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Comment by intunderflow | Hacker News Reader

> My manager was super mad and asked me when I was leaving. I said two weeks.

Serious question for Americans as maybe this is cultural: They're an at-will employee, seemed to already have a new job lined up and the company seemed to have burned all goodwill with them, why not resign effective immediately?

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You can, and I have, but it's customary for 2 weeks so there is time for finishing tasks, writing docs, performing knowledge dumps, etc. I've left a toxic job effective immediately. But, if it's an "ok" job that I'm leaving, giving 2 weeks is a good way to keep a positive relationship. I've left just for more money, or to have a shorter commute. In which case, I'd like to keep a positive relationship with those companies in case I ever want to go back. Not giving 2 weeks is a red flag for our HR friends

Also, as an employee, those two weeks are easy-street. Leaving early and long lunches are the norm.

That's like a cultural quirk they have over there, where even though it's not stipulated by law, people need to stay at the place they're leaving for two weeks, no matter what, otherwise the optics are really bad, for whatever reason. But it only works one way, if you get fired you usually get fired immediately, no two weeks to find something else.

In my mind, it just looks like employees have been getting the short stick for so long that they don't even know what fair working conditions look like anymore.

I had never thought of it that way, but you're right— firing is immediate but employees always feel the obligation to stick around for two weeks.

It tends to be a weird two weeks too. If you know you're quitting you're usually already preparing for it prior— taking less responsibility, finding who to hand projects to, etc. In my experience at times it's just two uncomfortable weeks of showing up and doing nothing.

Assuming your last paycheck includes those two weeks, that's (almost certainly, in context) an $X,000 difference in what you walk away with. I could probably stomach hanging around for an extra fortnight even if X was quite small.

I guess it depends.

Personally, if it's a job I really dislike, I don't mind losing the extra $X,000. I've discovered through the years my mental health is worth a lot more. Once you leave a high-paying job for one that pays less, or even to just take a break and earn nothing, you start thinking about these sorts of little extras as inconsequential at best.

If the next job pays more than the last one, you could say it's a net loss for the employee too, since that's an extra two weeks one could've earned more.

But if neither of those apply, it's probably worth it to hang around and get some extra cash, or just get a couple more weeks of hanging at the job with "graduation goggles" and little work stress, yeah.

Having the end in sight is a huge factor. Two weeks of just more grind in a terrible job? No thank you. Two weeks of counting down the days until freedom? Definite maybe. But yes, NPV of the first couple of weeks of the next job might be important.

yes, showing up and doing nothing and getting paid for it. imo worse deal for the company than the employee but gives company opportunity for project handoffs.

I'm sure if it was actually meaningfully bad for the company it wouldn't be so common. The company could just make the employee to leave immediately.

You may have colleagues or reports who you genuinely like and don't want to burn or over-stress by just leaving without warning. That's the way I see it. If I truly despised everyone I worked with I'd consider just leaving immediately if I had to opportunity, otherwise 2 weeks.

Also if you just leave it may be harder to get a decent reference from your colleagues for future jobs.

I mean, it depends on what you need. If someone quit without notice, I’d still be a referral for them if they were good.

We could all be laid off at any time.

> I mean, it depends on what you need. If someone quit without notice, I’d still be a referral for them if they were good.

But wouldn't you claim that this is not a very common view to hold about the process of quitting, in the US? I've lost count how many times I've heard managers/executives being pissed off because an employee left without a two week notice, and they treat that happening as some sort of failure, instead of just a normal thing.

Oftentimes companies that lay employees off (i.e. fire them) offer a severance package where the company continues to pay your salary and offer some benefits for a period of time after you no longer work for them. Just like the two-week notice, it is not mandatory where I live in the US. I just wanted to highlight that a company paying severance as a reciprocal perk to the employee giving a two-week notice.

Of course, severance is not universal, but, in my experience in the tech sector, having survived five lay offs at three companies and having been laid off once myself, it has been the case.

Of course you get let go immediately. Who wants a fired employee to linger for 2 weeks? That would be an awkward half month. Otoh, companies usually pay a minimum of 2 weeks salary.

To be fair the employee is getting paid for those two weeks (and as others have noted it’s a pretty easy two weeks)

I've put in two weeks notice a couple times. It's polite. It's not loyalty to the company, it's loyalty to my colleagues, and the opportunity to close out a chapter of my life with finality. It lets me say goodbye to people on my team, finish up projects which, for personal pride, I want to leave in a good place, and document things I've done for the people who will pick up my work. I could care less how it affects the company, but to the extent that I care about my own work, I don't want to just abandon it. The reality is that, if other people don't give two weeks notice, I understand, and I'm not mad at them. And sure, the company would not afford their employees the same respect, but then I don't expect them to behave with decency. I know how it works. But, it feels like the right thing to do for me.

Because I got a little over $40K serverance by waiting until I got PIPed and I got another $30K+ by surviving the process.

Oh and I was able to put all of code through the open source process and post it to the AWS Samples public GitHub repo and reuse it.

I worked on ProServe.

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