When you hear about a manager parting company with a club, he has usually either been sacked or has resigned, but there are actually lots of different ways you can leave.
Over the years I spent working at every level of the game in England, from the bottom to the top, I have witnessed and been involved in many break-ups.
Some are smooth but others are far more fractious and don't happen face-to-face. I've witnessed managers being sacked over the phone or by text, or hearing they are losing their job by word of mouth.
One of the most soul-destroying times for a manager is when speculation is rife regarding not only your imminent sacking, but also about who is going to replace you.
During my career, I've known certain individuals who actually put their names forward for jobs before a manager is even sacked. Some go to the club involved through agents, some directly to the owners themselves.
Many managers are sounded out before eventually being appointed and another policy which has become popular with clubs is to drop names out to the press about possible replacements, to see the supporters' reactions to the names in the frame.
For the manager who is still in place, and whose stress levels are through the roof, it is devastating... but it is just another part of the job that you have to handle.
I've experienced that situation myself, in a scenario which went on for many months. Your confidence, not only in yourself but also in the club's hierarchy, takes another massive knock.
When it happened to me, I'd heard about the club's intentions from people in the media at quite an early stage and also worked out where the new manager would be coming from, but I had to bite my lip - myself and my staff were under contract, so we had to just carry on.
We kept pulling results out of the bag which delayed the inevitable, but eventually I knew my time was up.
Sacked on the drive up for pre-season
When they are getting treated this way, you can hardly blame managers for sometimes wanting to stick two fingers up to the people in charge.
One story comes to mind of a manager I know who was relieved of his duties by being placed on gardening leave while the club found a way to release him permanently.
During that time, and while he was still getting paid, the manager decided to go on holiday somewhere hot with his family. After watching his old team lose on TV in the sunshine, he sent a postcard to his chairman, which simply said 'wish you were here!'.
When he got home, he was sacked - but I bet he was still glad he did it!
Sadly, most managers don't get that kind of satisfaction - and often you don't even get a chance to say a proper goodbye to the players and staff you have worked closely with for many months or years.
My first spell at Stoke ended when I was driving up the motorway from my home in Bournemouth for the first day of pre-season in the summer of 2005.
I'd had a pretty good idea of what might happen since the end of the previous season but, over the next few weeks, the club's Icelandic owners did not say a word - until then.
I didn't have a problem with the decision, by the way. They were nice people and my view has always been 'if you don't want me, you don't want me'.
Anyway, I'd already been driving for four hours and, just as I got to the junction that would take me to the ground, my phone rang. It was the chairman, who told me he'd been meaning to call.
I was told I was no longer the manager, but also that I could not enter the stadium at any cost - I soon understood the urgency of the situation because it turned out the new manager had already arrived there. I had to just turn the car around, and head back home.
That kind of thing can happen to any manager, and you learn to be ready for it.
'Every manager needs to think about their cardboard box'
I always remember playing at Swansea in one of my early games in my first job with Bournemouth, and their manager Frank Burrows inviting me into his office afterwards.
Frank, who sadly passed away in 2021, was a wonderful man and also a superb old-school manager who was always happy to offer advice to younger coaches and share his experiences.
We were having a drink and I noticed he had this big empty cardboard box next to his desk. I asked him what it was for, and he said it was to hold all his belongings - from his files on players to his family photographs - that were in his office.
"All the important stuff I'd like to keep is on the top of my desk," Frank said. "And every time I lose my job, because that time always comes, I can just sweep it into the box and off I go again. That box has travelled around the football world with me."
That always stuck with me. Management is such a precarious occupation that every manager has to think about that box, even if they don't have it sitting next to their desk every day!
It was not long afterwards that I found out what it was like to be sacked for the first time.
I still had a year left on my contract with Bournemouth but the chairmanship of the club changed and, in the summer of 1994, I was out.
It was hard enough to go from doing almost everything at the club to doing nothing, not even going in for pre-season training - but, because it was my hometown club, I also had to come to terms with listening to stories of my children being teased about my exit at school.
I also had my mortgage and my family to look after and unfortunately Bournemouth were not very helpful with the money they owed me.
It's a lot to think about, when you have just been thrown out into the real world, especially when it's a world you have no experience in or any other qualifications to fall back on. I was lucky enough to get another chance in management, but not every young manager does.
Fortunately, I've not always left clubs on bad terms, either. I've already mentioned a few difficult separations, but I've had some happier endings too.
Finishing as friends
I've talked a lot in these columns about my affection for Peter Coates and his wonderful family. As well as owning Stoke City, they are a special group of people who have been unbelievably successful in their own ways, but they have never lost that human touch.
When the time came for me to part company with the club in 2013, they did so in a proper manner - Peter and John, his son and now chairman, were dead straight with me about wanting to go in a different direction, and made a difficult situation into a respectful parting of the ways.
I spent almost 10 years at Stoke over two spells but, while I was only at Middlesbrough for 18 months, it was a similar story with their owner and chairman Steve Gibson.
Steve has spent his entire life looking out for Boro but his commitment to his club goes far beyond being a lifetime supporter. He cares deeply for the people of that area and has devoted so much of his hard-earned cash towards making Boro a success.
I loved my time there because of the warmth of Steve and his family, and beyond. The area reminded me so much of south Wales, where the community was cherished and people, especially at the club, could not do enough for you.
After the last game of the 2018-19 season I was completely shot, and frustrated that we had not reached the Championship play-offs. My drive home that night was long and lonely but I felt worn out.
Once the dust had settled on that season, Steve and I met up in London. Our discussions were honest and open but my contract was up and we both agreed it was a good time for me to leave - I wanted it to end on good terms, and we certainly did that.
After dinner we had a fair few drinks and it ended up being a very, very late night. We arranged to have breakfast the following morning but I told him I have always been an early riser so, by 6am, I was up and on my way to the station to get back home.
My wife had just picked me up in Bournemouth at just after 8am when Steve rang to ask if I was down for breakfast yet - and he didn't believe me when I said no, I am back home.
I missed breakfast, but we remained good friends. Steve is a class act and I always hold Boro up as a club that deserves to be successful because of the attitude, commitment and honesty of everyone we came across.
My family still talk about how much they loved going there, and were genuinely disappointed when I left - something that doesn't apply to all my former clubs, obviously!
Tony Pulis was speaking to BBC Sport's Chris Bevan.
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