Employees and employers alike have the right under at-will employment laws in almost all states to end their relationship without notice, for any reason, but the two-week rule is a widely accepted standard of workplace conduct. Now Sue Shellenbarger writes at The Wall Street Journal that employers say a growing number of workers are leaving without giving two weeks' notice.
Some bosses blame young employees who feel frustrated by limited prospects or have little sense of attachment to their workplace. But employment experts say some older workers are quitting without notice as well. They feel overworked or unappreciated after years of laboring under pay cuts and expanded workloads imposed during the recession. One employee at Dupray, a customer-service rep, scheduled a meeting and announced she was quitting, then rose and headed for the exit. She seemed surprised when the director of human resources stopped her and explained that employees are expected to give two weeks' notice. "She said, 'I've been watching 'Suits,' and this is how it happens,' " referring to the TV drama set in a law firm.
According to Shellenbarger, quitting without notice is sometimes justified. Employees with access to proprietary information, such as those working in sales or new-product development, face a conflict of interest if they accept a job with a competitor. Employees in such cases typically depart right away—ideally, by mutual agreement. It can also be best to exit quickly if an employer is abusive, or if you suspect your employer is doing something illegal.
More often, however, quitting without notice "is done in the heat of emotion, by someone who is completely frustrated, angry, offended or upset," says David Lewis, president of OperationsInc., a Norwalk, Conn., human-resources consulting firm. That approach can burn bridges and generate bad references. Phyllis Hartman says employees have a responsibility to try to communicate about what's wrong. "Start figuring out if there is anything you can do to fix it. The worst that can happen is that nobody listens or they tell you no."
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Tuesday June 28 2016, @06:17AM
Quiting without notice and with explosives is almost always justified. I mean, employers are capitalists dicks, right? Only makes sense to hit them where they live, in the futures, or in the balls. not necessarily the same things.
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Tuesday June 28 2016, @06:42AM
Depends if they keep reposting your specific job as an opening "just in case" so they have resumes on file. I'd say that's worth a quick and colorful exit.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by Type44Q on Tuesday June 28 2016, @01:18PM
and with explosives
So when they take your desk and your red stapler, merely setting fire is not enough?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday June 28 2016, @01:53PM
The boss gives no notice that he's going to fire you, or lay you off, or outsource your job, or much of anything else. I owe him the very same consideration he gives me - NONE.
Years ago, a sorry excuse for a foreman fired my helper, first thing on a Monday morning. (He was known for staying out partying all weekend, and coming to work still half drunk on Mondays, and he fired SOMEONE every Monday.) I went to talk to HIS boss, and got no satisfaction. So, I walked out the gate with my former helper, and before we parted ways, I wrote him a glowing letter of recommendation. The letter explained the circumstances under which he was "fired".
The kid had a new job before I did, LMAO - he missed exactly one and a half day's work, while I missed four.
As for our former employer - my leaving DID cost them a great deal of time. It made me feel really great to hear that they hired three people to replace me, before they found one who was competent to do my job. NO ONE makes any money when the so-called carpenter builds, tears it down, rebuilds, tears it down again, then rebuilds one more time before he gets it right. And, the boss deserved every bit of that aggravation.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by GungnirSniper on Tuesday June 28 2016, @06:37AM
Let's face it, HR isn't going to give us two weeks notice of being fired. And until you've signed the paperwork and started elsewhere, that job can still be yanked after you've given notice. So let's not feel bad for employers here, they pull awful tricks themselves.
I've seen fellow IT people give two weeks and quickly get escorted out the door, usually with that notice period paid. We don't want people with no vested interest with keys to the kingdom, and we're not going to let them sit around giving everyone else the idea that the grass is greener elsewhere or otherwise being a distraction. Documentation? Hahaha.
Then there was one rusty douchenozzle that we escorted out upon his notice because we were just waiting for him to quit and had an re-org planned post-departure. No severance for you, sucker.
The only rage quit I saw was a graphic designer who upon seeing two of his late 30s female colleagues let go the same day, proceeded to loudly drop the C-bomb repeatedly at their manager for being the cause of the problems. "You cost two women their jobs because of your own incompetence! Go F yourself you f'n C!" I don't recall him actually saying "I quit" but after he walked out it was decided it wasn't absolutely required in that case.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Informative) by Marco2G on Tuesday June 28 2016, @07:01AM
I still have a hard time wrapping my mind around the concept of two weeks notice and how often this is more like a guideline than a rule in the US (at least it seems that way from what reaches me).
In Switzerland, you very often have three months periods and one month mandated by law if you've passed the probation phase in which you have one week of notice mandated by law.
You can easily be sued for compensation if you just don't show up anymore.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @07:16AM
I've worked mostly shitty service industry jobs. There were employees who didn't show up for a week straight. There was actually company policy that ignoring work for a week was an automatic firing offense (and maybe people used it in just that manner.) The flipside was: Only one of those jobs ever did full time pay. Most of them kept you at either 20 or 30 hours a week, and would push up to 38 or 39 during holiday seasons then cut you down to 20 for a few weeks after. Since they all used rotating schedules rather than fixed schedules they impaired your ability to work the second or third job needed to actually pay your bills. Then they would complain about people not being 'one of the team' while giving sales big bonuses and only talking to us back end service-people when something went wrong (say merchandising fuckups on the floor, despite the fact that we left them clean and organized and sales/cashier personnel were supposed to do that during lulls in business.)
