Ready to leave? Why you shouldn't give two weeks' notice (2005) | Hacker News Reader

Ready to leave? Why you shouldn't give two weeks' notice (2005)

wistechnology.com

16 pointsryanelkins29 comments

You should be _prepared_ to leave immediately when you give notice, but wow, giving no notice is up near the top of the list in terms of dick moves. The exception to this is if you're being grossly mistreated (as in harassed or demeaned or abused, not as in underpaid).

I've given less than two weeks before, but it was a contract I'd only been on for 3 weeks, so 2 weeks notice was excessive. Anything else, 2 weeks is a minimum. If you're a key person at a startup or small company, 4-8 weeks is more appropriate.

"You may want to give two week's notice, but from a security standpoint, you are out the door that day. Locks are changed. Passwords and IDs are terminated so you should have no access to files or other confidential information. That is the reality of today's workplace."

This policy always mystified me. If you've decided to leave and have decided to do something malicious, you would have done it before telling your employer. By the time you tell them, it's too late.

Perhaps that's the case with rational people. People who do malicious things may not be too rational in the first place.

It's often simply a matter of protecting the company's secrets. The longer you stay, the more you might learn and potentially use against the company if later working for a competitor. A policy like that does not at all have to be rooted in paranoia. Obviously, most companies don't have any secrets of such magnitude that it would matter, although many like to pretend that way.

Getting a 500... Cache is here: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:n5nvfo7...

same here

It should be noted that this article is from 2005.

I also have to say that my personal experience is the opposite of what this article says. How you treat your former company and co-workers stays in their minds, and affects their future opinion of you. Most fields, in most cities, form fairly small communities and you will wind up working with people again. You don't want to burn bridges like this.

That said, you should be mentally prepared for the possibility of having access yanked.

Alternate title: How to burn bridges in one easy step

It's a touchy subject, which is why I thought it would be interesting to submit the article and see what people had to say. I'd never really considered NOT giving notice but I thought the article brought up some good reasons to consider. (Although this does seem geared more towards leaving a job you are unhappy with.)

One aspect I hadn't thought of was liability. There is also the chance that they decide to terminate you immediately and what if you needed that last paycheck? You lose some control over your own situation by giving notice and for some people that may not be worth keeping that bridge around I suppose.

The few times that I've hired someone and they were immediately cut loose, they just called me to let me know they were available sooner than expected. That worked out well for everyone.

Liability is limited to the things you're actually responsible for. In the example in the article, the employer would have to prove in courts that the employee was responsible for the failure. Convenient timing is not grounds for a viable lawsuit.

By leaving without giving notice you aren't just burning bridges with the employer you're leaving; you're also letting everybody you work with know that you are someone who will do this sort of thing. Nobody wants to work with someone who might decide to change jobs and leave them hanging with no notice.

I know a few people who have done this; I absolutely remember them and won't hire them if I get resumes from them. Additionally, if someone calls because they knew we worked at the same place and they're thinking about hiring them, the first thing I'm going to share is the fact that the person left everyone hanging.

if someone calls because they knew we worked at the same place and they're thinking about hiring them, the first thing I'm going to share is the fact that the person left everyone hanging.

Check with your lawyer before you do that. Really.

I'm not talking about someone calling me about a former employee (I've never had someone quit with 0 notice to me directly before); I'm talking about the case where I've worked with someone at the same company before and they left with no notice. If they want to try to sue over that, then they're welcome to go for it.

I see. Poor reading comprehension on my part.

Most people also have contractual obligations to give two weeks notice... nonsense article.

Where I live, these things are set by law.

The guy forgot to caveat his article.

I would suggest that anyone on the cusp of resigning consult their actual employment contract before resigning without notice.

Most employment contracts have a clause related to employee notice.

Those kinds of clauses are illegal in states like California and Arizona. You or your employer can terminate your relationship at any moment without cause.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment

Not true. At-will employment is more of a default than a binding rule. In other words, you and your employer may have a contract that sets more specific rules than what at-will employment requires. However, if you don't, then it is implied that you are employed at will.

A contract can say any thing but courts will enforce only certain things.

In most at-will employment states the at-will part cuts both ways - if they can fire you without notice, you can quit without notice.

Sounds like a very pessimistic view geared towards drones working in cube-farms for Corporation, Inc.

Even large corporations aren't necessarily like that. When one of my contracts at Microsoft was up, they trusted me to pave my desktop and lock myself out of the building (by hiding my keycard in my lead's office).

In the example at the end, how does the lady leaving with no notice affect the scenario. I understand how being involved with the lawsuit and server crash could affect her next job, but why does how she quit affect it?

Overall, I think this is horrible advice. When I quit, I want to let my boss know so he can ensure my responsibilities are covered the next day. If they want to kick me out early for security reasons, that is fine, though I haven't seen that often when leaving on good terms.

And what happens when my now former boss, who is mad at me, leaves for a new company that I am interested in? I might have burned that bridge.

I'd be curious to see other peoples opinion's on this article.

In my experience the moment you are an "anyone" in a company then your employment contract almost always stipulates the amount of time that you must give before leaving.

It almost always works both ways, with your employer being required to give the same amount of notice before letting you go, or severance in replacement.

I can't imagine any one other than an entry level worker not having a defined time to give before leaving.

I also think it speaks pretty poorly on someone to just announce that they are leaving as of today.

I don't think it's more accurate to say you should never give notice than to say you should always give notice. Make your own decision based on the context of your situation and your knowledge of the pros and cons.

Here is a follow up to this article where he talks a bit more about the ethics involved: http://wistechnology.com/articles/2786/

And people wonder what happened to things like "responsibility". This is a professor teaching this? Whatever happened to the golden rule?

In fairness, it's about as much "responsibility" as most companies show toward their employees when firing them. I don't encourage being a jerk when you can avoid it, but the generally accepted view that employees owe the business more deference and respect than the business shows them is downright feudal.

It's not true that "most" companies do the things mentioned in the articles (firing people through a note on their desk or a fax), and in most cases that kind of thing is done by weak managers who are simply afraid of telling people bad news face to face.

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