Intentionally?<p>Quit a job after finding out a coworker had been fired, and that the entire review process (which I'd been pushing for for a while) was being done as a pretext to that. A few more minutes of thinking showed me that the only difference between two weeks' and walking then were that I'd be two weeks of sad down the road. So, I walked, after a cooldown moment in the bathroom.<p>Couple years later I met up with that exec again, and we got on just fine. Both acknowledged it was a shitty thing on both sides, and otherwise just went our separate ways. We were both polite about it.<p>Unintentionally?<p>My last startup dissolved after running out of boostrap funds and communication failures between my cofounder and I. It sucked, it hurt, and it was hell coordinating anything during the winddown. I was too ashamed and scared to talk to him about things really productively, and I suspect he may have felt similarly. I occasionally check up on him through a mutual acquaintance, but we don't talk and probably never will. :(<p>~<p>Basically, the notion of "burning bridges" is kinda silly. There are a few people I could list that, were they on fire, I wouldn't piss on to put out, but overall anybody that I've written off (or who has written off me) invariably seems to show up again, eventually.<p>Do what seems right, be reasonable about it, and don't be surprised if you meet that person again.<p>For what it's worth, there isn't a secret ledger that'll haunt you--in most industries.