Sandra Dick: Going out with bang feels good

She could have done the usual, fudged the reasons for going, focused on the future, warbled on about fresh blood, maybe even squeezed out something nice about Ed Miliband.

Instead she lobbed a hand grenade over her shoulder on the way out, blasting open the Scottish Labour Party’s wounds for all to see, igniting a debate not only about who might follow her, but what kind of dysfunctional mess they’ll have on their hands.

Not dissimilar to Geoffrey Howe’s nuclear attack on Margaret Thatcher’s leadership – he claimed her behaviour was akin to “sending your opening batsmen to the crease only for them to find that their bats have been broken by the team captain” – Johann’s decision to label her party’s hierarchy as “dinosaurs” was a boot in the bum they probably could have lived without.

Of course resigning would have been a personally devastating decision to make. But who among us hasn’t yearned to tell the boss where to shove it, to stride into the MD’s office and share your thoughts on how the business might improve if they weren’t such a prat? How you’d love to stay but, actually, that would involve punching someone. Hard.

All of which is fine if you reckon you won’t have to slither back in search of a glowing reference.

But going out in style seems to be the “done” thing. A couple of years ago banking executive Greg Smith quit via a column in the New York Times headlined: “Why I’m leaving Goldman Sachs”, which described the bank as “toxic”, blitzed senior managers for referring to clients as “muppets” and for callously talking of “ripping their clients off”. Ouch.

Less angry was hotel worker Joey Defrancesco’s resignation. Having first slammed bosses at Providence Rhode Island Hotel for their alleged treatment of staff, he then handed over his letter to a speechless manager accompanied by a jolly brass band playing Guile Theme from Streetfighter: The Movie.

In a similar vein, US-based Marina Shifrin tendered her resignation in a video uploaded to YouTube entitled: “An Interpretive Dance For My Boss Set To Kanye West’s Gone”.

Such a shame Johann Lamont didn’t accompany her “dinosaur” reference with the soundtrack to Jurassic Park, accompanied by several dancing purple Barneys...

Best, though, was the US flight attendant, fed up trying to convince a passenger to stay seated before take off, he grabbed a beer from the trolley, flipped a switch, shouted “I’m done!” – and disappeared down the plane’s emergency inflatable chute.

Going out with a bang may be one way of quitting your old job and getting annoying colleagues out of your system. The downside? Just don’t expect too many to turn up at your farewell drinks do . . .