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

davidlaprade.github.io

271–280 of 405 posts

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

#271
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know they’d have to award you wages, but the only alternative to that would be firing you. Some might try to do that out of spite but it would be far worse for them than you.

They'd usually have to prove they fired you with cause not because you said you quit. i.e. if you get caught stealing or are sexually harassing your co-workers, they can still fire you. They are not however required to let you work. They can revoke access and continue to pay, they can give you a package and terminate you employment. If you don't want to take the package, they can just walk you out of the building and…

I’d guess most people, in the US at least, are employed at-will and could be fired right on the spot with no cause given. The problem with that though is you could turn around and file for unemployment which might end up increasing the associated taxes for them with increased headaches.

I’d agree that most reasonable HR departments wouldn’t let it go that far but some people like to play dirty irrespective of the costs.

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

#272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, tech wages are much higher here. You can make 200k a year as an IC which is unheard of in Europe

Narrow perspective. What about all the other non-tech jobs?

Unemployment tends to be lower here than in say France. Don't get me wrong, it's not the best system here in the states ( mainly since healthcare is tied to your job), but it has its upsides .

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

#273
post #208
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…

Something I realized. After you give notice, at most, the business needs about a week to decide what to do with the work you were handling. In tech, most projects can be deferred, and most services can go into KTLO. After the week is done to figure that stuff out - no one really cares about you anymore. There is likewise a tacit assumption that you won’t deliver anything again (why would you?). As such it’s usually b…

After you give notice, at most, the business needs about a week to decide what to do with the work you were handling. In tech, most projects can be deferred, and most services can go into KTLO.

Ideally, sure. In real life the employee needs to do a brain dump of handover documents because no one writes anything down.

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

#274

No, no, no, no a billion times no to this absolutely not no The moment you give your resignation, there are good odds your company will say "we accept your resignation effective immediately. Goodbye." Sometimes it's a blanket company policy to do this, sometimes it's because they know you're going to a competitor and they don't want you to start training for your new job, sometimes they were on the fence about you st…

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…

Depends on the company but this is the default most client-facing jobs. It removes the possibility of a representative from passing along info to company clients and also eliminates the ability of reps to copy client data to take with them to new jobs.

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

#276

No, no, no, no a billion times no to this absolutely not no The moment you give your resignation, there are good odds your company will say "we accept your resignation effective immediately. Goodbye." Sometimes it's a blanket company policy to do this, sometimes it's because they know you're going to a competitor and they don't want you to start training for your new job, sometimes they were on the fence about you st…

> there are good odds your company will say "we accept your resignation effective immediately. Goodbye." No, it's not common practice for tech companies to immediately fire anyone who resigns. A 2 week notice period is basically standard in the US tech industry. Some companies will take resignations and then remove the employee's access to sensitive material (code, chats, documentation, etc.) but require them to be a…

> No, it's not common practice for tech companies to immediately fire anyone who resigns

It doesn't matter if it's a common practice. It's whether you want to deal with the uncommon outcome.

The odds might be long but the stakes are high.

Imagine in the United States giving 2 months notice thinking you're a good guy doing a mitzvah for your employer and then getting walked out the door and having to figure out COBRA insurance and getting by on unemployment and maybe a PTO payout if you're lucky.

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

#277
post #113
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't assume they were planning on a new job immediately. Could be maternity/paternity leave, a plan to sail around the world, whatever. Could also be an in demand skillset. If you get interest every week, you're probably not worried about being able to find work in 10 months or whatever.

>you're probably not worried about being able to find work in 10 months or whatever. Which carries some risk. If you've had a dream to sail around the world, hike the Appalachian Trail, etc. and you have some decent money in the bank, it may be the right call. But you can also return to a more challenging employment environment.

Obviously; lots of things have risk, that's part of life.

I was just suggesting plausible scenarios where someone might have decided the risk/reward was right for them.

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

#278
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 absolutely loathe the modern corporate culture[...]

If you've been on the other side of that - having employees sabotage or steal in the process of leaving - you'd at least understand it. Not many people do that, but it's always the bad apples who ruin it for everybody.

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

#280
post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'd usually have to prove they fired you with cause not because you said you quit. i.e. if you get caught stealing or are sexually harassing your co-workers, they can still fire you. They are not however required to let you work. They can revoke access and continue to pay, they can give you a package and terminate you employment. If you don't want to take the package, they can just walk you out of the building and…

I’d guess most people, in the US at least, are employed at-will and could be fired right on the spot with no cause given. The problem with that though is you could turn around and file for unemployment which might end up increasing the associated taxes for them with increased headaches. I’d agree that most reasonable HR departments wouldn’t let it go that far but some people like to play dirty irrespective of the cos…

If you put in 2 weeks notice and you get fired on the spot its a slam dunk un employment claim. (assuming you can show that yes you gave notice and you weren't fired first) Most places would rather just pay you the 2 weeks if they really dont want you around than deal with unemployment. Lots of corporate environments firing people takes more than 2 weeks anyways, and you would just be creating extra work for HR for what would seem like no reason.
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