What does it mean to "accept a resignation"?

January 27, 2016 7:38 AM

I was under the impression that a resignation does not have to be accepted, but very often after a minister resigns, the prime minister (or equivalent) is said to "accept their resignation". What does this mean?
posted by gorcha to Law & Government (19 answers total)

Depending on circumstances, sometimes a minister or other official will offer to resign as a form of apology for a grave error for which they (or their department/ministry) are responsible. Those are the circumstances in which I have seen resignations accepted, and sometimes refused.
posted by brianogilvie at 7:45 AM on January 27, 2016 [4 favorites]

While the technical details will vary, it often means that the authorities (private or public) are allowing an individual to 'gracefully' bow out of their position, in lieu of instigating a formal firing/removal from office.
posted by BrandonW at 7:45 AM on January 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

Strictly speaking, Members of Parliament can't resign and there is a fairly amusing process a MP must go through to effectuate an equivalent outcome. Should there be reason to, that process could be denied, effectively keeping the MP in the place they are.
posted by saeculorum at 7:45 AM on January 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

To resign is to leave voluntarily. Sometimes that resignation happens because you have been offered the opportunity to leave voluntarily in lieu of being terminated non-voluntarily (i.e. fired/sacked). Also, sometimes you may wish to resign due to a belief that you have performed badly. Your superior may disagree with you and encourage you to stay in lieu of resignation.
posted by tempestuoso at 7:45 AM on January 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks for the answers so far. My question was triggered by this BBC News article, but I've seen the idea of (not) accepting a resignation at companies too.
posted by gorcha at 7:49 AM on January 27, 2016

I resigned from a position (as a low level civil servant) to move on to a better position out of the government. I received a letter, signed by the deputy minister, that my resignation was accepted on such-and-such a date and included some nice comments thanking me for my years of service and how my excellent work will be missed, etc.

I think it is so that I can prove I didn't just up and quit like a jerk, and to prove that I wasn't fired, and that it was entirely voluntary and had nothing to do with poor performance or anything untowards. They "accepted" that I was moving on and that there were no hard feelings and wished me well.
posted by PuppetMcSockerson at 7:51 AM on January 27, 2016 [4 favorites]

I think the point is actually asking them to accept it the same way a gay person might want to be accepted by their parents. They're gonna be gay even if they're parents don't accept it, but they hope that it won't cause hard feelings.
posted by Green With You at 7:54 AM on January 27, 2016 [5 favorites]

Usually companies prefer resignations because then they are not on the hook for compensation, increased unemployment insurance costs, etc. However, it may be that in a case where liability is involved based on an employees behavior the company would fire a person who then tries to deflect this firing by resigning. In this case the company could say, we cannot accept your resignation because you had been fired for behavior X prior. In other words, the distinction isn't about the end of employment, but about on who's terms it occurred.
posted by meinvt at 8:04 AM on January 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

Years ago a co-worker of mine got into a snit about something and handed in her resignation. Our boss told her he would hold on to it but not accept it and she could let him know after the weekend if she still wanted to resign. She ended up cooling off and withdrawing her letter. Another time a guy handed in his resignation because he was offered a position elsewhere for more money (he thought.) That same boss though something sounded fishy, and told the guy he would not accept the resignation until the young man asked the new employer questions x, y and z. The young man did so and was very relieved to be able to withdraw his resignation. If our boss had accepted those resignations the payroll folk and HR folk would have fired up their machines and there would have been no turning back. (I've worked here a long time.)
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 8:33 AM on January 27, 2016 [6 favorites]

I offered a resignation once after a pretty serious fuckup. My boss called me at home and said "Are you joking? See you tomorrow at 9 when you'll fix this."
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:35 AM on January 27, 2016 [11 favorites]

Bear in mind that the actual decisions about resignations are made behind closed doors and any acceptance or rejection of a resignation is entirely political theatre. In the very rare case that an offer to resign is publicly rejected, you can be certain that this was arranged beforehand and the public "offer" was made in full knowledge that it would be "rejected", i.e. there was no real intent to resign.

I think the reason that we don't see offers to resign rejected much now (if at all) is that everyone understands this, so it just looks kind of ridiculous for all involved.
posted by ssg at 8:53 AM on January 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

Apparently Manchester United's manager Louis van Gaal has offered to resign a couple of times in the last month due to poor results but the club has kept him on (likely because they have no one better lined up and not out of any faith in him).
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 8:59 AM on January 27, 2016

I suspect the term itself, at least in respect to government, dates to a time when appointees served at the pleasure of the monarch, whether they wanted to or not.
posted by justcorbly at 9:08 AM on January 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

In another example of my unusual people management technique a stressed and overworked employee responded to my suggestion of some time off with an expletive-filled resignation email.

Sensing they may have misunderstood my intentions I replied with a Ron Burgundy image macro which said "Well, that escalated quickly"
They came back with "Actually, I think I will take some time off. Cheers".

Nothing more was said about their resignation but it was certainly not accepted.
posted by fullerine at 9:23 AM on January 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

Sometimes it's just a linguistic maneuver. "The White House today accepted the resignation of Secretary John Doe" signifies mostly that the White House wants to assert its authority by putting itself first in the sentence, as opposed to "Today Secretary John Doe resigned," which leaves out the authority of the White House altogether. Putting the authority figure in the power position also can make it seem magnanimous, beneficent, what have you, by deigning to consider, and possibly accepting, all offerings from the hoi polloi.

In other words, yes, political theater.
posted by ImproviseOrDie at 9:35 AM on January 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

My organization had an employee who resigned overy couple of years to register his displeasure with some policy or other and to be told, "Oh, no, we can't do without you, you can't resign!"

He was pretty surprised when upon his tenth or so iteration of this passive aggressive nonsense, we just accepted his resignation without further comment, as that was not what he had intended AT ALL.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:21 AM on January 27, 2016 [8 favorites]

Pretty much the whole first season of The Thick of It satirizes the culture of political resignations. In the opening minutes of the first episode, minister Cliff Lawton is told by Malcolm Tucker that they've drafted his letter of resignation even though the press have been told that he's getting pushed out.
posted by scruss at 10:24 AM on January 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

Ministers in the UK (which I presume is the place your question is about) are office holders, rather than employees. They are appointed, in theory, by the Queen on the Prime Minister's recommendation (in practice by the PM). So there is no contract to resign from - comparisons to other jobs are not relevant for that reason - and it is entirely up to the PM whether a Minister continues in their role. As others have said, the purpose of offering one's resignation is therefore simply politics. Going early over a scandal, for example, before it has built up a head of steam in the press, increases the likelihood you might get offered a job again in the future.

Strictly speaking, Members of Parliament can't resign

True but this isn't directly relevant to the question. A Minister could be an MP or a peer, and when they resign their position as a Government minister they are still an MP or a peer.
posted by greycap at 10:36 AM on January 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

Farage of course resigned as leader of UKIP the day after the 2015 election, only for the party (ie Farage) to decline it within 48 hours.
posted by biffa at 12:16 PM on January 27, 2016