Emma Barnes, managing director and co-founder of Snowbooks, a UK publisher, recalls the steps that led her to resign in 2001 from Kingfisher, the retail group. “As a fresh graduate, I’d drunk the fast-track Kool-Aid [believing I would reach] senior management in seven years.” But then she had an epiphany. “I found I was working 14-hour days – and for what? Selling bin bags to people. It was meaningless.”

So, she decided to quit. “I didn’t want to burn my bridges so I did my ranting to my friends at the pub and then went into my boss’s office and basically fibbed. I said I’d been offered an amazing opportunity and I hoped we would keep in touch . . . You do have to assume you’ll meet people again and it would be foolish to speak your mind.”