Is there a proper etiquette for quitting your job? | Hacker News Reader

Is there a proper etiquette for quitting your job?

14 pointsmolbioguy34 comments

I regularly see posts on HN about quitting one's job to follow dreams, join a startup, or otherwise advance one's career. I was recently on the other end of this thread, so to speak. An excellent young software developer that had worked in my lab for 4 years walked into my office and told me he was quitting to join a startup. No prior warning, no explanations and just 2 weeks notice. While he did try to wrap things up in the 2 weeks, much was left uncompleted and no replacement was even planned for. When encouraging people to follow their dreams, shouldn't there be a concomitant reminder that employers deserve some consideration, too? If you recently quit your job, how did you handle it?

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I've tried both ways. I tried to do the "nice sendoff" by giving a huge 2 month notice, and even trained my replacement, documented all my procedures etc. What did I get? It turned out apparently I hadn't been at the company long enough, so they revoked all the money the company had contributed to my 401K. On my last day, instead of having time at the end to go around and say goodbye to my coworkers, security shows up 2 hours early and I was escorted out of the building.

My next job I just quit without notice. The job had turned pretty sour, and I was on contract, the company had acted in some morally questionable ways, so when it was my turn to leave I didn't have too much hesitation about just up and quitting.

Now maybe I'm a little more disillusioned than most people, or maybe it's just the world we live in now -- reverse pay-it-forward.

That sucks. Your disillusionment is understandable. I guess my viewpoint on this assumes the employer is honorable. Maybe too narrow an assumption in this market. But your comment shows you did take your employer's situation into consideration, which is what I'm hoping to find.

Professionalism is to be expected on both sides of the relationship. Two weeks notice is, in lieu of contract obligations, in most places in the U.S. not even required. It was, and I guess generally still is, considered a common courtesy.

The employer is responsible for structuring and documenting work in a fashion to control the risk of this situation. What if the employee were in a debilitating accident? Would you be complaining, in that case?

Employees see the way that employees, in general, are treated, these days. When an employer decides against an employee, they are as often as not "perp-walked" to the door. (I'm speaking of instances where no malfeasance has occurred or been alleged to have occurred.) Even if you strive to be a "good employer", you need to remain cognizant of the environment in which you exist. Employee loyalty is not rewarded the way it used to be (or at least, used to be shown -- true or not).

It was your responsibility to structure your environment to accommodate this eventuality. If a resource really is critical, write a contract with them that guarantees/incentivizes their sticking around and/or giving a longer notice of termination. If such a contract costs you more, well, that's the price of doing business.

("Time is money", and you've just asked for a greater commitment of another person's time. In a similar fashion, expect to pay more in return for an (effective) non-compete clause.)

All good points. I fully agree that the employee is not responsible for ensuring that there is minimum disruption upon their departure, management is. But what I don't see is why there seems to be so much difficulty in expecting a departing employee to give more than a minimum notice. People jumping to startups (and that's what this post is about) are usually very bright and have valuable skill sets. They usually leave because they are undervalued/under-compensated or disinterested, not because of an emergency or duress. So what's wrong with giving some extra warning to help out? Isn't that part of an amicable termination? Two weeks is common, but to fill a skilled spot takes a lot longer than two weeks.

Again, look at the context.

Also, in addition to hard incentives, are you providing any soft ones? Literally saying, if you're bored or unhappy, we'd like to know. (And we're not looking to screw you over with the knowledge.)

Are you backing up such statements with actions that demonstrate your good will?

If you were taken by surprise, were you communicating effectively with this employee? ( A primary action that can demonstrate good will.)

Finally, what's the demographic in question? Young people, on average, "go off and do things". It's one reason some employers favor married, settled (even "boring") employees. They are more predictable.

(And these days, getting married and starting a family is less "the thing to do" than it used to be. It's still done, plenty, but it's not the course of action that it used to be.)

If you wanted them to "do things" with you, it seems perhaps you should have been more pro-active in making that part of the assignment. Even then, there's no guarantee.

For many employees, disengagement begins long before they quit. If you want the relationship to be valued, your only course of action is to begin doing so from your end.

Too many self-interested employers (speaking generally, not necessarily of you) get their undies in a bunch when employees -- perhaps taking a cue from them -- start acting the same way.

To repeat my and others' question: What's in it for them?

To repeat my and others' question: What's in it for them?

Nothing tangible. Just good will and (in some cases) a clear conscience.

