Might be a worthy discussion but then maybe not either - many people never ever quit a job, they'll ride out a crappy situation until a package arrives or be laid off permanently but there must be some out there who have actually quit a job with no package because their mental or physical well being was not worth the stress of staying at that company/job any longer.
I figured for the longest time that I'd be one that would never quit a job and yet I did just that after almost 26.5 years - funny thing is that I would've probably had stayed if it wasn't for my wonderful wife posing the question to me of whether or not I could stick around for another 10 years or so until retirement from that company. What had become the issue for me was stress at the workplace, I was completely happy with my last line of work there (engineering technician), worked with a great crew and had a great supervisor but I had come to hate the company. The incessant internal red tape I had to deal with on a daily basis and the ever growing lack of respect of every employee's value/contributions to the company was taking it's toll on me to the point that I would be pretty much throwing up before I went into work.
My wife's simple question hit me very hard and it took only a few hours one evening to make the decision to pull the plug after 26.5 years - no package, just 2 weeks notice, actually I gave them 3 weeks out of respect for my supervisor. Funny thing is my supervisor was not allowed to spend any company monies on a farewell event because I had resigned even though it was on good terms - it just wasn't on the company's terms. Never the less, the old guy dug some money out of a project and had a little going away event and he probably did that because he had come to despise the same company as well.
One thing is for sure, quitting opened up my eyes to all sorts of new opportunities (none related to the 26.5 career I had had) and much better pay checks as well - I have only worked for myself since leaving and in retrospect, probably should've been doing that all along. What was interesting is the number of funerals I went to in the first 5 years after I quit - people dying either within 2-3 years of retirement or 2-3 years after retirement and 13 years later, of the crew of 16 I was a part of when I quit, 6 are dead.
So what of some of you, have you ever quit a job and how long were you at that company? I'm not talking about those jobs when you were a teenager and didn't give a fuck but an actual job that you saw as a possible career. I'm also not talking about getting laid off or packaged out - you just quit without any sort of a golden handshake, left on your terms and not someone else's terms.