When you have technology on your side, you can dance your way out of a job, claims a tech fan.
BC: Hi, why the pained look?
AD: I've had enough of my job...
BC: So why don't you quit?
AD: Like Marina Shifrin?
BC: What do you mean?
AD: She worked for an animation company, and made a resignation video that featured her dancing to a popular track...
BC: Quite innovative, but why go through all that trouble?
AD: I know, but her video has garnered almost 16 million hits online, making her famous the world over. Now she has also been offered a job by Queen Latifah — a singer, actor and producer in Hollywood — during a talk show on prime time TV.
BC: Looks like technology can make anyone famous these days. So how did her ex-employer handle this?
AD: They made their own video in response to hers, showcasing their cool working conditions…
BC: Now, that really takes the cake…
AD: In fact, Marina's video seems to be inspiring other people to make their 'I quit' videos — there’s one from Brenna Jennings, a work-from-home mother that has become a hit.
BC: I don’t know what to say…
AD: Well, there's more — after Queen Latifah, Y&R Israel, an international advertising agency offered her a job too, through a video that they uploaded on YouTube...
BC: Is the whole world going mad?
AD: Nope, it's just going viral. The Y&R video has had over 50,000 views and a few people asking if they could take up the job in case Marina refused it...
BC: Where's all this going?
AD: I don't know about that, but right now, the video's going places, the battle is going on in Twitter, and…
BC: …people are going crazy trying to find out which of the offers Marina will take up.
AD: Absolutely! And talking of Twitter, Paula Abdul, a famous singer who was a judge on American Idol for eight seasons, used the social media site to quit the show in 2009.
BC: Well, looks like technology is the ultimate beneficiary.
AD: How do you say that?
BC: YouTube is having millions of hits from all these videos, Facebook and Twitter are being kept busy, and...
AD: We used technology in a different way in my earlier job — we had four templates for resignation letters stashed away in the company’s server and no one knew about it.
BC: Why four?
AD: Each had a different opening, a different closing line and a different reason for quitting. Employees could take their pick and then print it out, with suitable modifications. Tell me, would this be possible without technology?
BC: Such a furore over quitting a job — heaven help us...
AD: But there have been other instances as well — there was this designer who sent an error message as his resignation letter to his boss, with buttons for Ignore, Renegotiate and HR...
BC: I’m just happy that I don't have to work in this crazy world.
AD: It would have been a funny sight to see you quit like this in your times…
BC: What do you mean?
AD: Without digital cameras and digital storage media, you would have had to use archaic movie cameras to shoot yourself, add audio to the tapes, carry huge spools of film to the office and leave it on your boss's table, just to tell him that you are quitting. And your boss would have had to hire a projector and a screen, shut out the lights and watch the film to know that you've quit…
BC: Technology was backward back then...
AD: Perhaps, but now, all it takes to get your boss to see your resignation video is an upload onto a social networking site — and a forward.
