What’s more, no longer is leaving a position something that should be expected and planned for, it’s more like a professional skill.

How you walk out that door with that little box containing your photos and that rubber troll with the orange hair that stood on your computer monitor is becoming as important as what you did in front of that monitor; and there is a right way and a wrong way to do it.

Barbara Bowes, author, columnist and president of BowesHR emphasizes the importance of quitting in a professional way, especially in Winnipeg, where everybody knows that if you can find six degrees of separation, you’re just trying too hard. “What goes around comes around,” says Bowes, “and at some point, they’re going to be calling your previous employer....”

So, how to do it right? Bowes stresses that it’s very important to truly understand why you’re quitting. Most of the time, people leave because they aren’t happy with their current position. “People need to understand why that is,” she says, “so they’re not simply going in to the boss and saying, ‘I quit,’ but rather, ‘I really need a new challenge in my life right now,’ or, ‘I need to learn a new skill, so I’m moving on in order to get that.’” Bowes stresses the importance of not blaming the job, and avoiding negative comments about the position or employer. “Focusing on yourself—your need for new challenges or to learn new skills—in a positive, forward-looking manner is the best way to frame (your departure).”

Bowes adds that a little bit of professional formality can go a long way; “I recommend that you have the conversation face-to-face with your employer, and then follow that up with a letter.”

What happens between that point and the time you walk out the door could also make or break the reputation you built during your tenure, and Bowes says giving adequate notice will take you a long way. “The standard is two weeks notice, or one pay period, but if you can give more, that really helps the employer, because it takes 10 to 12 weeks to replace you. I also recommend that you help transition some of your work to other people, if possible, so that your job is covered while you are gone.” In other words, trying to make the transition resulting from your departure as painless as possible for your boss is the professional approach that will help you to leave on a positive note.

And be present. “Once people give their notice,” Bowes explains, “their mind (tends to shift) to their new work, so pay special attention to your current job while you are there, and make sure that your attendance is good as well. Quite often, when someone has taken another position, they’ll start missing a lot of work during the transition period.”

But hold on. Back to the notice thing. Why, you might ask yourself, is your professional reputation riding on giving at least two weeks notice when many (if not most) companies these days will call an employee in at the end of a workday—if they make it that far—only to tell them not to bother coming back before escorting them and their little box out the door? Bowes agrees that a double standard exists, but cites a case where a CEO and an administration assistant were being let go, and they locked the door and trashed the place, and another where an individual was allowed to go back to their desk, and did $50,000 damage to the business’ software.

There are enough of those kinds of stories around that it has become the standard for company lawyers (and even career transition people) to advise that terminated employees be moved out of the organization quickly to maintain corporate security, which, says Bowes, is really hurtful: “Twenty years with a company and they are not even allowed to go back and get their coat?”

Call that another unavoidable byproduct of the information age, which strengthens the argument for controlling your own destiny by leaving on your own terms.

Just make sure those terms have you walking out the door with the slate of your professional reputation as clean as it was the day you walked in as the rising star.