Long story short, I applaud people quitting like that and hitting them where it hurts: In labor shortages that impact their bottom line. It beats the alternative, which was less morally upright people becoming offending by that treatment and instead performing shrinkage on store store. At least two, maybe three of the jobs I worked at had personnel doing that. I heard of it secondhand from being doing it during college, and also viewed it firsthand in my own jobs. Being a usually new employee and them the 'more established employee' I wasn't usually in a position to disclose their activities to management without blowback on myself, and most of the time management was too busy jerking off to discover it themselves. In the more bureacratic places LP took care of it eventually, but the smaller businesses it only got taken care of when they finally performed some other fireable offense.
Not a way to run a business or a culture, but somehow the same mistakes on both side are repeated.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @08:01AM
I've been in a special case of that situation. The new CEO came from a similar job at a bank, so he was keen on security. When a colleague and I lost our jobs, they revoked all our access before sending the e-mail that we had lost our jobs[1]. But over here, the law requires the company to give us three months notice (depends on hos long you've been at the company, after five years it becomes six months notice), and the owner of the company didn't want to pay us after leaving.
As a result, for three months, we had to show up at work, but had no access to do our jobs. My colleague did get to write some documentation, but I'd been writing documentation for the previous months, so I had nothing to do.
We ended up each writing a game in the notice period.
[1] That was supposed to include our VPN access, that we needed to read e-mail, including the notice that we lost our jobs. I wonder how they would have handled it if the operations guys hadn't failed to disable our VPN access.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @06:46AM
> "Start figuring out if there is anything you can do to fix it. The worst that can happen is that nobody listens or they tell you no."
No, the worst that can happen is that they fire you and then blackball you.
I'm not saying that's the normal case, or that it is best for you to expect that kind of result.
But she's the one who started talking about worst-case scenarios.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @07:12AM
No the worst that can happen is you happen to live in the Obamanation, where a firing is an automatic blackball because no one hires the unemployed. In the Obamanation, you get a job straight out of college or you go straight to jail. If you get a job, whatever you do in that job is the career you will have for the rest of your life, there is no mobility to any other kind of job, and when you get fired your life is over. That's the normal situation in the Obamanation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @01:53PM
Who's fault is this:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-01-28/bush-tax-cuts-persist-14-years-later-bedeviling-obama-s-plans [bloomberg.com]
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Tuesday June 28 2016, @07:28PM
Bullshit. If you have skills and interview well, and okay, maybe lie occasionally - You can get another job. Nobody has a perfect work history and even good employees can get fucked over for a wide variety of reasons.
Up and leaving a job is almost always a bad thing, but I've done it. A big fancy-looking company with buildings like modern art museums hired me for a gig in an okay position, then transferred me (it was a planned move, as I was to replace somebody who was fucking up on the stealth) to the industrial wash station - I've worked in the shipyards and in generally somewhat dangerous situations and had never experienced anything that bad before.
Small parts were carried in flimsy wireframe baskets, some of which had broken welds, and those baskets frequently became snagged on the wash carriage and toppled parts into the ultrasound cleaning tanks. Then I was expected to reach into a tank with running industrial ultrasound, with my bare arms, an unpleasant experience which leaves your arms with a dull pain for awhile. I had to crawl inside the machine while it was running to defeat interlocks whenever a basket snagged (and they did - very, very frequently). The answer to my nagging questions of "Why don't they have somebody fix this shit?!" was "If we did, we'd have to shut down production and lose money." The safety trainer had a very interesting meeting in which she described an employee who was hit in the eye with a targeting laser and explained that some of the CO2 driver lasers had the power to fry your arm to the bone before you had even enough time to flinch. Fun!
I walked out of that shit outright after two weeks of that. That company's idea of "training" was to throw you on the floor your first hour of your first day and use negative reinforcement, although that only serves to hinder learning and ensure that your trainee will leave work every day wanting to beat the shit out of you.
This is a company where people actually walk down the hallways doing work on their laptops, and it has it's own company store. Apparently Stockholm syndrome is a job requirement. I ain't gonna work on Maggie's Farm no more!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by quintessence on Tuesday June 28 2016, @06:50AM
Then fuck off!
Courtesy is a two-way street, and most employers have burned through any good faith.
They could easily rectify the situation making it worth my while to give two weeks notice, but somehow the onus is upon me to give them free notice of my intentions, especially when it is not reciprocated in kind.
They forget: my working there is a financial transaction, and you've just lost my business.
It's as simple as that.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by tonyPick on Tuesday June 28 2016, @07:28AM
Depends on the size of the industry you're in to an extent - doing SW programming where I am you tend to bump into a lot of the same faces in different places.
Burning your bridges, or running the contract to the letter, is great in the short term, but it is (IME) generally worth handling the notice period as co-operatively as possible, simply because the co-workers you leave in the shit today may be the ones you will have to work with, or even for, at a different company tomorrow.
Being known as someone who will do their best even in a difficult situation is worth a lot when bidding for a new contract comes up.
