a position you feel bad about leaving, but again, remember that a job is for you and you alone. It is not an obligation to support your employer in sickness and health, ’til death do you part.

It’s an agreement for them to pay you for doing their work for them. If you don’t want to do the work, they stop paying you, and that’s where your obligations end. It might seem cruel and heartless, but so is economics.

Many people seem to forget that in almost every job in the world, employment is conditional on the part of both the employer and the employee. This means that if the boss has reason to fire you, they’re allowed to, but if you want to quit for whatever reason you want, you’re allowed to as well. You don’t need an excuse or a reason for leaving your job, just a desire to leave. Trust me when I say that if you were a good employee, your boss won’t think any less of you if you decide to move on.

Another common issue people worry about is being able to find another job if they quit the one they have. A good strategy is to look for other jobs before you quit. Especially when working full-time, it’s always important to have some sort of safety net to fall back on. Setting up interviews on your days off or filling out applications in your off-hours is not “cheating” your current employer. It’s making sure that if and when you leave your job you have something to keep you financially secure.

This could also relate to a special savings account or fund to keep you stable while job searching, but this is not as safe a strategy since it’s never 100 percent certain that you will be able to start working before your money runs out. When leaving a job it is always best to play it as safe as possible to make sure that you will have enough money to survive until you are able to get employment somewhere else.

And contrary to the beliefs of many people, quitting your job is not an end-all to the relationship. If you just need a few months off to go abroad, concentrate on school or even go home for the summer, most employers would be willing to work with you so you could come back to a stable position when you were ready.

It’s always good for them to get a trained and capable employee back rather than having to hire someone fresh, so always keep your options open enough to include a job that you might have left in the past.

But probably the most important piece of advice that I can offer about leaving your job is simply this: Only do it for you. Just like getting a job or going to college are personal experiences based on giving you skills, resources and experience, quitting a job is a big step that can have a lot of consequences both positive and negative.

So just like you wouldn’t drop out of college the first time you got a bad grade on a paper or because your girlfriend wanted you to, don’t quit your job unless you’re sure it’s what you want to do. It’s your life, so make sure to stay employed the way you want to, not the way you feel obligated to.

If you have any good stories about quitting your job, e-mail Richard at [email protected].