I asked this question because I wanted to get a feel for whether my expectations were right or wrong. The clear answer from the community is that the etiquette for leaving is rather complicated and that two weeks is not unreasonable at all. I also accept that the failure to retain this gifted employee was my fault (that was not in question). So it was helpful to read the comments as it tells me I need to do a lot better the next time around. Thanks.

Understand, for my part, that I was the guy who would cut vacations short because a project was behind.

Perhaps counter-intuitively, over time this seemed to cause me trouble, perhaps in part because it did not "fit" the broader culture nor others' expectations. (People become "worried" when you do not do the expected, even when the expected is bailing on the project for the sake of your vacation.)

I tried to be "the good employee". As often as not, it burned me. Eventually, I was very much so with individuals (sometimes, 15 minutes of my time could save them a couple of days), but tried to learn to be less that way in an undifferentiated fashion towards the institution in general.

Many institutions become very rigid with regard to culture, expectations, and reciprocation. Essentially, eventually, they "train" their employees not to care. (Once again, it's what you do, not what you say -- again, speaking generally and not to you specifically.)

Based on U.S. expectations, I don't really see any poor form on the employee's part. The fact that it hit the supervisor out of left field is usually more indicative of a lack of ongoing communication than anything else. The implication that production employees are expected to wait while their replacement is hired and trained may be a side effect the way in which the workplace environment operates.

To put it another way, it sounds like management wanted all the benefits of employment at will without accepting the costs.

My (poorly worded?) question was asking whether we should consider the employer's perspective when leaving to join a startup, and how do people most often handle this. In this particular case, there was clearly a failure to see that the developer was getting bored and so nobody expected him to leave. He had a private office, flexible hours, freedom to work on open source projects, and excellent benefits (profit sharing, pensions, etc) -- but I found after he left that bioinformatics development was just not his interest. He jumped to a startup that used the open source code he contributed to. So in this case, management was not taking advantage. Perhaps the other way around. But based on comments so far, employee management relationships seem not so good, in general, for developers.

It is not necessarily the case that the employee did not consider the employers perspective - after four years with the company it is probable that he had seen other people come and go and developed a sense of how the matter would be handled. Seeing as it is not uncommon for workplaces to be structured such that there is never "a good time" to quit because projects are endless or there is always a backlog or deadlines fall one after the other.

For an employee, the clean break often considers management practice and is done in some sense for their benefit even if it is not what they would articulate as their interest. Disinterested short-timers are a drag on moral and long notices can give management false hope that they have time to negotiate to retain the employee (the course of least resistance) rather than finding a replacement.

After my initial response I recognized another piece of management's misassessment of the situation. After four years, the "promising young developer" no longer saw him self as "promising" but as professional. It is not an uncommon oversight to keep viewing an employee in terms of their level at the time they were hired and thus not provide them with the level of challenge appropriate to their aspirations - i.e. the leadership of progressively more challenging projects or tasks.

Finally, the fact that pension was viewed as a tool to retain a young go getter is probably a fundamental miscalculation for promising developers - young people attracted by pensions wind up in large organizations or government not in dynamic teams with a high beta.

after four years with the company it is probable that he had seen other people come and go and developed a sense of how the matter would be handled

You'd have to know the company, but I can categorically say that this was not the issue.

It wasn't the only benefit, but your point is well taken. People wanting to join a startup (and younger people in general) are not interested in long-term stability (unless of course it is their dream job) which this wasn't.

But the question is not about why this particular person left, it's about whether good people leaving for startups should even consider the employer when deciding how to leave.

> When encouraging people to follow their dreams, shouldn't there be a concomitant reminder that employers deserve some consideration, too?

No, there should be a clause in the contract specifying a mutual minimal time of notice for ending the employment. Also see this great post http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/07/08/business-psychology/

Clause in the contract, but remember it cuts both ways.

I was recently creative director of a small software company that let their design team go. When I started the owner changed my employee contract from 14 to 28 days with the assumption that since I was in a management position with 5 reports, were I to leave the transition would have been hard to squeeze in to the standard 2 week period.

When he announced he was letting everyone go with 2 weeks severance, he was not too happy when I reminded him my contracted stipulated 28 days (he did honor it though).

Here's how I handled it. I went to my employeer and said, "I'm unhappy here and I'd like to move back home anyway" and he asked how I was unhappy, and I explained I didn't really like my job and I tried some different things inside the company and none of them really fit what I wanted to do.

