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Winding Down

It became rather apparent when she started marking off the days on her calendar with a bright red pen, carefully x-ing off the squares with the zeal of a bowler drawing strike after strike on her score sheet.

And it was quite obvious when solitaire became his most time-consuming activity of the day.

They weren't just ready to leave their jobs, they had already left. Their bodies would soon follow.

I had worked with both of them and it became evident that their enthusiasm for work had gone into hibernation. The marked-off calendar and excessive rounds of solitaire were just symptoms of what is informally called "short-timer's disease." It is a term to be used lightly, for anyone with the disease will tell you they feel great, that they wish their time were shorter.

"I couldn't wait to leave; I was so excited about my new job," said Kimberly Crowley, who was a reporter at a Bethesda trade newspaper before recently becoming a communications assistant at an Alexandria association. "But I had to be productive; I had deadlines to meet. I didn't have a choice."

Leaving an old job and starting a new one usually means enduring the standard two weeks, typically beginning the moment you tell your boss of your impending departure and lasting up to the minute you walk out that door. While many say they were busier than ever, tying up loose ends, training new employees, finishing a last-minute project, others recall each day in those two weeks as filled with boredom and, for the unfortunate few, verbal onslaughts.

"My boss would just curse at me all day long because she took it very personally that I was leaving," said Virginia Hennegan, a senior account executive in New York. Even though her relationship with her supervisor had deteriorated, Hennegan tried not to let it affect her work. "I wanted to leave with a clean slate."

An already strong relationship with a supervisor can make the last days on the job enjoyable and productive. And for others, that solid relationship can mean being extremely productive -- albeit planning for their new job.

That was the case with Todd Stave, who was an executive sales director at Universal Jet in Rockville and worked on straight commission. Once he gave notice, he said, he spent about four hours a day planning for his transition to owner of a local service station. Stave made telephone calls, used the computer and other company resources for work unrelated to his job at hand -- selling jets. "I had a very understanding boss," he said. He stayed on the job for three weeks, about the time he estimated it would take to close a sale he had been working on for months. "I quit looking for new deals because I figured, who wants to pick up a deal in the middle?"

For those who felt "forced out" of their jobs or had a less than agreeable relationship with their employers, it still doesn't make sense, from both a professional and a personal standpoint, to transfer those feelings into slipshod work. Aside from the fact that you're getting paid for working -- not merely existing on the job -- doing the best job you can is usually the best route to take.

"There's a payoff to staying motivated on your job," said David Rich, a Fairfax-based motivational speaker and author of "How to Stay Motivated on a Daily Basis." "You need that momentum going into the new job."

But just getting up in the morning was a job in itself for Leslye Hally, a marketing manager at the American Psychological Society, who recently moved to a similar position at a for-profit marketing firm. "It was hard to get up in the morning and go to work," she said. "I was a little unfocused on the job because I was so excited about my next job."

Supervisors play a major role in the attitudes of departing employees. "Some employers take on that lame-duck mentality. They feel bitter because you chose so-and-so over me," said Rich.

An employer's displeasure with a short-timer can backfire. "As soon as I gave notice I became nonexistent, totally ignored by my boss," said Crowley. "It made me want to leave as soon as possible."

Beverly Potter, author of "Beating Job Burnout," advises employers to provide "completion projects" for their departing employees. Of course, the employee is not bound to finish the project before leaving. "A completion project gives focus and closure to a job," she said.

The last weeks on the job are critical because employers tend to remember that time most vividly. So counting down the remaining days is not a good idea, said Rich. "Instead, you should mark off each accomplishment on a list of goals," he said.

Una Murphy, associate director of annual giving at George Washington University, thought her last three weeks on the job were going to be easy, but "tying up all the loose ends was harder than I thought it would be." After four years in the same department, she said leaving GW was "bittersweet. It's a mixture of euphoria and terror. I'm terrified of going to a new place."

Nearly three dozen of Murphy's colleagues held a going-away party for her several days before her departure date. Others, however, aren't treated as well: Thea Weinert was promised a lunch on her last day as a public relations staff assistant in Virginia. "That whole morning, nothing was ever said to me, and then my boss just darted out to lunch without me," she recalled.

Many employees need closure with their managers; they need to openly discuss their gripes, with the altruistic hope that things will change for the next person.

Lana Sansur didn't even get the exit interview she was promised before leaving a local public relations firm. "The human resources people were too busy to talk to me, and it really bugged me that they never spent the time trying to find out why an employee was leaving."

While it may be tempting to just throw up your feet (on the desk owned by your employer) and daydream (during time paid by your employer), it is not a good career move. "You never know when you may need to go back there for a recommendation," said Potter. "And a lot of times, you're going to a job where you're still intermingling with your old company."

Two weeks' notice has become protocol in most workplaces, a time frame some labor specialists say derives from the standard paycheck period and the amount of time estimated that it takes an employer to find a replacement. But because nearly all states are considered "at-will," neither employee nor employer is bound to those two weeks. You could give one day's notice.

Marvin Levine, a professor at the University of Maryland's College of Business and Management, said most employees are not going to "goof off" during their last days on the job. "Most workers are moral enough; they work hard until the end."