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Career advice no one gave me: Give a lot of notice when you quit

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Re: Career advice no one gave me: Give a lot of notice when you quit

#171

Post by Leherenn »

kaon123 wrote: post #21

2 weeks is the standard? I am amazed. In Switzerland where I live, it is 3 full calendar months. And I thought Switzerland is very similar to the USA... My god 2 weeks lol, someone quits and he is gone the next day. How is this legal?

It's only 3 months if you've worked for over 10 years at the same place (or you have a different contractual agreement of course). Otherwise it's a week during the probation period (usually 3 to 6 months), 1 month the first year and 2 months between 2 and 10 years.

Also it's symmetrical. Switzerland is "at will" (in the sense that they can lay you off at any time for any reason), but they have to follow the same notice period. In essence this is mandatory minimum severance.

Re: Career advice no one gave me: Give a lot of notice when you quit

#173

Post by com2kid »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #155
EliRivers wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The moment you give your resignation, there are good odds your company will say "we accept your resignation effective immediately. Goodbye." Genuine question; is this a US thing? I've never, ever seen this or heard of it happening. I don't think I've ever worked at a company that didn't state in the contract the notice period. I have seen companies decide they don't want that person on site anymore when someone quits…

US person here who has participated in a lot of online advice/mentoring forums. I've never once seen a tech company immediately "fire" someone who says they're resigning like the parent comment claims. The only exceptions I can think of were when people gave multiple months of notice that they were going to quit and already had declining performance due to e.g. unhappiness about the job. If you're not performing well…

> US person here who has participated in a lot of online advice/mentoring forums. I've never once seen a tech company immediately "fire" someone who says they're resigning like the parent comment claims.

I've seen it happen multiple times. Microsoft has a list of competitors that if you say you are going to work for them, your access to everything is immediately revoked.

Managers at MS ask their employees to NOT SAY where they are going, so a proper off-boarding can take place.

Re: Career advice no one gave me: Give a lot of notice when you quit

#175

Post by yakubin »

mym1990 wrote: post #75
kaon123 wrote: post #21

2 weeks is the standard? I am amazed. In Switzerland where I live, it is 3 full calendar months. And I thought Switzerland is very similar to the USA... My god 2 weeks lol, someone quits and he is gone the next day. How is this legal?

The same way that when someone fires you and you're gone the same day?

The 3 month notice in Europe goes both ways. You can’t be fired on the spot, unless for gross misconduct.

Re: Career advice no one gave me: Give a lot of notice when you quit

#176

Post by q7xvh97o2pDhNrh »

projectazorian wrote: post #119
ghaff wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to lie. There are plenty of generic reasons you can give why you're leaving that probably even have the virtue of having some truth to them. (Was time to make a change.) No reason to get into a blow-by-blow of why now and what all the things that made the situation less and less tolerable were. It's not lying. It just not telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. ADDED: Companies c…

“Love it here, just looking for a new challenge” or “Love it here, but I couldn’t pass this opportunity up” have gotten me far. You can always be more honest behind closed doors if you want.

I'm impressed (and a bit envious) you were able to say that first part. I wish I'd worked at place where I could honestly say the same.

Every place I've left, the best I could muster with a straight face was a bland tautological platitude — something like, "Oh, you know, just going to do something different."

I don't exactly have tons of experience quitting jobs or ending relationships, but I've never understood the relentless navel-gazing of "why" that seems to come along with most people quitting their jobs. And, besides, what's the point of expounding on how things could be better (in an "exit interview" or otherwise), when everyone knows all that feedback will have no impact?

It seems to me the practical part of the conversation is simply, "I'm ending our relationship." And then — everyone moves forward from there.

Re: Career advice no one gave me: Give a lot of notice when you quit

#177

Post by vivegi »

KptMarchewa wrote: post #47
Loughla wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really depends on the worker, in my experience, and their approach to the situation. I had one person who gave a full year's notice, so that we could hire, train, and integrate the new worker before she left. It was glorious and resulted in zero down time. I have had another who gave one month's notice, and spent the entire time being toxic. Digging out from under that took the better part of three years. The over…

>I had one person who gave a full year's notice I don't understand how anyone could do this with exception of retirement. Who will hire you with one year long advance?

25 yrs ago, I did something similar.

I worked for a systems integrator that developed a turnkey software system for a client. It was a massive project (a systems migration) and ran for 3 years until handover. I was the lead on the project.

A couple of years later, I left my employer and joined a startup. 10-11 months later, the startup was looking to cut its burn rate and the CEO asked me to look for a job outside as revenues were not coming in as planned. He did promise me one thing. I could come back and join them after they became cash positive. He expected this to happen in 12-18 months. I trusted the CEO.

By pure coincidence, the client I worked several years ago was completely exiting operations from one of their operating locations (employees were offered to move to another city or leave with severance pay). The entire team that we had handed over the new turnkey system was being let go and none of the opted to move to a different city.

I applied for the job and got it. I told the management (they were from the other city) that I will de-risk the transition for them completely since I knew the system like the back of my hand and laid out one condition. I will stay for 2 years and will need a replacement to join in the 2nd year (there were some intricacies in the system that had daily, weekly, monthly and yearly processes) and I wanted my replacement to be trained on all steps. So, a year of overlap was justified. The hiring manager and the division VP, both interviewed me and agreed to this.

I did my job true to my conscience. As planned, I let them know at the end of the first year that a replacement needs to be brought in. A lateral hire came in as my replacement and I trained him and completed the knowledge transfer.

I quit after the second year as originally planned. My startup CEO rehired me back into their company which was now revenue-generating and cash positive. I joined in a senior leadership position.

That was one of the most intricate knowledge transfer of my career and I have been very happy. It wouldn't have been possible without the various parties trusting each other.

Re: Career advice no one gave me: Give a lot of notice when you quit

#178

Post by zdragnar »

saulpw wrote: post #7

I've generally given a lot of notice as an IC, 2-3 months in some cases. and I have to say, I think it's not been appreciated, not even once. I've tried to spend the time wrapping things up, communicating my tacit knowledge to my coworkers, and writing documentation for things that I've done and created and am responsible for; I'm fairly certain that no one has given my opinions and thoughts any more than a cursory a…

I've never given less than a month's notice, and the notice has always been tied to the end date of whatever project or current workload I happen to have. My direct bosses have always expressed appreciation for this, but then again, I've only ever left a company once because I was dissatisfied working there.

Culture and relationships are a two way street, and you are always responsible for your own part in building it. You might have a shit boss or work for a shit company and it's not going to end well, and if that's the case and there's nothing you can do, then all that's left is to look out for yourself. I wouldn't ever advocate for that to be the default position, though.

Re: Career advice no one gave me: Give a lot of notice when you quit

#179

Post by refulgentis »

indymike wrote: post #102
saulpw wrote: post #7

I've generally given a lot of notice as an IC, 2-3 months in some cases. and I have to say, I think it's not been appreciated, not even once. I've tried to spend the time wrapping things up, communicating my tacit knowledge to my coworkers, and writing documentation for things that I've done and created and am responsible for; I'm fairly certain that no one has given my opinions and thoughts any more than a cursory a…

> But now when I "give notice" and they don't even let me try to work the next 2 weeks, I'm grateful. Life hack: Put your resignation in writing with a date in the future. In many states, if the employer attempts to move the termination date (without compensation), they will award wages until your resignation date... I've used this twice, and in both cases, I was sent home, but HR told the manager that any severance…

This isn’t accurate, might have worked in one-off situations but, given at-will employment, this was at best a confused HR employee trying to help, not a legal conclusion. Note the obvious edge cases
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