The only exception is where you have a manager/role which is literally unbearable for the notice period, where the how and why of walking out the door will be clearly understood by the people around you (because we've all seen that situation at one time or another).
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @07:39AM
you tend to bump into a lot of the same faces in different places.
co-workers you leave in the shit today may be the ones you will have to work with, or even for, at a different company tomorrow.
So basically you and your co-workers are like a deck of cards being passed around by the bosses of different companies just like cards in a card game, and what you're saying is, enjoy the shuffle and don't fall out of the deck. You don't have any problem with the fact that you're type-cast as a card in a game and the game is playing you.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @08:04AM
THEY wrote the contract. "Running the contract to the letter" is thus the same as "doing exactly as they asked".
(Score: 2) by quintessence on Tuesday June 28 2016, @12:05PM
Don't you find it peculiar that you are concerned with burning your bridges so to speak, yet employers that grind through workers aren't?
Typically a single black mark on an otherwise impressive C.V. isn't going to mean much, especially if there is a shortage of workers (remember those times? I do) or you can justify it without seeming backbiting. Not to mention having copies of your work evaluations on hand to present so no one has to contact your previous employer.
And all of this is immaterial. If employers want something, pay for it like the rest of us do. Don't try and leverage some outdated social expectation, like a pension or a Christmas bonus, into a gimme.
THAT bridge has been burnt a long time ago.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by TheRaven on Tuesday June 28 2016, @12:32PM
Don't you find it peculiar that you are concerned with burning your bridges so to speak, yet employers that grind through workers aren't?
Not really, though it depends on the industry a lot. In a high-skills occupation, the negotiating position is far more even. Some companies get a reputation for being a bad place to work, then they find it difficult to hire skilled people. This never ends well for the company. In an industry where there are more qualified people than jobs then the balance is entirely the other way around and you can easily fire a bit chunk of your workforce and then hire replacements quickly.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Tuesday June 28 2016, @03:03PM
I'm not surprised at this at all.
Power in any negotiation is defined by what happens if a party decide to walk away without a deal. For example, if you are shopping for something pretty to put on your mantlepiece, then you hold all the power because you can always manage just fine without one. If, on the other hand, you are shopping for food, and this is the only store for hundreds of miles, and you're hungry and without food, then you have very little power because your alternative to buying food is starvation.
And that means that in most employment negotiations, the worker needs the job more than the company needs the employee: Most workers without jobs are close to losing homes or cars or other important stuff if they don't find a job soon, whereas an employer can usually afford to be short-staffed for a while. The desperation of the employee causes them to bend over backwards for their employers.
An employees' defense against this effect is significant savings, so your alternative to working is spending down your savings a bit more. That's one reason capitalism works hard to try to convince people to spend whatever they have.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by q.kontinuum on Tuesday June 28 2016, @05:58PM
Usually I would agree. I only had one not so nice job-change, and I don't mind the bridges I burnt there. (As you can see below, due to special circumstances I managed to only let down my boss without letting down my co-workers.)
Where I live, even in probation period (usually 6 months), you have a mandatory 2 weeks notice in both directions. After probation it starts with two months and increases depending on the duration of your employment.
During my education I was working as a sw developer. The employer did lots of inhouse-projects, but I was working on customer premises together with a few others. Since pay was good, education was not paid by time and work was interesing/challanging/rewarding enough, I was in no hurry to finish the education. In the final months, my employer told me not to worry, and I could get a proper job-upgrade with appropriate pay once I have the formal qualification. So far so good.
After finally finishing my education, I talked to my employer. I did some research on usual salaries in my region. Since my boss had me working in development teams together with formally qualified, and I did my job among them without any limitations, I asked for average pay for professional with two years experience. (I was working for that boss for 5 years already, always getting glowing reviews.)
First of all, out of a sudden he mentioned that there are some difficulties hiring at that time. Then he opened to me that I'd have to get a new contract, with a new 6 month probation time (two weeks notice), after I worked 5 years for them and they knew my work-quality perfectly well. The salary he reduced by 20 percent from what I asked. Working time was specified as approximately 40h, occasional overtime included in current pay (I knew from experience that it would end up 50h). Once I got the contract (a couple of days later), the salary was reduced again, citing the previously agreed salary as "target salary, including target bonus". The new base salary was again 10 percent less than what was agreed. And I heard that the contract I was still working on was in danger of not being extended that year, so good reason for me to be concerned to lose my job within the 6 month. At that time I didn't have another option, since I had trusted them, so I grudgingly signed and voiced quite audible that luckily, the probation time would go both ways.
I went to the next floor in the same building, where another IT-company was located. Within 20 minutes I had some basic agreement what could be expected. A week later I had a technical interview, and another week later their offer. They agreed to hire me as professional with equivalent of two years full-time experience; the pay was what I asked initially for, plus 10% bonus target (which I achieved easily every year). On top I got 2 days additional vacation (together 30) and again ~5 percent of my salary on top paid into a private pension plan. Probation time was only 3 months. All with a time-tracking system, ensuring that overtime was either per default compensated with free time or, if agreed on by both sides, paid with hourly rate + 25 percent. And the special bonus: Since this company worked with the same customer as my previous employer, I could even keep my old desk for a couple of more months to properly finish my work there. (It was an interesting project, the hierarchy on customer-side was treating its developers with all due respect, and I would really have hated to let them down.)
