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Ask HN: Did you ever resign from a company on your first day?

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Re: Ask HN: Did you ever resign from a company on your first day?

#31

Post by eecks »

vonseel wrote: post #28
stcredzero wrote: post #19

I resigned on my second day. On the second day, it came out that the founder wanted to review my code every 30 minutes. What!? Apparently, he was traumatized by some prima-donna self-proclaimed genius who went off by himself for two months and built entirely the wrong thing. I suggested that he at least give me a day or the afternoon or something. Nope. So I became the Sofa King and I was Sofa King outta there! Anoth…

> In that case, go ahead and use 3rd party libraries, but do it mediated through a facade or some kind of adapter library, so you can rapidly switch to another one. That’s how I was taught to do it. But I’ve yet to see people take the time to do this in real-life Code.

What adapter library?

Re: Ask HN: Did you ever resign from a company on your first day?

#33

Post by antaviana »

That an employee quits the first day or does not show up sucks big time. It is better to say that another process that you thought had failed resurrected and had much better salary and relocation benefits. Tell them it was a difficult decision (it was, you even asked it in HN) but that you felt you had to decline it because you felt than joining the company with strong feelings of regret could seriously jeopardize your performance. Tell them that since you found the job offer interesting (indeed you accepted it) if you ever become available again, you would let them know in case there is a matching opportunity.

Re: Ask HN: Did you ever resign from a company on your first day?

#34

Post by jlengrand »

I have been in the exact same situation 6 years ago. I found a good job that I accepted but my girlfriend found a job abroad the week after. I decided to let go of the offer I had already signed to relocate with her.

It sucks big time to call someone and let them down (especially since I called on Christmas :s). But it's much more desirable than joining anyways with after thoughts. Worse thing you can live with is regrets. They'll find someone else in a couple weeks.

Re: Ask HN: Did you ever resign from a company on your first day?

#35

Post by expertentipp »

antaviana wrote: post #33

That an employee quits the first day or does not show up sucks big time. It is better to say that another process that you thought had failed resurrected and had much better salary and relocation benefits. Tell them it was a difficult decision (it was, you even asked it in HN) but that you felt you had to decline it because you felt than joining the company with strong feelings of regret could seriously jeopardize yo…

> Tell them that since you found the job offer interesting (indeed you accepted it) if you ever become available again, you would let them know in case there is a matching opportunity.

The equivalent of the phrase from the rejection email: "shall any matching opportunities arise in the future we will totally contact you again" :)

Re: Ask HN: Did you ever resign from a company on your first day?

#36

Post by ajeet_dhaliwal »

strongai wrote: post #30

Yes. Took a job with a defense contractor in the UK. On day 1 they told me that it would take 6 months to get security clearance. The bummer was that the men's bathroom was in a secure area and I would have to be escorted every time. On day 1 I quit.

That says a lot about the company. How moronic not putting another toilet in a less secure place.

Re: Ask HN: Did you ever resign from a company on your first day?

#37

Post by stcredzero »

eecks wrote: post #31
vonseel wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In that case, go ahead and use 3rd party libraries, but do it mediated through a facade or some kind of adapter library, so you can rapidly switch to another one. That’s how I was taught to do it. But I’ve yet to see people take the time to do this in real-life Code.

What adapter library?

The one you write.

Re: Ask HN: Did you ever resign from a company on your first day?

#38

Post by truesy »

End of the first week, from the first place I worked out of college. A web design/dev shop in Connecticut that built out sites for schools and hospitals, mostly. This was back in 2008.

I had joined and was learning the ropes of their dev process. There was still some paperwork that needed to be signed. Someone brought me the contract to sign, and I read it through, and it had a non-compete clause that said that I could not work for rival company, or "any other software engineering company" in "connecticut, new england, the eastern United States, or anywhere else in the United States" for "a minimum of 2 years." No joke.

I asked them what that was all about, and they said it was a company policy. I did some research, learned all about non-competes, and told them that the clause was so broad that it would never be upheld, but they said everyone just signs it. I told them no, grabbed my stuff and drove home. Was probably one of the best decisions I made, since the path I went down led me to a company that was acquired by Fb, etc etc

Re: Ask HN: Did you ever resign from a company on your first day?

#39

Post by stcredzero »

vonseel wrote: post #28
stcredzero wrote: post #19

I resigned on my second day. On the second day, it came out that the founder wanted to review my code every 30 minutes. What!? Apparently, he was traumatized by some prima-donna self-proclaimed genius who went off by himself for two months and built entirely the wrong thing. I suggested that he at least give me a day or the afternoon or something. Nope. So I became the Sofa King and I was Sofa King outta there! Anoth…

> In that case, go ahead and use 3rd party libraries, but do it mediated through a facade or some kind of adapter library, so you can rapidly switch to another one. That’s how I was taught to do it. But I’ve yet to see people take the time to do this in real-life Code.

A coworker of mine used the technique to port the company's application from using an old object database to Oracle. People certainly use this in real-life code.
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