Resignation at Work

I have been working a lot lately with organizations and, in particular, with their cultures and attempts to change them. Given my growing interest in the culture of aging, I have been paying a lot of attention to what people say about how the ‘retirement’ process works, particularly in the Public Service and other large bureaucracies. The gist of what I hear is that people do their darnedest to ‘get away’ from all the bullshit, while still ‘hanging on’ for dear life until they qualify for their promised pension. I have heard almost no one say they don’t want to leave as soon as they can, and the sooner, the better. What a sad comment on the institutional culture when we consider that these people have given the better part of their lives to an organization they can’t wait to leave.