The results were in and so we started looking for someone and I stayed on for a month after they were hired to train the person in. After that I left.

But, I would flip this around and say it had more to do with the employeer. I felt like I could do this. Do you make it so the employeer felt like they could do this? I'd avoid putting it in a contract in focus on creating a culture where this type of thing can be norm.

That's cool. I felt I did, but that's subjective. But this is exactly the kind of thing I would like to have seen. Absolutely leave jobs when you feel you need to, but work with your employer if you can to make the transition easier. Fulfilling your ambitions does not need to be damaging to anyone else. As you state, good employers should make this environment the norm. But the discussions I read here about quitting and joining startups don't deal with this side of the equation. They seem to mostly emphasize quitting as a defiant act or a personal milestone (which to me implies not caring about what state you leave things in).

BTW, did your employer notice that you were unhappy and bring it up to you before you told them?

No, they didn't.

I think they should have though. I went from working basically 6 to 6 to 8:30 to 5. It was pretty obvious.

Someone wrote on my employee review that they could tell I wasn't passionate about my job and it shows sometime, but I think that was post discussion with my boss and he would have probably been notified as he was in HR.

I'm in a very strange situation with my boss. Things have been rough for some time now and he is not going to change.

He has put incredible pressure on me to give him 6-12 months notice. Not 6-12 weeks, but he wants a full year.

That is selfish and wrong. Since you are suggesting consideration for thr employer, What is the 'right' to do?

He has every intention of using a non-compete agreement to limit my future options, how does that show that the company values me?

Thanks for relating your situation. I hope I haven't come across as unreasonable. I don't think (nor have I advocated) that employees bear the full brunt of any transitional disruption. I just think that we often tell people to follow their dreams and quit their jobs without asking them to leave in an honorable way. And I define honorable as making reasonable efforts to minimize the disruption of losing a valuable employee, for example by giving more than two weeks notce. As @pasbesoin said, professionalism is to be expected on both sides of the relationship. In your situation it seems to be a worst case where your employer is using undue pressure and making the whole affair pretty one-sided (which sucks badly). In my opinion, you owe him the minimum your contract requires and no more. I'm not a lawyer, so the whole non-compete agreement is beyond where I feel like I can comment upon.

I think you and several posters have pointed out to me that not all employers are honorable nor care enough about their employees and thus it's not always possible to give them the consideration they might want. Fair enough. And it turns out to be harder to generalize than I thought it would be. Sorry, I can be naive.

For what it is worth, in my case, I didn't complain to the employee about the two weeks notice nor did I ask for anything beyond documenting procedures and critical code. We wished him well and sent him off to join a startup with a company-wide party. No strings attached.

You have done a great job of stating your case and responding to comments from the employee side. I have no doubt that your next programmer will benefit from this.

Thank you for starting this discussion.

Thanks. I hope so, too. Good luck on your situation. I hope it turns out better than you fear.

I recently left a job I had just started, because a much better offer came around and I simply couldn't pass it up. I offered to keep working from home during the evenings and weekends (most of my work was done remotely) until a replacement was found, but my boss chose to cut ties that day and we both moved on, amicably, which is nice.

In this climate, I imagine that the only norms are those stipulated in a contract.

Correct. But contracts stipulate the minimum. And I understand that if things go bad, the minimum is all that's necessary. But the credo of "just quit" seems to say that the minimum is al you ever need to worry about. I think taking your employer's needs into consideration (as you did) by giving advance warning or simply expressing desires to change can be enormously helpful for both parties. Employers can see deficiencies in the way they structure their jobs and their communication/observation skills. And employees can leave a trail of good relationships that could help if they ever need contacts or references. Plus, if they become employers themselves in the future, they will be better able to approach the problem of retaining employees or dealing with departures.

I've recently been talking a lot with a friend about how badly so many people handle 'endings'. In this case, I've been talking about personal relationships and some of the things I did that led to an amicable divorce when my lengthy, troubled marriage finally ended. But in some sense, all relationships are 'personal'.

Some observations, not in any way intended as blaming or attacking:

You indicate they had flexible hours and freedom to work on open source but also indicate that when they left, much was left uncompleted and that he left to go work with a startup that used the open source he contributed to. It sounds to me like the job was structured poorly from the perspective of looking out for the employer's needs. On the one hand, yes, you should be concerned that the work environment be a positive personal experience for the employee. You should do this out of enlightened self interest as it promotes loyalty. But this is not your child. You should not behave like their daddy, helping to pay for hobbies. Was the open source project he contributed to something your company uses? If not, why on earth was he doing it at work instead of at home (or perhaps I misunderstood)? The time, energy, creativity, interest and so on that he put into that project should have been something the company was trying to capture for it's benefit. You allowed him to fritter those valuable personal resources away. He didn't want to be frittering away his time. He wanted it valued. So he went to a company that valued the work he was willing to pour himself into.

