Letter of Resignation

Attention: Human Resources
CC: God

When I joined this enterprise nearly 30 years ago, it was under the assumption that it was a growth-based firm with a clear vision for the future. In the intervening decades I have seen this organization’s seemingly unlimited potential squandered again and again on one fruitless, self-destructive enterprise after another. Thus, it is with a heavy heart that I tender my resignation from the human race, effective immediately.

My own personal growth with this company has been hamstrung by the incompetence of upper management, which seems content to wallow in luxury perks at the expense of progress. Worse than that, I have seen numerous programs falter under this entrenched attitude of entitlement and selfish aggrandizement, including (but not limited to) space exploration, alternative energy, solutions to ongoing geopolitical problems, waste management, and education of future generations.

At the very heart of my complaints is this defective corporate culture. I have held out hope for many years now that we were on the verge of a shake-up, a change in the board of directors that might send this company in the direction under which it at one time seemed destined. I am no longer able to hold on to such a foolish, futile hope. This company has set itself firmly down the path of a doomed future (and I do not speak of your half-hearted environmental programs, which is primarily an outgrowth of this inveterate self-love).

The truth is that this company will not last. Disaster is inevitable, and you have done nothing to prevent it—or even to mitigate the damage. Instead of securing a future for this company and its inheritors, you have satisfied yourself with being the last princes of a city on fire. We are surrounded—as literally as one can imagine—with resources ripe for the exploitation, in amounts that promise a prosperous future for untold generations. Again, management has preferred to use our treasure for their own ostentatious tombs. I can only hope that when your doomsday comes it will consume the last of your kind and pave the way for a new company to take its place: one with actual vision.

As the goals of this company and my own are in irreparable conflict, I have no choice but to depart. I can only hope that somewhere out there is a company willing to take up the mantle that this one has gleefully, bafflingly abandoned. If there is not, it will be necessary for someone to create one.

With not malice but sorrow,
Nobody Important