Having a nice job:Great
Getting all the condidions I asked for, plus some: Awesome
Face of my former boss when I handed him my two weeks notice: Invaluable!
Funniest thing was when his boss called me to tell me that we could have talked instead, to solve the differences, and after that didn't catch telling me that you always meet twice in life. I told him this was a good thing, and maybe next time we meet he is aware that I mean what I say in my negotiations, and that putting someone after 5 years of faithful service on probation is not necessarily a good move. Under those conditions we could probably come to terms some day.
My next job-change I announced even before the new contract was finally signed, giving my employer enough time to look for replacement. In return they told me that if there is any delay with the new job, I could stay with them for the time being or go back on my cancellation. I still was invited to some company-parties etc.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @07:26AM
You know, if they think it is OK to let me know that there is not enough enrollment for me to have a class to teach one week before the term begins, I have no ethical problems telling them that I am not available at any point less than that. Bastards. Deserve what they get. I do feel for the students that are the victims of the "just in time" fucking MBAs that seem to have taken over the administration positions in most Universities. Perhaps we could provide them with similar conditions of employment? Of course, since most of the tuition money seems to go to administration, perhaps we could just string them up in the Quad? Most legitimate schools have appropriate trees.
(Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Tuesday June 28 2016, @07:36AM
This one feels kinda fair. They won't know if there are students in that class until enrollment ends. But students need to know if there will be an option for a class when signing up.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Tuesday June 28 2016, @07:49AM
I know this might be different from country to country and application-system to system. But they should know enrollment numbers a lot sooner then a week or two in advance. Where I am now, in northern Europe, students apply in the spring (for the autumn classes), they get accepted in the june/july and classes doesn't start until end of august/early september. Between first acceptance and the actual start tho things might change but usually not drastically - like going from full to nothing or the other way around.
That said this sort of thing still does happen but are more like - someone quits or is senior enough to be able to ignore 'teaching' and they just with days or a weeks notice at best tell you that you have to teach a class. It happens, it has happened.
As far as notice goes I think it's three months here, but then people do surprise quit and leave all the time anyway or notice is overlooked somehow, a common thing tends to be that you give notice and then you go on vacation for the remaining time. I can't recall anyone (friend or foe) that gave notice and actually worked or stuck around for the required time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @09:20AM
I know this might be different from country to country and application-system to system. But they should know enrollment numbers a lot sooner then a week or two in advance. Where I am now, in northern Europe, students apply in the spring (for the autumn classes), they get accepted in the june/july and classes doesn't start until end of august/early september.
Huh, interesting. Here in Japan - or at least at my university - class sign-ups begin about two or three weeks after the semester starts. That way you can attend a class once or twice to see if you like it before signing up for it.
On the other hand, I've never heard of a class being cancelled for low attendance. The smallest class I've been in had five or six students, I've heard stories about classes with two or three people. I don't know what happens if literally no-one signs up, but it seems that even a single student is enough to keep it going :) Well, at least for that one semester.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Tuesday June 28 2016, @02:42PM
Huh, interesting. Here in Japan - or at least at my university - class sign-ups begin about two or three weeks after the semester starts. That way you can attend a class once or twice to see if you like it before signing up for it.
On the other hand, I've never heard of a class being cancelled for low attendance. The smallest class I've been in had five or six students, I've heard stories about classes with two or three people. I don't know what happens if literally no-one signs up, but it seems that even a single student is enough to keep it going :) Well, at least for that one semester.
I think we are talking about different things. What I mentioned was when students applied to take a course or what not. When the course starts they then have two-three weeks where they have to register for the course - which in essence is when they claim the place they have previously been offered (and applied for). They have previously accepted it and the spot is reserved for them but they also when the class start have to register for the course. They don't cancel classes due to low registration tho, as far as I know. But they can be cancelled by low (or no) application.
The smallest class I have been in was three people, there wasn't even classes - we just met in the professors office. I seem to recall they mentioning that 5ish is the smallest amount but clearly that is just a guideline.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @07:28AM
Where's that nine-hour work week we were promised, fifty years ago? Can we put some "employment experts" on that? Or is "human-resources consulting" too busy thinking up worthless busywork for employees to do to earn the privilege of existing? Do you really have to wonder why workers are "frustrated, angry, offended or upset" at the neverending recession that employers caused and intentionally perpetuate for their own benefit?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @08:08AM
Turns out that the powers that be prefer to have 20% working 45 hours a week, and the rest split between unemployment and prison. Keeps the 20% worrying about losing their jobs, and thus they don't complain about working way more than necessary.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @05:21PM
For once, the obligatory comic isn't XKCD! [smbc-comics.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @07:47AM
I'd say it's OK to quit then.
Run away, run away, run away and save your life.
Run away if you want to survive.
[linky http://www.songlyrics.com/real-mccoy/run-away-lyrics/ [songlyrics.com]]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday June 28 2016, @08:11AM
...no matter how much of an asshole your boss might be. When you leave bad karma behind you, it may come back to bite you in the behind.