Perhaps there needs to be better communication. Perhaps there need to be better policies. Perhaps the corporate culture of trust has room for improvement. I would examine what piece of this is in the hands of the company and use it as a means to better protect the company's interests in the future.

Also, it sounds to me like this post is motivated by feelings of hurt and a vague sense that HN and "the world out there" is part of why this person hurt you. Posts motivated by hurt are usually not very productive. But if you recognize that the culture here on HN potentially has a negative impact on your company by actively promoting the idea of "just quit", one thing you can do is make a point of quietly promoting the view that "yes, quit, but do so honorably". And then provide any evidence you can find that doing so honorably is better for their career, not just for their employer. Just be careful to not be too pushy or come across as "the guy with the bone to pick". And also be understanding that if the employer is an abusive jerk, doing so "honorably" can amount to cutting your own throat. Then work at making damn sure your company is not in the abusive jerk category.

Peace.

Excellent points and pretty damn insightful. Thanks.

Was the open source project he contributed to something your company uses? If not, why on earth was he doing it at work instead of at home (or perhaps I misunderstood)?

Some was used directly and some was only peripherally important to the projects in the lab.

The time, energy, creativity, interest and so on that he put into that project should have been something the company was trying to capture for it's benefit. You allowed him to fritter those valuable personal resources away. He didn't want to be frittering away his time. He wanted it valued. So he went to a company that valued the work he was willing to pour himself into.

I think his work was highly valued by the company and myself, but his work for the company perhaps underutilized his skills or just didn't interest him. I think your point is critical, though, that employees need to feel their efforts are strongly valued.

As to the point of my post/question. Does the culture of "just quit" promote a certain level of irresponsibility? I think it does. If you have to leave, of course do so. But make efforts to minimize the disruption your departure will inevitably create (if you were good at your job). Your employer gave you a chance. Whether it worked out or not, the honorable path will leave behind less ill will. Sometimes previous employers can serve as excellent contacts, references, and even future partners.

If you had put in the contract time that the notice should is a month (or maybe more) you might have not have the same problem.

I only need to give one week for my current job, and when I leave, that's probably all I will give.

Well, from my perspective I would want more time to prepare for the transition. But putting that in a contract unnecessarily restricts people. Our company doesn't even require the 2 weeks, so I can't complain. But not everyone leaves under duress. My point was, I never see posts about quitting jobs to join startups mention any consideration to the employer. To me, unless I hate my employer, I'd want to make efforts to help out. I was curious if people usually give more than required/minimal warning. I guess not.

Two weeks is a common courtesy. People quit because they are either bored or their boss sucks.

Best you can do is have an honest conversation with the guy about the real reasons he's leaving and then learn from it.

Yeah, that seems to be the take home message. I understand it, but I still feel that two weeks leaves most employers in the hole. I mean, you can't realistically have a list of people to fill the spot ready to go at all times. In my business (small molecular biology/bioinformatics lab) it will probably take 3 months from submitting a hiring request to accepting an applicant. Maybe more. I was curious if people give much thought to the disruption that happens when they leave, especially when it's to join a startup (elective, non-emergency move). But it sounds like two weeks is pretty much accepted as fair regardless of the reasons for leaving. Like you said, you learn from it. Thanks.

You'd like to be able to hire a new employee as quickly as possible, but you'd like departing employees to hang around as long as possible.

That seems to me to be a fundamental conflict. New employees don't appear from a vacuum and old employees don't disappear into one. Other than new entrants to the market and retirees, almost everyone is moving from one place to another, with the same pressures.

Given that companies usually only hire when they already need the staff, there's likely a fairly strong incentive to encourage the new hire to move to the new job as quickly as possible.

As someone one the receiving end of that, it sucks. But now, facing the other end of the hiring game, I'll bet you're going to encourage your new hire to start ASAP (in fact, giving preference to those that can start sooner rather than later).

It's like the passing around of electron holes.

I like that! I never thought of it as electron flow. So to maximize employee retention I need to minimize the potential difference between the current job and the alluring startup. It all comes down to physics, as always.

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