Should I really join the Great Resignation?

To begin with, Trudy’s resignation was an accident, a slip of the tongue at an office Christmas party, but now she has to make a decision. By Christine Manby

(Illustration by Tom Ford)

After I accidentally handed in my resignation at the office Christmas party, my boss Bella gave me a week to think about it. I had, after all, written the resignation letter early in March 2020, when the world was a very different place. “Did I still feel the same?” Bella asked. I wasn’t sure. The landscape was, once again, changing rapidly. Back in the middle of November, it didn’t seem unrealistic to be making plans for a very different and much more exciting 2022. By the time December rolled around, we were back to wondering whether we should block up our chimneys, lest Santa arrive bearing omicron.

With so much in flux, my mother announced that, together with my brother and sister-in-law, she had decided to do Christmas early in anticipation of another winter lockdown.

“But Dominic Raab just told Andrew Marr that we’re going to have a great Christmas,” I reasoned on 5 December.

“Exactly,” said Mum. “Whatever those people say, they mean the opposite.”

“Those people” used to be my mother’s political party of choice.

“We’re doing Christmas next Saturday,” Mum concluded.

It was less an invitation than a three-line whip, leaving me wondering when I would get my Christmas shopping done before I had to drive down to my brother’s house, where his long-suffering wife Helena would be serving turkey with all the trimmings.

“Assuming she can get all the trimmings. You can’t get a pig in a blanket round here for love nor money. Bloody Brexit…” said Mum. She’s long since forgotten that she voted for it. One of the benefits of old age, I suppose.

While I was packing the night before, I got a text from Helena herself: “Please take a lateral flow test before you leave London. And if there are any pigs in blankets in your local Waitrose, three packets would be much appreciated.”

“I’ll stop off at the service station with the mini-Waitrose on my way,” I texted back.

“No!” Helena shot back at once. “You’re not to go anywhere between getting a negative lateral flow test and arriving here. You need to go to Waitrose before you test, NOT after.”

I wasn’t sure how quickly omicron incubated but I was pretty sure it took longer than a couple of hours. Still, I went to Waitrose first and scored the sausages before I tested.

As I watched the extraction fluid creep up the test window, I’m ashamed to say I had a moment when I wondered whether it would be such a bad thing to get two lines and have to stay home. Perhaps I should just tell Helena that’s what had happened. How would she ever know? She’d know because she insisted that I photograph the test I’d just taken, so she could see the result for herself. She could teach Test And Trace a thing or two.

So I passed the test and Christmas was on. Within five minutes of arriving at my brother’s house, I would not have guessed that it wasn’t really Christmas at all. The atmosphere was exactly the same as usual. My mother sat in the best chair in the sitting room, smiling indulgently at her grandchildren, who did not look up from their tech when I arrived, while my brother and his wife argued in the kitchen.

When I dared to poke my head around the kitchen door, proffering the last pigs in blankets in the whole of the capital city (we weren’t the only people doing Christmas early, it seemed), I saw Helena clutching a carving knife and my brother with his hands raised in supplication, while steam from the veg cooking on the hob billowed around them like smoke. Helena put the knife down, wiped her hands on her Boden apron and told me how delighted she was that I’d made it. My brother subtly moved the knife back to the block and said he would fix some drinks.

He made it to lunch alive and seemed to claw his way back into Helena’s good books by declaring the turkey “perfect” as he carved it at the table. Mum decided it was undercooked and left it on the side of her plate. I insisted everyone read out their cracker jokes to cut Mum short.

After lunch, it was decreed that the children would be allowed to open their presents early so that I could “see their happy faces”. I said that I would be happy to wait to open mine. I didn’t think I had the energy to fake excitement over talc.

“Well, I suppose you need to have something to look forward to if you’re going to be locked down on your own again this year,” said Mum. “You should have made more effort on Tinder while the world was open. James Hewitt was on Tinder,” she reminded us all. “I told Trudy she should swipe right on him while she had the chance. My daughter could have been engaged to Princess Diana’s true love by now.”

“Gosh. Wouldn’t that have been something,” I said. “Princess Diana’s cast-off.”

I was glad that I had refused all and any alcohol, meaning that when Liz WhatsApped to ask how the day was going, I could pretend that she was my neighbour Brenda, messaging to tell me she was locked out of her house.

“And I’m the only neighbour she’s trusted with a key. I’ve got to go.”

“Can’t she get a locksmith?” Helena asked.

“Have you got any idea how much they’d charge for a Saturday callout? Brenda’s on a state pension. I’ll just text and tell her to wait in the pub to keep warm. I’m sure they’ll take pity on her and give her a half of Guinness.”

I messaged Liz: “Have made my excuses. Driving back to London like a bat out of hell.”

When I got home, I got straight into my pyjamas, made some cocoa and watched Netflix. The thought that it was still only the second week of December and I’d already “done Christmas” filled me with a warm festive glow.

On Tuesday morning, I had my face-to-face meeting with Brenda. We were the only two in the office, since she’d reluctantly agreed that everyone should go back to WFH for the rest of the year.

“What have you decided?” Bella asked regarding my resignation.

“I’ve decided that something needs to change,” I said. “And it’s probably me. But I’d like to give in my notice, please.”