Case in point: 14 years ago, I quit a job I had in a company that was run by a complete moron. I hated the guy, I hated his management style (if one could call what he was doing management at all), and since he had been brought onboard as CEO, the company was doing less and less well every day.
So I politely gave my notice, offered to help transition in whoever might take over my work, worked honestly until the last day of my notice period, and finally left - leaving behind me a clean desk, clean work files, no hard feelings and an image of professionalism.
10 years later, working in a totally different industry, I got a call from a rep who wanted to work with me. It turned out the rep in question was this guy, who had finally found work as something he was good at (that is, not the CEO of a company), remembered me favorably and decided to select my company to work with.
Had I not gritted my teeth, smiled politely and tied up loose ends 10 years earlier, I would never have gotten the business this moron brought me.
The moral of the story is: never leave enemies and bad feelings behind, whatever it costs you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @12:25PM
Thanks for sharing this.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday June 28 2016, @12:28PM
Sometimes, not only is it OK to quit discourteously, it's absolutely necessary.
Some examples:
1. Your boss demands you commit a crime: The next step is to move the conversation to email or some other written medium, then inform your boss that what s/he is asking is illegal. If the boss insists over those objections, then the right thing to do is to quit immediately, taking at least one copy of the conversation with you. And if you see signs that somebody else at the company did what the boss asked, then take your information to the appropriate authorities.
2. Your startup stops paying your salary/wage: This one should be obvious, but surprisingly it isn't to many people who work at startups. The rule is very simple: You don't pay me, I don't work. Anything else is a violation of labor laws. If they are withholding your last paycheck as well (not uncommon in this situation, because they don't have any money left), you can go after them with a lawsuit, and know that you are first in line during any bankruptcy proceedings. I've been through this one, and quitting immediately hasn't hurt my career.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday June 28 2016, @01:19PM
Well, you're right. I was more thinking about a "I want to get out of here because I'm not happy here" kind of situation, not something involving a crime or a breach of labor laws. Obviously in the cases you cite, more drastic actions are justifiably in order.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @06:57PM
Sometimes, not only is it OK to quit discourteously, it's absolutely necessary.
Some examples:
1. Your boss demands you commit a crime:
Do you have some non-standard definition of discourteous?
If not, you can go tell Don Luciano to his face that he can go fucking kill the guy himself...
I'm going to be polite and diplomatic about it and hopefully gather enough stuff to keep me and my family alive and safe. Whether from the boss or from the Law.
(Score: 2) by scruffybeard on Tuesday June 28 2016, @02:16PM
Outside a few rare cases, I would question the work ethic of any person who quits without notice. You shouldn't be a jerk just because your boss is. Take personal responsibility for your prior agreements, and work out a proper exit plan with your current employer.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday June 28 2016, @08:13PM
Working out an exit plan with your current employer is something you should only do after the contract for the new job has been signed. You should give notice, and have enough savings to cover at least until a month after your new job starts. Ideally you should clean up all projects you are working on, with appropriate documentation, but be aware that you may not have that option after you give notice. (This may depend on local labor laws, but don't necessarily expect them to be scrupulously adhered to. It's best if you don't need to go to court.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by ledow on Tuesday June 28 2016, @10:47AM
I've never quit with zero notice, but I've had something very similar.
I was at a workplace, and the management changed, and suddenly all those above me fled and (warning me on the way out because they were actually nice people) everything they refused to do came down to me. And I refused to do it too. Literally, "why is the heating system boiler not working?" to an IT guy. Nothing to do with me, maybe you shouldn't have cancelled the support contract on the boiler system that costs £1m, eh? Just because it has a piece of software with it to set temperatures does not mean it's an IT problem.
Anyway, this went on for a while and they decided that I wasn't doing what they wanted, so they audited me. No problem. An independent IT guy coming in, trying to pick fault and establish if I'm being reasonable? All for it. Go ahead. I have nothing to fear.
So they did their very expensive audit, with their IT shill from down the road, and I blew it out of the water. The biggest fault they could pick was that I didn't have a formal DR policy (because I didn't draft policies, that was my ex-bosses job, you know, the one you forced out and gave a heart attack through stress before he left for a better place...). So I drafted a policy and submitted it the same day. I deliberately kept the audit summary as, whenever questioned on that period by future employers, I can still pull it out.
The very audit that they were hoping would provide ammunition to fire me, actually gave me the perfect evidence to prove I was doing what I should be. At great expense to them. Quite ironic.
Anyway, I suffered through the audit and there came a list of recommendations for the EMPLOYER to do. One of them was that, despite their claims that I "took too many holidays" and "kept saying I didn't have enough time to do thing", I was actually proven to have accumulated 8 weeks of holidays by working through holidays and never taking them and agreeing with my boss that I could roll-over and keep days in lieu, etc. And the audit also recommended more staff underneath me, to cope with the workload. Oh, how it was backfiring for them!
So I then went to my new boss, and told them quite simply - I'm not happy at the implication behind the audit, but I'll get you up and running through the major upgrades we were doing that we'd had planned for years. I'll get you to the other side no matter how long it takes. But I want the audit recommendations for you to be acted upon too. Turn about is fair play - you would have held me to anything else the audit came up with, so I'm going to hold you to your side of it. And given that the "independent" audit was done by your friend, it was more than slightly biased in your favour, so to pull through it with only piddling minor comments, I think I'm justified in asking for more help with the things he recognised I needed.
