He asked me in the hallway, in the way people ask when they've already noticed something: "Hey — everything good?"

I said yes. Everything's good. And then I went back to my desk and spent forty minutes not working, because the honest answer was: I've been interviewing for a month.

Two processes, actually. One promising, one that would probably be a disaster dressed as an opportunity. I've taken three calls from a stairwell, moved one round to a lunch hour, and I've been slightly absent in a way that a good manager notices and a bad one doesn't. Mine noticed. That's the problem.

I like him. The team is eight people and my leaving would land on everyone. And I have been drafting the announcement — the sentence where I tell him — for about two weeks now, which is a long time to write one sentence.

The three things I noticed

What the reading said

I did a reading. The question: should I tell my boss I'm looking for another job?

The reading didn't discuss strategy. It asked: what are you hoping he'll do with the information?

Which is a question I'd been dodging for two weeks, and the answer came quickly once I let it: I want him to either stop me or authorize me. Both are ways of not being responsible for my own leaving.

And then the part that took longer, because it's a pattern I've never looked at directly: I am almost never the one who leaves first. I stayed in a band for three years after I stopped enjoying it, until it dissolved. I stayed in a relationship for eight months past the end because I was waiting for her to say it. I have a genius-level ability to remain in things until they end around me, so that the ending belongs to circumstance instead of to me. Telling my boss early would be one more version of that — I'd have created a situation where the leaving is a conversation we have, rather than a decision I made. Better still: if he reacts badly, I get to leave as the wronged party.

Which is the thing I'm most embarrassed to have seen. The reason I feel so strongly that I should tell him is that telling him is the least costly way to leave — the way where I'm honest, generous, and still not the one holding the door.

What happened

I didn't announce. I did something smaller and much more uncomfortable: I answered the question I'd been outsourcing.

If he said "stay — here's the money, here's the different job, here's the thing you've been asking for," would I take it?

No. Immediately, clearly, with no hesitation at all. Which meant every reason I'd been constructing for telling him right now was decoration. I don't need information from him. I need to stop pretending that his reaction is what I'm waiting on.

So I'm not telling him yet — not out of cowardice, out of sequence. I'll tell him when I have a signed offer, with enough notice to be decent, as a courtesy rather than a request. That's the version where I've decided and he's informed, which is precisely the difference I couldn't see two weeks ago.

And I noticed one more thing, walking out of the building that day: I've stopped dreading the conversation and started dreading the notice period — the part where I have to watch them absorb it. That's a much more honest thing to be afraid of, and I can actually prepare for it.

If you're holding a decision in your mouth and waiting for the right person to react to it — a boss, a friend, a partner — try a reading. Three numbers. No account. It won't write the sentence. But it might show you whose answer you're waiting for, and whether you'd even take it.

FAQ

Q: Should I tell my boss I'm job hunting? A: Generally no — not until you have an offer, unless you specifically want a counter-offer or your workplace has a culture where it's genuinely safe. The honest exception is when you'd want the retention conversation: then say it early and mean it. What you shouldn't do is tell him to see how he reacts, because that hands your decision to someone who has their own interests in it. See also: I Quit Without Another Job Lined Up. The Reading Asked Me Something I Couldn't Answer. — the other end of the same decision.

Q: What if I'm wrong and I actually want to stay? A: Then test it. Ask yourself the concrete version: if they matched the money, changed the role, and gave me the thing I've been asking for — would I sign up for two more years? A yes means you're negotiating. A no means you're leaving and just looking for a witness. I found out I was the second one, which saved me from having a pointless conversation that would have cost me leverage and gained me nothing.

Q: How much notice should I give? A: Whatever your contract says, plus a conversation — and give it after you've signed, not before. Early notice feels generous and is usually a gift to the wrong person: it hands your employer time to replace you while you have nothing signed yet. Generosity at the moment of leaving is better spent on a real handover, on writing things down, and on leaving the team in better shape than you found it.

Q: How does a reading help with a decision like this? A: It separates the honesty question from the strategy question. I thought I was deciding whether to be upfront with my boss. I was actually deciding who gets to own my leaving — and I'd been quietly hoping he'd own it so I never had to. The reading named that, and once I could see it, the timing became obvious instead of agonizing.