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.