Parting may be, as Shakespeare put it, a “sweet sorrow,” but going from a current job to a better one takes a considerable amount of the sting out of it.

Unfortunately “parting” from an employer is not always a cause for rejoicing about a move to something bigger and better. The scissors that cut the employment tie that binds are much more often held by the employer than the employee.

But regardless of whether you quit or are discharged, no matter how bitter or depressed you feel, there is one inviolate rule that should always be followed: Make every attempt to go out the same way you came in, with a positive attitude and a team spirit.

In other words, you must continue to play the game until the office door closes behind you for the very last time. If you don’t, you’re running an unacceptably high risk that what should have been a closed chapter in your “book of jobs” will turn into a burned bridge that can come back to repeatedly bite you as you career advances.

Strangely enough, it’s not always disgruntled employees who leave a negative impression behind when they change jobs. Many men and women resigning from perfectly good jobs to pursue even better ones inadvertently step into the same pitfall as those who have been told to stuff their personal belongings in a paper sack and be off the premises in seven minutes.

Do any of the following five things sound like something you might do to “celebrate” being “freed” from, say, a middle-management job?

  1. Bag out of the job without giving notice and/or attending a mandatory exit interview.

  2. Send a cheery email to your co-workers expressing sympathy for their continued bondage to your old employer.

  3. Download all those funny inter-office memos, sales projections, planning documents and other bits of so-called intellectual property you might want to use in writing your autobiography.

  4. Pin something tacky and gross on the office bulletin board

  5. Loudly and publicly advise buddies working for the company on how to polish their resumes and best market themselves to prospective new employers.

If you answered “yes” to any of the above questions ‘ meaning that you might be tempted to do one or more of them, ask yourself this additional question: What do all these things have in common?

Cleverness? Not really, thousands of people do them every day. They’re fun’ Perhaps, but most people would not define downloading files and typing emails as intrinsically joyful endeavors. And there’s nothing funny about celebrating your success by gloating over former friends and co-workers lack of success.

Actually, there is only one word that truly describes the above behavior pattern: Childishness.

So before sending that email, posting that gross notice or doing any of the rest of those things, you should decide whether you really want everyone at the old shop ‘ labor and management alike ‘ to remember you as a spoiled child. Close your eyes and visualize yourself as petulant child throwing a tantrum. Is it a pleasing self image?

Finally, try and imagine how being perceived as childish could possibly benefit you. OK, now let’s see how each of these things could conceivably rebound against you.

  1. Not giving notice or refusing an exit interview: While privacy laws strictly restrict the types of information HR personnel can release to prospective employers inquiring about a former worker, they are allowed to answer questions such as, “In your opinion, was this person a good employee?” If you fail to go along with the program, the answer to that one is a no-brainer.

  2. More potentially serious is the negative effect such behavior could have on a future position requiring a security clearance. FBI and DoD background checks are not bound by the same laws that restrict private employers’ access to your personnel files. The FBI can, and will, demand to see your whole file. A refusal to do an exit interview ‘ to be debriefed, in a manner of speaking ‘ could be considered enough of an attitude issue to delay or prevent you from getting that clearance.

  3. The gloating message to your former co-workers: Life is a series of ups and downs. You just might walk into a crucial meeting one day and find one of them sitting at the head of the conference table. Do you want that person’s first thought to be, “Hey, that’s the joker who acted like such a big shot when he crawled his way out of the mailroom at XYZ, Inc.”

  4. Depending on the nature of what you take with you and the jurisdiction where the office is located, downloading and removing all but the most personal files from a company server is probably a criminal misdemeanor and may be a felony. If some of the data constitutes trade secrets or even strategic planning memos, your ex-employer could file a civil suit against you. What are the chances that the “boss” will ever find out you copied those files? A lot better than they used to be thanks to today’s highly sophisticated and very stealthy workstation activity logging and reporting programs.

  5. If you’re going to put a message on the bulletin board, try something nice like “So long, I’ll really going to miss working with you guys.” It’s corny, it’s cliche and you former co-workers will appreciate it and remember you warmly if they’re ever in a position to help you attain a future goal.

  6. Helping other people browse Craig’s List while you’re on the way out and they’re still in is one of the stupidest things you can do. It will make your ex-employer hate you and do everything in his power to get even and it could very well result in the friends you are trying to “help” being fired. If you’re serious about helping others find a better job and not just showing off, contribute a few after work, out-of-the-office hours to the task.

The bottom line is that no one expects an employee who’s just been fired to be happy about it. You don’t have to tell the exit interviewer that “this is the best company I’ve ever worked for, I’ve had my heart set on spending the next 35 years here.” Telling the truth tempered with tact is perfectly acceptable.

It all boils down to class. Show some class on your way out of that revolving door and you’ll almost always have an unburned bridge to crawl back across.

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Evan H. Lesser is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of ClearanceJobs.com. Before founding ClearanceJobs, Mr. Lesser managed technical projects with CACI for the U.S. Navy's Science and Technology directorate at the Pentagon, and for the Joint Technology Panel on Electronic Warfare. Previously, he worked for Boeing on its Reserve Component Automation System program for the U.S. Army in metro Washington, DC. Mr. Lesser has a degree in Philosophy from the University of Georgia in Athens, and lives and works in the Atlanta metropolitan area.