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Quitting a New Job

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Re: Quitting a New Job

#231

Post by FireBeyond »

sethammons wrote: post #16
janosett wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the risk with at-will employment in CA. The employer could very well decide after two days of you working there that they wanted to let you go -- there's no part of the contract keeping either side from ending things early. I don't think it's unethical to leave after a short amount of time given the employer has no equivalent expectation.

A buddy of mine got a new job, quit the old one, showed up day one and was laid off immediately. Apparently their budget had changed. Oof! We also hired a c-level exec who came aboard apparently having already accepted a different offer and came on for under a month to collect pay and get some juicy stock. Apparently they negotiated well and walked off very, very well paid. Edit: not sure if I have a point there othe…

A friend of mine, ex-IT, is now a Physician Assistant. He was an Alaska native, living outside Seattle. He had been doing a lot of contract work at a large Urgent Care in Alaska, and talked about it with his family.

They talked about making him full-time. Negotiated an offer, relocation package, etc., all good. He set about selling his home, finding his kids new schools, etc. And then about a week before his start date, he got a phone call.

"The clinic has been sold to new owners. They are reviewing finances and rescinded any job offers, including yours. They will allow you 30 days to repay your relocation assistance."

Oh hell no. He lawyered up. He'd sold his home. Had a whole bunch of language in the employment contract that the new owners were unaware of, to ensure things went "smoothly".

He didn't end up repaying his relocation assistance. And his "new" "employer" ended up paying three months salary and the closing costs on his house for the inconvenience.

Re: Quitting a New Job

#232

Post by FireBeyond »

mistersquid wrote: post #69
spectramax wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nailed it. At-will employment in CA, so the employee can be fired or laid off instantly in an afternoon - happens all the time. But, they're generally expected (not required) to give 2-3 weeks notice. I always found this a bit asymmetric.

> But, they're generally expected (not required) to give 2-3 weeks notice. California at-will employment cuts both ways and requires neither employer nor employee to give notice. Many employers will typically notify employees 30 days in advance of layoffs and provide severance on top of that. Many employees give employers two weeks’ notice before quitting. Some employers and some employees do neither, which is fully…

Many companies in CA, while you absolutely do not have to give notice, legally, will refuse to provide a reference or employment verification or flag you as "not eligible for rehire", (most companies I've worked with lately don't ask for references, per se, but _do_ verify dates of employment and eligibility for rehire) including to prospective employers, if you do not.

Re: Quitting a New Job

#233

Post by FireBeyond »

whatever1 wrote: post #17
nickff wrote: post #2

I realize that HN is very employee-centric, but "exploring new opportunities but don’t quit until something better is lined up" is rather harmful to the team you're working with. If someone's just started, they're generally a net-negative, so the individual is both drawing pay and sucking resources. This is almost 'quitting in-place'. If we expect startups and companies to act ethically (in terms of pay, benefits, op…

Don’t throw the ethics word in the sole business that the employees have some leverage. Employers will let you go without a second thought about your family / health situation and you will be told that this is just business.

Very true. My ex- was nervous about accepting a vet tech position for about a year before she started vet school.

She was nervous because they "required"/"only wanted" someone who "was going to be there long term".

I asked her: "They want you to make commitments to them that you will be there for a long term. Are they willing to make the same commitment to you? Or are you out the door the moment you are unneeded?"

"Business is tough. But here at BlahCo, like we told you, we're a family. So like we required from you, we're keeping you on and paying you!" - hah, no. At least not the very very vast majority of the time, more like "Come in, close the door, have a seat".

Re: Quitting a New Job

#234

Post by FireBeyond »

st1x7 wrote: post #53
spectramax wrote: post #14

This statement is just sad "After a few weekends of furiously-paced Leetcoding".

I don't think it's sad to prepare for the interview process. I see it this way - whatever you do at your current job might be very specific to your current tech-stack/product/problem-domain/team/company. When you're looking for a new job, you can't possibly learn the stack or problem domain of each and every company that you will interview with. In that sense it's great that you're assessed on more general skills lik…

My girlfriend is an accountant. Almost universally, if someone ignored her degree, and wanted to run through a skills test, it'd be considered extremely insulting.

Re: Quitting a New Job

#235

Post by pbrb »

mikelevins wrote: post #184
gnicholas wrote: post #20

I once quit a job after 6 weeks. From the day I started (when I saw my boss for about 30 seconds, was not given a computer or any information about how to get started/set up), it was clear things were not going well. The team I was joining had mostly disbanded (a mix of fired, left for greener pastures, or transferred to another region). As a result, there was no institutional knowledge, just as my team was put in ch…

I quit one after two weeks once. It was a small-to-medium consulting company that talked a great game in their interviews and then turned out to be a complete clown show. After two weeks I was panicking over things like customer Hipchat meetings in which participants were using other channels to mock the customers (not shared with the customers, of course) with porn clips. I noped out of there after two weeks. They g…

Was the consulting company named after a type of gem stone? I had an eerily similar experience, that I also left after two weeks. The weirdest part of it all was the manager who was part of it all. She used to send a group chat saying she was going to take a nap, close her office door, turn the lights off, and lay down on the floor to sleep for a few hours.