So we go on for a few months. Everything falls in place. The "complaints" about IT stop because they had no basis, and life goes on. The upgrade project comes out fabulously and I gauge the atmosphere (at this point, I immediately start looking for jobs, which tells you how prescient I was!).
Then one day I'm called into the big bosses office. I get yelled at for 30 minutes by some random "I'm important" guy who's nothing to do with me. My "new" boss - who's never done the job before - doesn't even bother to turn up to the meeting despite my explicit demand they are there, them being my line manager. And because this "important" guy's new laptop logs in and gets a black desktop background, I'm yelled at. "Nothing works, "etc. etc. etc.
So I calmly sit through the rant, that's clearly not gone through the proper channels, and wait for my turn to speak while the Big Boss says nothing at all whatsoever. So you filed a helpdesk ticket, as per policy? No? Oh, so you informed me by email? No. Oh, you "caught me in the corridor". Yeah, lots of people say that. I must have a clone that's also deaf but I don't remember any of that. And, I'll be honest, it's a two-second fix so I wouldn't have even bothered to delay it or take your laptop off you if it had been reported. No, what you are trying to do is imply that I've ignored your problem for months and you can't do any work. And that you told me a million times and I blanked you. Yeah, because there's not a scrap of evidence that's the case and if you'd filed a ticket or sent an email you could pull it out and prove yourself now in seconds. But you didn't. So it's a lie, basically. You are lying. The Big Boss says nothing still. And so you obviously have a complaint with IT and decide to bypass my line manager - who knows nothing about this - and go straight to the top in violation of all protocol, yes? Is this how it's going to be in the future?
It was at that point that I pulled out the audit recommendations sheet that I had in my back pocket. Okay, so how much of the stuff you asked me to do has been done? All of it? Within a day of the audit results? Strange that. Because it was piddly trifles and nothing else.
Right, how many of your side of the recommendations have you done? Oh. None. Including #1: Decide on who should be on an ICT user input committee to "solve" the problem of people not feeling involved. You literally could not say "X, Y and Z should probably be on that". Not even informally. Or scrap it down on a bit of paper. In six months since you knew you had to do that. You literally did NOTHING about the audit recommendations at all, whatsoever, for six months, as my employer, when YOU were the ones that commissioned the audit.
At that point, the room was silent so I chose my moment.
Oh, by the way, ten minutes ago, I had HR confirm how much holiday I'm owed. In writing. I've got 8 weeks that I've got owing from this year, carried over, days in lieu from all those "holidays" that I took off. Strange that.
Oh, here's a copy of my contract, also sourced from your own HR department. My notice period is 2 months.
Hmm. 2 months. 8 weeks. I am literally off at the end of the day (and it was a Friday!). You can still solve the problem if you like, if you really want to keep me, but otherwise I'm gone. I'm sure that's your intention anyway, but I'm also sure you haven't done the maths.
It will affect my reference? Really? Aw. Maybe my new employer that I signed a contract with last week would worry about that. Oh, no, because they know my old boss and the reason I have the job offer was because of his personal recommendation after he took it upon himself to find work for all the people under him who were about to get screwed over, either in his new place or with friends at other places. And I'll be seeing my reference, as I'm quite friendly with my new employers already, so I'd be very careful if I was you (hint: My reference said "He worked here from X to Y dates" - horribly bare to anyone who didn't know the situation in detail, but obviously couldn't contain anything negative that was true).
Oh, and my wife is a barrister specialising in employment law who got into law when her employer screwed her over, so she took them to court and won, and had so much fun researching it all that she went into it as a career. I'm pretty sure, but don't quote me, that I have a very good case for all kinds of working practice, constructive dismissal and other suits if you'd really like to go down that route. I'll give you her number, if you like.
It was so much fun but only because I was prepared and could see it coming, and had a contract elsewhere. I never told them that it didn't start for three months, but who cares? I had two months paid holiday with no work to go to, temped in the meantime to cover the gap, and then went into a better job, at a better place, with better budgets, with higher pay, just 5 minutes from home (I was commuting an hour to get to the other place).
All dues to my old boss too, for seeing it coming and doing what managers should do - protect those in their charge.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday June 28 2016, @02:15PM
Fuckin' A. I wish we all got to win that hard at some point in our lives :)
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Tuesday June 28 2016, @07:02PM
I might have been tempted to take the 2 months of salary as a bonus while working the other job. But, I suppose it depends on your financial situation, and if a large purchase was coming up in your life.
The only thing that shocks me is that you didn't have to have the 8 week vacation already set up. I don't know of many places that allow for "I'm taking vacation as of this afternoon" as notice for it.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Saturday July 16 2016, @10:25AM
I basically did - the new job didn't start until the new financial year (the new place had to get rid of a useless IT guy, ironically....) but I'd signed contracts to start in that new financial year before I resigned.
Over the intervening time I temped at various other places, so it wasn't months off but I did treat a lot of it - quite rightly - as my accumulated holiday that I was never allowed to take.
And if you hand in your resignation, you don't need to "book" your holiday. They either have to let you take it or - with your agreement - pay it off. You are literally "owed" that number of days and need to take them before your employment terminates.
