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Ask HN: How much work do you do during your notice period?

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Re: Ask HN: How much work do you do during your notice period?

#41

Post by mindcrime »

When I've had notice periods the bulk of the "work" has usually been creating / extending / clarifying documentation, and attending knowledge-transfer sessions with colleagues. I have rarely if ever done any true "net new work" during those periods. Maybe if there was some task that was half-finished that I could finishing knocking out, I might finish that up.

The rest of the time, which would generally be the bulk of it, was spent surfing the 'net, going to long lunches with my colleagues, or hanging out in the break-room swapping war stories, talking about out-of-work hobbies (mountain biking, etc.) and such-like.

Re: Ask HN: How much work do you do during your notice period?

#42

Post by mcronce »

The most critical thing I do is to make sure I'm not the only one who knows something. Warm handoffs, writing docs, wrapping up tasks, etc. Other than that I work as normal, minus taking on new work, so as I handoff/finish tasks, the workload dwindles. Usually the last day or three I have essentially nothing left to do.

Re: Ask HN: How much work do you do during your notice period?

#44

Post by karaterobot »

At the last job I left, I liked my coworkers, and wanted to leave my work in a good position for them to pick up, knowing we were now understaffed. I was working right up until 4pm on the last Friday, and only stopped because I had my own going away party to attend. I believe I put in some after work time in the last couple of weeks, to get everything documented and ship-shape.

At the previous job, I quit because the management was awful, and I was more or less working by myself. So, I absolutely did not put in much effort after giving notice. I didn't feel I owed anybody anything more than the minimum.

Re: Ask HN: How much work do you do during your notice period?

#45

Post by fouc »

onion2k wrote: post #8

I usually switch from 'work' to 'dumping everything in my head that I haven't already documented in to a doc'. I've never really been sure if anyone ever reads the doc. I guess that means I stop working. EDIT: You're on day 4 with 6 more to go, so that means you're giving 10 days notice? My current contract says I need to give 3 months. Most roles prior to that have been 4 weeks. What sort of job has such a short not…

2 week notice is common in US & Canada. I usually give 1-2 month's notice but I've been told it's generally not necessary.

Re: Ask HN: How much work do you do during your notice period?

#46

Post by wombatpm »

sp332 wrote: post #25
onion2k wrote: post #8

I usually switch from 'work' to 'dumping everything in my head that I haven't already documented in to a doc'. I've never really been sure if anyone ever reads the doc. I guess that means I stop working. EDIT: You're on day 4 with 6 more to go, so that means you're giving 10 days notice? My current contract says I need to give 3 months. Most roles prior to that have been 4 weeks. What sort of job has such a short not…

That just sounds impractical. You interview somewhere and get hired, but you can't start for three months? And you just don't do any real work for your old employer either for an entire quarter?

It is. I had one of those three month notice contracts. Negotiated my start, gave my notice, and the company chose to part ways immediately - but did not pay out the three months. If I am ever in that situation again, I'll give two weeks and they can sue me to make me stay.

Re: Ask HN: How much work do you do during your notice period?

#47

Post by ravenstine »

It can depend.

If I've been with the company for a while and there are still projects that actually need wrapping up or documenting, sure, I'll fill my final days with work.

In other cases I've done very little during the notice period because there maybe nothing I need to "wrap up", the only thing left for me to do being general tasks. No, I can't say that I'll work very hard in my last days in this case.

I'm of the belief that, if you have nothing to do for your final days, you should just quit without the whole "2 weeks notice" thing. Some good employers will say they don't mind if you don't work 2 more weeks before you even have a chance to explain why you are quitting immediately. Surfing HN 8 hours a day for 2 weeks doesn't do you or the employer any good.

Re: Ask HN: How much work do you do during your notice period?

#49

Post by gundamdoubleO »

I make sure everything I was directly responsible for is in the hands of someone else, whether that be writing documentation or just letting them know casually. I cleanup any messy code I would consider myself responsible for and that I know probably won't get looked at - mostly for my own sanity's sake.

Once those things are done I largely get by doing smaller tasks and helping out where I can rather than directly involving myself in anything. Nobody has really seemed to mind.

Funnily enough, the last two days at my previous job involved HR and IT slowly revoking my access to most of the systems and groups we used at work (email, repositories, etc), to the surprise of my manager who said I could just kick back and relax until my last day.

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