What really did it for me was when we all went out for someone's "birthday" (it wasn't their birthday, the team had put cards in at a few restaurants with different dates for their birthdays to get free stuff, whatever, the restaurants don't care, but it was just weird) and most of the team berated a guy who was trying not to drink so he didn't order a beer. You could tell the guy was uncomfortable, and they just kept goading him for the entire 2hr lunch.

After a week and a half I called back a company I had turned down for this one and asked if they would still take me. Started there the next Monday. That was 10yrs and 2 jobs ago, and easily the best decision I had made for my career.

Re: Quitting a New Job

#236

Post by bartread »

gautamdivgi wrote: post #217
bartread wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a habit of slogging through difficult patches that has, for the most part and with only perhaps two notable exceptions, served me well. However, I want to tell the story of one of these exceptions as a counterpoint to other comments here. A few years ago I started a job where, within the first week or two, I had serious enough doubts about whether or not it was going to work that I spoke to my manager and said…

About the commute. If you have a 45 minute commute which is allegedly "normal". It's an hour and a half. I would add another hour to that to make that a true door-to-door figure, i.e. from the time you decide to get ready (past breakfast/morning coffee) to when you're actually productive at your desk. Same in the evening from the time you shut work to when you're back home. If you sleep 7 hours a day, you have 21 wak…

> It's almost like saying you have to work at least 2.5 more hours a day but you won't be paid for it.

Exactly this.

The way it worked for me is that on the way in just the ride itself would be 70 - 80 minutes, and then on the way home it would be anything between 90 and 115 minutes.

The longer duration on the way home was firstly because the traffic was generally worse, and secondly because I'd always have to stop for fuel. My tank range was 160 - 180 miles, and I was doing around 115 for the round trip. In theory I could alternate fuel stops between morning and evening, stopping on every third trip, but I never like to run the tank that low in case - for whatever reason - something happens that means I need more fuel.

The net result was between 2h40 and 3h05m of travel time every single day. And that's with filtering through traffic. If I weren't doing that you could probably add another 30 - 45 minutes on to both trips, which would mean spending up to 4h35m commuting. That's on top of 8 hours in the office.

Riding a motorcycle is much more tiring than driving a car. Partly this is because it is more physical, and you are of course exposed to the elements so your body will be burning more energy to stay warm even wearing proper winter gear, but also because you have to concentrate a lot more and be a lot more aware of your surroundings because you're so much more vulnerable.

That amounts to an 11 hour day where you're "on" - i.e., basically working. You're probably more "on" during the commute than you are in the office because, believe me, you cannot afford for your attention to waver for a second. This in itself suggests the commute is too damn dangerous and you probably shouldn't be doing it. A couple of minor incidents, and one that was more serious where somebody drove into the side of me, brought this starkly into focus, and also contributed to me moving on.

Re: Quitting a New Job

#237

Post by totablebanjo »

howlgarnish wrote: post #189
totablebanjo wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really think you’ll be treated the same by management if you pull that?

In larger companies management, HR and compensation are all separate teams, and a decent manager will be negotiating "with" you and "against" the other two to get your salary match.

Ah, that’s a fair point and I can definitely see that working out.

Re: Quitting a New Job

#238

Post by st1x7 »

FireBeyond wrote: post #234
st1x7 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's sad to prepare for the interview process. I see it this way - whatever you do at your current job might be very specific to your current tech-stack/product/problem-domain/team/company. When you're looking for a new job, you can't possibly learn the stack or problem domain of each and every company that you will interview with. In that sense it's great that you're assessed on more general skills lik…

My girlfriend is an accountant. Almost universally, if someone ignored her degree, and wanted to run through a skills test, it'd be considered extremely insulting.

She also works in a field that nobody can enter without the necessary education and some additional professional accreditation. Software is a lot more open, without hard requirements for a degree and without oversight bodies. Maybe this is because it's a much newer field, maybe it's because the industry has been consistently growing for the past couple of decades and putting hard barriers to entry would have slowed down that growth. Whatever the reason is, I'm glad that we aren't at accountant-level yet.

Re: Quitting a New Job

#239

Post by beckingz »

whoisburbansky wrote: post #162
monkeybutton wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've done this and having a strong manager advocating for me made all the difference.

How did the initial conversation with your manager go about you leaving? I've definitely left companies before instead of just switching teams because it felt like I had a tough time explaining that my wanting to switch teams wasn't the manager's fault and it was easier to explain wanting to switch companies instead without making it seem like a personal affront to the manager. I'm wondering now if I wasn't giving my…

I was rebuked in my transfer request at a startup because "transfers were rewards" and my manager didn't like me.

Re: Quitting a New Job

#240

Post by beckingz »

war1025 wrote: post #134
_9omd wrote: post #128

I'm about a month into a new FAANG job, and I hate it so far. I can't decide if it's better to quit sooner as to not waste the companies time (and avoid suffering more), or if I should give it some more time. My team's work seems super boring, I'm not interested in the tech we use, the setup process has been a shit-show, and I'm feeling zero motivation. I've mostly worked for startup to mid sized companies in the pas…

> I've mostly worked for startup to mid sized companies in the past I saw an anecdote a few years ago about a hiring manager basically saying, "If you worked happily for a small startup, you will most likely be unable to put up with the bureaucracy of a large enterprise from now on" I've often wondered how much truth there was to that statement.

Just started my first big enterprise job yesterday. Looks like this might be true.
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