As I resigned, I had to give two months notice before termination. Which automatically brings 8-weeks of accumulated holiday (which is really their critical mistake - allowing me to build up that amount of holiday, with HR's approval) starting 8-weeks back from final termination date (i.e. starting that day!).
However, I did them the courtesy of a one-day handover (easy when you have all the right documentation - if you only they actually had found someone who knew what they were doing to take over, rather than some random relative, but not my problem - I did a handover and the documentation was bang up-to-date).
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Tuesday June 28 2016, @11:07PM
Amazing story. Super happy for you that you found good work at a good place - it is a very difficult thing to find. Even if you aren't there anymore, you were lucky you had it.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Thursday June 30 2016, @08:42AM
Still at the new place, still being treated as a qualified professional, unlike the place in the story above.
The previous workplace were sued by five separate other members of staff for constructive dismissal within a year of it happening, the bosses were eventually sacked and almost everyone who worked there doesn't any more. I think I got out just before everything hit the fan, and they couldn't pull anything on me that would stick so they didn't try.
And, still, occasionally one of my suppliers (who works at both my old and new employers) turns up and tells me all the stories. "You remember when you put in X and Y so you could do Z? Well, they just bought it all over again for no reason, and they still never completed that project they insisted you had to do, and we're having this problem and this problem with them". One time they couldn't even get into their access control system because they didn't know the password and they had to pay a callout to reset it all. I checked, and the password was right there in the documentation I handed over to them, headed with the product model name and "access control".
I've kept a copy of the audit summary. My new employer never asked for a copy but I was brutally honest and furnished them with one while they were asking for my other details, to reassure that my side of the story was true. They took a copy but it's never, ever been mentioned since. But I've had pay-raises already.
My old boss (the good one) stays in contact and we meet up at events and share information and stories. We always have a good laugh about what that old place have done recently, and he's actually hired several people who were fleeing from there since.
But it's still a point of my professional pride that I passed the audit, fixed all the reported problems, delivered on all my promises, and left them in the position that I said I would.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 08 2016, @02:05PM
I try to avoid "me too" comments but I was also told that I "took too many holidays" when I was the only one in the company who was never on holiday.
They had to pay me back 3 months of holidays that I used to take care of my family. It was good.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday June 28 2016, @12:11PM
generate bad references
What does that even mean? For my entire working life (and I'm not young) in corporate america its been a firing offense to give anything other than dates of employment.
Most people have more friends than enemies and their friends get them jobs. So if the only reason you got the callback / interview / second interview is your friends when are they supposed to screw you over with a bad reference? That is just bizarre.
Its like claiming if the cover sheets on the TPS report aren't updated your boss is going to literally rape you. That hasn't been either legal or normal business practice in many generations. Making stupid threats mostly makes the abuser look stupid. Think of all the threats against the british over brexit and how that backfired.
(Score: 2) by Bill Dimm on Tuesday June 28 2016, @12:50PM
in corporate america its been a firing offense to give anything other than dates of employment
I remember hearing once long ago (could be wrong) that a former employer's HR department should (due to potential lawsuits) give nothing more than dates and whether or not you were eligible for re-hire. The eligible for re-hire would presumably be a "no" if you quite without notice, which would raise an eyebrow at the hiring company's HR department (who presumably would talk to your previous employer's HR department, not just your friends).
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Tuesday June 28 2016, @01:35PM
Only giving dates is how it is supposed to work, but no one ever complains about a previous employer giving good references.
So what happens is either "Yeah he was here for a couple of years and he was great" or "He worked here from 1/3/11 to 6/4/14 and policy says that's all we can say".
It's pretty obvious who was a good employee, without being legally actionable in any way.
The other thing is who the employee puts on their CV as the reference contact. HR Dept == Bad Person Do Not Hire, Line Manager == Good Person.
If he/she puts line manger, but said manager says "I can't comment" and refers you to HR, then throw the CV in the bin. (You should always clear it with any named person you are going to use as a reference.)
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Tuesday June 28 2016, @07:05PM
You're talking about formal references. I've definitely seen people give informal opinions over drinks at conferences before. Depends on how big the industry is.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Tuesday June 28 2016, @12:32PM
Turnover is a big component of the acceptability.
I worked a dumpy retail job as a starving student, one of a couple jobs I worked as a starving student, this one job sucked. Turnover in that position was about 1200% annually (yeah, like one month average employment for this McJob) and it was socially acceptable and common to quit on the spot, and I did after a couple months. That's just how it was done. If the average employee only lasts a month expecting them to stay an extra two weeks is kinda idiotic. Next job was at a competitor who was absolutely crushing them in the marketplace and had a roughly 25% annual turnover and I don't think that was a coincidence. None of the employees, or apparently customers, liked the first place.
