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

davidlaprade.github.io

231–240 of 405 posts

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

#231
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> Life hack: Put your resignation in writing with a date in the future. This sounds like such a neat way to deal with it. I wonder if it's legally valid in my jurisdiction (in Sweden.) I have never heard of it but yet again, why not?

Termination dates are in the employment contract 99.9% in Sweden. At most you’ll get a “lmao, no”.

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

#232
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> Life hack: Put your resignation in writing with a date in the future. This sounds like such a neat way to deal with it. I wonder if it's legally valid in my jurisdiction (in Sweden.) I have never heard of it but yet again, why not?

No it’s not valid in Sweden (or anywhere else). The date at which your resignation starts to count is the date that your employer learns of your intent to leave. You are however free to agree on an arbitrary date with them as your last day.

It’s not the date you put in the letterhead. That would be insane.

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

#234
I've done this many times, I know for a fact that almost NONE of the prep work, training, file organization, email handoffs, exit/handoff plans, and so on...were ever used except to allow somebody to make excuses on their 'delays' in the first few months after I left.

I've also worked in industries for many years, and was told this line about 'leaving on good terms'. Honestly though, you could just about nearly commit murder - your 'name' and 'reputation' don't matter if there money / a deal to be made. And you'll almost never meet ICs again, so why are you bothering to 'leaving on good terms'. Its a fantasy. Grab names and emails on the way out, though, might be handy.

And, sometimes, you should just go. Seriously. If you didn't care so much trying to make it all happen and work and 'meet timelines', all that would happen is something would fall behind and the management would finally do their job and give relief to the team you think you're helping by doing so much work to 'offramp' - and perhaps get the people they refused before because you were handling it. Seriously, just dropping your shit where you stand and walking out into the sun one fine day may be the greatest gift you give that 'team' of yours.

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

#235
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My god 2 weeks lol, someone quits and he is gone the next day. How is this legal? How is it legal for this not to be the case? We have constitutional laws against enslavement or indentured servitude here. Nobody can force you to work if you don’t want to. You can quit right now if you want to. What happens if you stop showing up to work in Switzerland? Do you go to prison?

What happens in Europe if you're supposed to work out 3 months notice and you stop showing up: - you stop getting paid. - you probably will have a hard time dealing with your former employers if you need something from them. - they think you're a dick, and tell other people, if asked, what an asshole you are. - potentially if they have nothing better to do, they get a lawyer to write you a threatening letter, then do…

So exactly the same thing, except for the threatening letter (the lawyer would tell you there's no grounds for it).

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

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My god 2 weeks lol, someone quits and he is gone the next day. How is this legal? How is it legal for this not to be the case? We have constitutional laws against enslavement or indentured servitude here. Nobody can force you to work if you don’t want to. You can quit right now if you want to. What happens if you stop showing up to work in Switzerland? Do you go to prison?

You can be held in contempt for leaving your job in the US. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/24/us/thedacare-lawsuit-wisc...

Uh, your link seems to be about the judge ruling that the workers can't be prevented from leaving their job.

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

#237
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…

Totally agree. Two weeks for knowledge transfer should be it. Remember that most leadership view all engineers as replaceable cogs. Just wrap up what you can and loop others into the things that can't and move on with life. Big companies probably don't want you around from a liability. Small companies want the knowledge transfer because you have "blind-sided" them. (Despite asking for a raise for the last two years a…

My experience is that two weeks is probably about right most of the time--especially for ICs. The company expects it as the norm. And it's either enough time to do a reasonable handoff or no sensible length of time is going to be enough. (And I'll always answer the odd "help!" question for the coming month or two.) Go much beyond that and you're in this odd extended winding down situation where you can't really take anything new on and you're increasingly checked out. And, in a physical office environment, you're probably also increasingly just a distraction.

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

#238
At my last job I gave a month to upper management and two weeks for those that I was supervising. This let management come up with a plan on how to reshuffle roles to fill the gap. I also created a transition document listing my responsibilities, suggested surrogates, and current statuses of projects I was managing and involved in. Why did I do that? Not really to get something out of it in the future, but because I didn’t want to leave a mess for my coworkers.

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

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My god 2 weeks lol, someone quits and he is gone the next day. How is this legal? How is it legal for this not to be the case? We have constitutional laws against enslavement or indentured servitude here. Nobody can force you to work if you don’t want to. You can quit right now if you want to. What happens if you stop showing up to work in Switzerland? Do you go to prison?

I have never understood this "slavery" argument. It's not enslavement, it's fulfilling a contract. They won't put you in jail if you don't show up, you're simply in breach of contract. It's like if you're a freelance and you accept a project. They can't force you to work on the project until completed, but they can certainly levy financial penalties against you if you don't.

> They can't force you to work on the project until completed, but they can certainly levy financial penalties against you if you don't.

There are very few circumstances in the US in which an employer can do that. It is considered wage theft, which in many states is a criminal offense that pierces the corporate veil. If you worked hours you get paid for those hours and the company can't avoid paying you (with fees or whatnot).

If you are forced to work because if you don't then you will be fined for breach of contract, then that is indentured servitude with extra steps. That is illegal everywhere in the US after the 13th amendment. That's why in the US employment contracts are generally enforced with rewards (aka golden handcuffs) rather than punishments.

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

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can be held in contempt for leaving your job in the US. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/24/us/thedacare-lawsuit-wisc...

Uh, your link seems to be about the judge ruling that the workers can't be prevented from leaving their job.

If I sent you a link about a person's funeral to show a person had been born, would you not accept that either? The article is about the funeral of the order.
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