Yesterday I posted a letter written by ChatGPT, in response to my asking it to write a romantic breakup letter in the style of a business letter. The result was pretty funny, but it also led to an interesting little discussion.
A reader commented that it read like a resignation letter. I had thought quite the opposite. To me it read like somebody firing somebody else.
Now I am wondering exactly what the difference is, if any. When you quit a job, or when you fire somebody from a job, is there really a difference? In both cases, you are taking control of a situation for your benefit, and only theoretically for theirs.
This is true whether it is a romantic relationship, a business relationship, or any other kind of relationship. There is a power balance that shifts when somebody says “I am severing my ties with you.”
When somebody does this, it doesn’t seem to matter what the power relationship was before that moment. In that sense, severing a relationship seems to be the ultimate power move — for better or worse.