At another extreme I worked for a megacorporation that was dying and as part of the death it was virtually impossible to replace people who quit without going up to the CEO (no exaggeration, that place was Dilbert central). So turnover was roughly 0% because they either never hired anyone or were in extreme CYA mode and took at least six months to complete a hire so days or weeks are a rounding error. I got a new job far away starting in three weeks, told everyone I started in three weeks and was out the door here on Friday (This was like a Wednesday), and my boss was forced by his boss to ask me to work the next three weeks. Nope I was outta there that Friday once I got all my short term stuff wrapped up. Gotta move, gotta find a place, simply want some vacation, etc. When you're a mortgage-slave and need the job if the boss says jump you gotta ask how high, but a good boss knows once you're off their leash then pissing you off is pointless. So there was no huge argument or slam the door on the way out, we both knew our market positions so to speak and I left on good terms that Friday. As former boss (who was bad, but not awful) said something like "well, I had to ask, although I figured you're out on Friday". On good terms everyone left happy and well documented and responsibilities transferred. If they had pissed me off, F them I'm playing some MUD online for three weeks to the minute and nothing would have been documented or transferred.
Another thing to think about is I'm in the socioeconomic class where I'm not cool with being poor. Not because I got piles of money although I'm OK that way, but part of the social class isn't to be nose to the grindstone zero dollar bank account unable to survive a weeks unemployment. I can afford to take some time off and my kids will still eat and the mortgage will still be paid etc. I don't need to declare bankruptcy because I'm outta work for a couple weeks like some coworkers I've known. So medical covers me the remainder of the month or I COBRA or whatever its called, tell the new job I can't start for 3 or 4 weeks due to having to wrap stuff up at the old job, delicate time in a big project, they appreciate that I'm conscientious and care, tell the old job I'm outta here in a couple days however long it takes to professionally wrap up my short term stuff, then I'm on vacation for weeks. Start the new job refreshed. Anyway the relevance to the story is I bet some of the "storm out and slam the door" people are just pissed they didn't tell the HR girl that its going to be 3 weeks until they can start, and the new guy is getting himself a vacation between jobs one way or the other and if it takes some drama queen antics storming off stage, well that's what it takes. Should have just told the HR girl at one company its going to be three weeks and tell the other its the remainder of the week...
Given the diversity of job responsibilities and (in)effectiveness of HR department hiring, the idea that all jobs should have two weeks notice is pretty idiotic.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday June 28 2016, @02:31PM
While I understand most of your reasoning, you kind of lose the moral high ground with this:
So medical covers me the remainder of the month or I COBRA or whatever its called, tell the new job I can't start for 3 or 4 weeks due to having to wrap stuff up at the old job, delicate time in a big project, they appreciate that I'm conscientious and care, tell the old job I'm outta here in a couple days however long it takes to professionally wrap up my short term stuff, then I'm on vacation for weeks. Start the new job refreshed.
Couldn't you just tell the new place you're starting a couple weeks later? I assume you wouldn't be working for them if they weren't a decent company and understanding of that.
Or are you saying that you really don't *want* to be "zero dollars in the bank" but you are?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday June 28 2016, @03:02PM
I've never had an argument over it with the HR people. Probably because based on what I've heard and observed its extremely rare/unusual. I don't know why because stress free R+R time between jobs is freaking awesome. I think HR people like to argue early in the hiring process to see how you react, but by the time offers are accepted and start dates are negotiated its time for everyone to chill.
From memory my most recent line was something like "I can start on the n-th. I need some time to wrap up long term projects at work and arrange child care schedules at home and some other things". "OK see you then"
I see it as good insurance plan, maybe it would really take me over two weeks to wrap stuff up. It never does. Hard to predict but better to guess long in a situation like this than to really mess stuff up by guessing short. I'm not going to mess up my new employers orientation class or their paperwork workflow or my new bosses planning schedule by showing up a week early if I'm lucky.
If I fail to mention that I'll be finalizing my new child care schedule while taking the kids to a waterpark resort for a week, them not being interested in the details of my private life is not my problem, and I see no fiduciary responsibility since its obviously not hurting them and a well rested VLM is a productive VLM...
At least that's my rationalization anyway. Boils down to if the new employer is not paying me, what I'm doing is none of their business, and as for the old employer if I'm not working (sandbagging until a calendar date) then I'm not going to demand a paycheck for literally doing nothing.
(Score: 2) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Tuesday June 28 2016, @02:39PM
>"Start figuring out if there is anything you can do to fix it. The worst that can happen is that nobody listens or they tell you no."
That is not the worst thing that can happen. Reporting a problem through channels can result in retaliation to extents you might not believe. Watch what happens to other people who try to fix things before you risk it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @10:14PM
A former boss's boss had this to say on the subject of notice: "If you want to quit, we will need three months notice, in writing, and remember the no-compete. If we want to fire you, you've got until I can throw you out the window."
(Score: 2) by archfeld on Thursday June 30 2016, @03:48AM
I worked for several financial institutions and they forbid managers from giving personal references and HR would only supply whether or not you would be considered for rehire. I have had great relationships with my managers who more often than not would write a letter of recommendation and then verify that they did so to the potential new employer but most would not give specifics to any contact from the new employer at work. The best response I got from most of my managers was a private cell phone number and a good personal reference.
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 03 2016, @06:23AM
https://web.archive.org/web/20060109185728/http://www.orafraud.org/terminator_0.1.html [archive.org]
'Nuff sed.
~childo
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Friday July 08 2016, @01:22PM
/. ran this story, finally. [slashdot.org]
Greets to Rosco P. Coltrane [slashdot.org] for linking to us.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]