Lately I've been wondering what's going on with a young friend of mine. We were talking almost daily through instant messaging for awhile
there, and it was fun. Then one day I didn't hear from her, and when I finally did it was about two weeks later through email. She said she was
sick, but hopefully would be back soon. That was almost 5 months ago.
The problem is that I met this friend through one of those social networking sites. I have a phone number and email, but I've never met her in
person, and she lives out of the country, so going to try to visit, especially without an address, is out of the question. Because I don't actually
know her in person, there's no one else I can contact who knows who she is and can give any details on her. And, just recently, the answering
machine stopped having her message; someone else is on the machine now, so I think the number has been switched.
It reminded me of a time many years ago when I was first getting into the internet, though I'd been playing with computers for a much longer
period of time. There was this guy I'd met at work who was really into it, a much older guy than I was at the time, and he knew so much about
the internet and all its wonders that we developed a pretty close relationship. He would send me all sorts of things through email, then we'd talk
about them at work. Then, one day, he was gone; he'd had a heart attack that Friday night, and I'd been wondering why I hadn't heard from him
all weekend until I got back to work on Monday. It was heartbreaking. And back then, I thought about the reality that if I didn't actually work with
the guy, I'd have been left wondering what happened to him, if I'd said something to offend him, if his internet connection was terminated, or if
something bad happened to him, which in this case it did.
Being a military kid, one of those things you learn when you move around a lot is that people will fall out of your life, and sometimes no matter
how hard you try, you just can't hold onto those people because life gets in the way. I remember moving at a 10 year old halfway across the country
and writing letters back and forth to my best friend at the time, a guy named Carl. We made it four months before the letters stopped. About six
years later I had a different friend named Carl when I moved once again, and we made it less than two months. From high school, I now keep in
touch with only 3 or 4 people; from college, maybe another 7 or 8. Not that I didn't try, but there's only so much one person can do when other
people can't keep up.
So, people leave. They leave your personal life, and they'll leave in your professional life. In the workplace, at least you'll always know when
people are leaving, though you may not always know why. That's the way business is, and even though it's common, I can't believe the horror
stories I hear from people who either have left jobs or those who remained and had to deal with the wrath of the remaining managers.
People leave for a variety of reasons, and, luckily, most of the time it's their choice, because most managers really do hate firing people. I've
known some managers who have screamed at an employee for giving them a resignation letter; I've known many others who have told an
employee to make that day their last. Sometimes it's warranted; most of the time it's not, though. People sometimes have problems keeping their
emotions in check at tense times, and most of the time I figure that these managers have been caught off guard and don't know another way to react.
Here's the thing, though. The reasons why people leave should give you, as a manager, a chance to learn something about yourself and the
company you work for. If people leave because of you, then you know you need to change something about yourself. If people leave because they
have a problem with the company in some fashion (low pay, lousy benefits, etc), then you know there's nothing you can do about it, but maybe
you can talk to upper management about your issues in hopes that some things can change. If people leave for better opportunities, you should
take pride in yourself for training someone so well that they've been able to score what amounts to an advancement. And if people leave for
reasons that have nothing whatsoever to do with you or the company, such as a spouse is moving or they have to go take care of a sick relative,
wish them well and allow both sides to leave on good terms.
I was lucky in my days as a manager, for the most part. At one company I ended up having mass exodus, but that was because of the
instability of the company than anything I did. I wished each person a better life when they left, because there wasn't anything personal
about it at all. At my first hospital, in 2 ½ years I had one person leave, and that was because her husband was in the military and he got
transferred elsewhere; not a bad record, eh? At my last hospital I had some people leave, but every one of them was taking a promotion at
another business, and that made me feel good, as though I was training leaders instead of just good employees. Sure, I had to release a few
employees also, because that's part of the job, but I never enjoyed it and always wished them well in later endeavors.
Getting a grip on the reality that, in business, people will leave you will help your state of mind, and the state of mind of the employees who
are still with you. Nothing will diminish you in their eyes than seeing how you berate people on their way out. This may seem like a strange
statement, but no employee owes you more than what they owe themselves.
Of course, both sides should always leave on good terms; after all, you never know when the two of you might meet again. But people will
leave your life; we all just have to learn how to deal with it.