If you are in hospital management and you decide to resign, I would like to offer some helpful tips:

1.  Get a metric ton of marijuanna and a pipe - you're going to need it.

2.  Be ready for every single employee to call off multiple times in the weeks after your announcement. If you carry a pager - you may want to get a good sledgehammer and put the damned thing down.

3.  Be ready for your boss's guilt trips. Also be ready for your boss to become even more insane than usual. She might ask you to personally schedule all of the interviews for your replacement, conduct all of the interviews, and complete all of the reference checks. After I had done all of this, I had to sit in on the financial discussions where I discovered that the man who would be replacing me would be making $20,000 more than me annually. This is widely believed to be innappropriate behavior, but it's a hospital...so everything is innappropriate. You already know this if you're preparing to resign.

4.  Don't count on sleeping for the next month or two. You won't be. Your employees will call off constantly, your boss and everyone else will come to you with insane requests at all hours of the day and night, and you'll be training the new guy. By training I of course mean doing all of his or her work for the next six months so that he or she won't feel "overwhelmed" while getting paid $20,000 more than you annually. No you wouldn't want that.

5.  Don't give extra notice to be nice. Whatever you do, God help you, DO NOT give extra notice. The last weeks are an absolute bear- mainly because everyone is jealous that you're getting out and they're not, so you don't want to extend their envious cruelty any longer than you absolutely must. Trust me, they won't be nice.

6.  Change your cell phone number the minute that you leave. They will call you - constantly - for months, maybe years, if you don't. "Where are your quarterl financial reports? Billy Bob can't find them and he needs them because he seems to be incapable of doing anything at all." Change it. You'll thank me later.

7.  Walk out of the building. Do not sit around for days listening to people moan over how much they're going to miss you. Don't spend weeks letting everyone bear the brunt of your pent up rage, because you've already quit, so you figure that you can really let the shit fly. No. Just walk out. Walk to your car. Get in your car. Step on it.