SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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: 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.