We’ve only just started trying to measure and understand this, but it appears that early results are showing even the importance of ritual as measured on a tangible, scientific scale. Leaving a job is also a transition of change, of parting, and one that needs to be processed both as an individual, and as a group.
This ritual has been performed millions of times, and yet, usually, we don’t examine its importance at all. The closest I’ve seen is this study from the 1980s, called, very morosely, “Functions of Parting Ceremonies in Dying Organizations”. The study was performed in 1982-1983, during the height of a recession, in Michigan, in hospitals, retail stores, car factories, and a research organization.
people need parting ceremonies in the context of work, and when they don’t happen, they make them happen on their own, and in very predictable patterns.