In military culture, there is a recognized pattern where soldiers sometimes become less focused and motivated in their duties as they reach the completion of their deployment or the end of their enlistment period. The colloquial term for this is "short-timer." The behavior is often attributed to a combination of factors, including anticipation of returning to civilian life, reduced fear of consequences, and a sense of detachment from their current responsibilities. The term can be traced back to the Vietnam War.*
Over time, the term has been adopted more broadly to describe similar behaviors observed in various professional and organizational settings beyond the military.
This behavioral pattern can also be explained by the "Peak-End Rule," a psychological heuristic model developed by Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist and Nobel laureate in economics, along with his colleague Barbara Fredrickson, in their research on the psychology of subjective well-being and memory.
The Peak-End rule suggests that people tend to judge experiences based on the peak (the most intense or emotionally significant moment) and the end (the way the experience concludes) rather than on the experience as a whole. When applied to an employee's tenure, it can influence how they perceive their last days on the job. For example, onboarding the new job may be a peak experience, or a major achievement during one's tenure may be a peak experience. The end of your tenure would also be a peak experience, and there is a tendency for this experience to overshadow your entire tenure in the position (otherwise known as "recency bias"). Notably, the experience can be both positive and negative. One or two significant negative experiences in your job, particularly at the end, will tend to overshadow the positive experiences and your tenure as a whole.
In today's world, particularly in the performing arts, the image of the 40-year employee retiring from the job with the gold watch is the exception, not the norm. It's more likely you'll be standing around the conference table noodling with a piece of cake, red Solo cup in hand, chatting with your colleagues as they remember the good times, and offer up their fond farewells. Meanwhile for the last two weeks your mind has been on the road ahead.
Long before you contemplate changing careers, think about a few things. Will you be ending your tenure on a peak positive note? Are you leaving the place in better shape than when you got there? When you went searching for a job, was it because you needed to escape the one you're in or because you were looking for a new opportunity? Everyone is replaceable. if you have the idea that the place will fall apart when you leave, consider when you arrived. Was it in shambles?
I spend a fair amount of time writing about creating and acting on new opportunities. But we should all remember that this is a small industry, and so the place you leave behind will have shadows of when you were there. In other words, your reputation will follow you, whether positive or negative. So before you go, try to make it a peak positive experience. End the job on a high note. Forget Johnny Paycheck's advice to take the job and shove it. Keep in mind that Peak-End rule goes both ways. You're going to be remembered by your last day, not your first day.
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*The photo above is from the National Archives and is captioned: Vietnam....A Sky Trooper from the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) keeps track of the time he has left on his "short time" helmet, while participating in Operation Pershing, near Bong Son. 1968.