The Quit Button
As many of my loyal readers know, I work at a dominant power company headquartered in Richmond, Virginia. Like many companies, it has an intranet system that, among other things, allows employees to see and manipulate much of their Human Resources data online. One thing that I find strange about that subsystem (the Employee Self Service (ESS) site) is that it has a “Quit” button. It’s right at the top, no matter what you’re doing. I’ve always wondered what it does.
Normally, you’d expect it to exit the application, but we have a “Logoff” button for that. I use that, because it seems so much less permanent. I can always log back on.
But here’s this site, aimed at employees, some of whom the company presumably wants to keep, with the word “Quit” doing its subliminal work, whether anyone presses the button or not. It’s in the main frame of the page, so it never goes away.
And ESS has the information needed to do the job in bang-up fashion. It knows who each employee’s immediate supervisor is, and those a couple of levels up (if applicable). The standard content of a resignation letter has very little variation. The departure date could be automatically placed three weeks in the future. (Two weeks is more standard, but I’d expect the company’s own system to try and favor the company.) Different letters can be composed for the employee’s superiors, and to her or his direct reports, thanking them either for inspiration and wisdom, or for doing such good work. Access to sensitive data can be automatically and slowly curtailed over the following three weeks, until all access is cut off at the end of the employee’s scheduled shift on the last day of employment. All that’s in the system, too.
It’s all doable – and think of it. If someone’s had such a bad day that they want to quit, the last thing they need is more bureaucracy. It’s like a nice, specific version of the Staples “Easy” button. Such a kind and selfless service Dominion’s provided! Well, maybe. I don’t know anyone who’s pressed it…
[Addendum: Since this post was written (originally, in email form), a recipient did press the "quit" button – so now I do know somebody who's pressed it. Nothing happened. The application didn't even exit – the "Logoff" button worked much better – and it's been well over three weeks, with no sign of termination in sight.]
June 14th, 2008 at 4:10 PM
Maybe the Quit button is there as a way to deflate frustration with the job. If you hit the Quit button hard enough and often enough thereby symbolically kicking and punching the job or the company perhaps by the time you actually print out that hard copy resignation letter you’ve gotten it out of your system.
It saves the employee from a job hunt. It saves the boss from the inevitable new employee bumps, and it saves HR from having to conduct a search for the right replacement. It’s a brilliant win-win-win situation.