Silent resignations
Somewhere out there is Schroedinger’s Volunteer. Maybe she’s doing the job and maybe she isn’t, who knows because there’s been total silence. No bad news but no good news either.
When you ask this volunteer for a status update and then find out that, in fact, nothing is happening — “too much life” is the usual excuse — not only are you down one on the team, but precious weeks have gone by and problems are harder to fix.
Silent resignations of this type are the worst, because for me they damage my trust in the team as a whole and leave me wondering “What else don’t I know?” .
Seriously folks, if you’re not going to do a job or you can’t do a job, just tell someone. That may be damaging to your pride in the moment, but it’s far less damaging to the team than not doing something and letting people discover the fact later on. Specifically, waiting until someone asks you for an update and then letting them know that, in your mind you quit the project 2 weeks ago? Not cool.