You’re virtually guaranteed to burn your reputation among your former coworkers and ensure that the one thing they remember you for is taking a new job and giving negative one weeks of notice. Is that really worth avoiding the vanishingly small risk of a rescinded offer? Do you really think the old job wouldn’t let you keep working there if you gave 2 weeks’ notice and then rescinded your notice?
I think you’ve got your risk model backwards. If you optimize too much for rare outcomes, you start missing the bigger picture.
The good news is that in my experience this simply isn't a thing. Not even a little. The industry is so fucking big you'd have to be incredibly toxic to somehow lock yourself out of it. Burned bridges? Were you really going to go back to the place you were so unhappy you left with zero notice? Folks you have real relationships with will understand. Who gives a shit about the rest?
At least, from my side I couldn't care less about how much notice my coworkers give the company; it's the excellence of the work that they did while they were there that makes up the core of my impressions about them and puts them in Universe A.
Give 2 weeks if the situation isn't toxic, but in my experience, notice is completely optional.
I understand still WANTING to work, of course, but you should be in a position to pick your own colleagues, projects, and schedule.
Well F** that shit. Companies might treat you like shit, but I'd never judge a coworker for making the best decisions for their own life. That said, I've also never been surprised when a coworker puts in notice - pretty sure they typically tell everyone but management.
People, especially white collar employees, don't like to think of it as Employer V Employee but it is. Companies will lay you off without warning when it isn't profitable. You still don't get to say bye or off-board to other coworkers. I won't hold it against my coworkers for doing what they have to. It's just a job, and at 5pm it disappears until morning. A coworker quitting shouldn't impact you so much that you think less of them.
It's gotten increasingly common to see rescinded offers lately. If companies aren't punished for that behavior, then the rare outcomes become common. I've never seen a 2-week notice period on an actual employment contract for either party.
There is the calculus that the PR and legal costs are not entirely predictable and could be higher, so why the the risk if we have the cash.
If you are at a megacorp, you are a number, and a variable in a bunch of spreadsheets. Nobody cares about you beyond that.
If that person's manager was not my manager, I was not even told after they were laid off -- I found out when emails went unanswered and I had to go looking for them.
I think that's pretty typical, unfortunately.
Anybody who would judge a coworker for leaving without notice shows a pathological lack of empathy. Doing so publicly would be a great way to damage your own reputation.
Antidotally, I had someone leave for a better offer (I that’s life), but gave about a months notice, and transitioned out of her role well. Came back about 4 months later realizing she had made a huge mistake, and we hired her back, because she had left on good terms… if you she had done what you suggested, not a chance.
Being given a promise of a job may have put Flexport on the hook for damages.
> Local politics do not seem to matter to the new formulation; the law on the ground in Texas, New York, California, Florida, Illinois, Ohio, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and others is much the same, and it is not Section 90. [1]
1: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4117874
Not saying its not worth exploring, but I wouldn't expect much out of it.
For a lot of software developers, these damages are not small.
In addition, the case is pretty clear cut and lawyers are very likely to take it on contingency. You also might find Flexport amenable to negotation on something they're likely to spend a bunch of lawyer money on only to lose anyway. This is especially true if they risk going to court and creating a blueprint for a bunch of people to come after them.
Some significant fraction of that salary for the minimum period you could have been employed by the company without violating the promise. If they hadn't rescinded the offer but had fired you (other than for an illegal reason, like racial discrimination) shortly after hiring, you would have no damages,so even to the extent the promise is binding under an estoppel theory, the damages will be limited.
> Or, if you sold your house in preparation to move, there are also pretty obvious damages.
How is it market value sale damages? You traded an asset for its market value, there's no economic loss.
... nothing. The recruiter makes disappointed puppy-dog noises but after going through all that trouble to source, vet, interview, and close with you, they're not about to waste that time and effort starting over with someone else.
Seize the time you want. Especially if you're American; nothing in the way American business treats employees will hand you the time you should take.
I assume then that an employer could hold a potential hire accountable for damages if the candidate backs out of the job offer/commitment after agreeing?
If two people sign a paper agreeing that they would both do something on a future date, it's generally a contract, and they don't get to back out of it without paying some form of compensation.
The difficulty of job offers is that you generally can't force the employer to continue hiring a person they don't want, so the most you can get is severance assuming they fire you on the first day at work.
As for whether the employer can sue if the potential hire backs out... my understanding is theoretically yes, but probably the only thing you can claim is the amount they would pay if they resigned without notice. Which generally isn't worth the legal costs and the PR risks.
Don't get me wrong, the employer can then fire the employee within the probation period of two weeks scotch-free (well, after a bunch of paperwork), and the employee can quit within that period as well, and while it might seem the same it's not because that triggers all sorts of gvmt protections for the employee (mainly, unemployment benefits, but YMMV).
Also, most big companies give a 60 day notice on layoffs because they are required by law to publicly announce layoffs over a certain size prior to the layoffs.
* who said anything about currently employed, what??? good relationships are forever
* if you use your imagination, you can easily find other consequences of leaving with drama, like not being invited to a new startup your ex-colleagues launch
* you personally might enjoy burning bridges and get away with it so far, doesn't mean it a good practice. When you are e.g. in the layoff shitter, every tiny bit helps.