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Comment by skocznymroczny | Hacker News Reader

As an European, I thought that's only something people did for movies, I learned not long ago that it's actually reality in the US. In Poland you can leave on the spot if you arrange it with the company (e.g. for a severence package). Otherwise by law you are expected to work for a month or two after getting fired (or when changing jobs). This has some benefits for both employer and employee. The employee has time to find a new job and doesn't get cut off from income on the spot so he's unlikely to burn bridges on his way out. For employer the benefit is the same but also the company gets extra time to prepare a replacement for the fired employee.

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It is wild how people in one of the richest and developed country have so little working rights and are ok with it.

Especially wild if you consider health insurance is tied to the employment.

3-6 months notice period is standard in EU countries. Unless you are sabotaging or always drunk there are no ways they will fire you quickly.

People in leading positions who leave for competitors get told to not show up again, but of course get paid so it is a paid holiday.

To be fair, these rights extend in both directions. This may seem extreme from an employer -> employee direction, but I have the right to do the same in reverse: I could call my manager at 8:30AM tomorrow morning and quit on the spot with no justification.

At Will employment cuts both ways.

Except the power dynamic and consequences are (usually) totally different:

Company fires their employee at 8:30AM on the spot: Employee is now without income and likely health insurance and his ability to pay rent, buy food and merely exist might now be in jeopardy.

Employee quits at 8:30AM on the spot: Company is at worst set back a bit until they backfill that job. At best they don't even notice. Unless that employee was some keystone that held the whole business together, there is no existential threat to the company.

In addition to that, it's considered "unprofessional" to leave without giving at least 2 weeks notice.

I don't think I'm being arrogant to think that my employer would have a harder time replacing me than I would them.

If that's actually the case then you're in an extremely fortunate position, and probably something like the top 2% of the income distribution.

It is not fair. Fair is when you write resignation letter or receive a termination letter and continue to work for the next 3-6 months. That is fair!

Ps: without at will system you can simply stop showing off at work with the same results.

Where things get very strange is when companies enact these same policies on people who give notice.

I'm a software developer. I'm hired, retained, and often promoted on my ability to look at situations, contemplate actions, and predict their consequences. If I have a piece of paper in hand that announces my resignation, I've been interviewing for weeks, signing acceptance letters, stalking my boss trying to figure out when in the next 36-72 hours I can get him alone and show him the piece of paper.

If I can manage all of that without my head catching on fire, then if I meant the company harm it would have already been accomplished prior to cornering my boss. I have probably known for days that my time here is up. We don't just wake up one morning to a phone call telling us we have a new job.

Unless there is a contract saying otherwise (or union agreement if in a union) you could show up to work at your job tomorrow to be told you’re fired and escorted out of the building.

For well paying jobs it’s pretty rare unless you do something bad. Obviously if they just did that to random people it would really hurt morale and other workers may want to leave.

But it’s legal. On the other side, with similar exceptions, on any day you can walk into your job and say goodbye forever and never come back.

on any day you can walk into your job and say goodbye forever and never come back

Except in reality, almost nobody can do that, because they need to eat and pay rent. And if you did, you'd burn a lot of bridges.

Yeah, it's not a symmetrical dynamic at all.

Leaving without notice is a good way to alienate a lot of contacts that most people will really want to maintain. But even beyond that from what I understand most places have policies in place to prevent employees coming back if they've left without notice.

Meanwhile, if my employer fires me without notice and I've got a mortgage, mouths to feed, and/or medical bills, then I don't really have the leverage to say "I'm sorry, by firing me without notice, you are ineligible from asking to rehire me."

At my job they let go of about ~30% of the work force around one year ago. I knew that this theoretically could happen, but this was the first time seeing it myself.

And I am left thinking, if in the future I see a coworker leave on the day by his own choice. I wouldn’t hold it against him. The company has shown how easily they are willing to let go of a huge number of people. Why should I be mad at any of my coworkers if they decide to leave on the day? The company already set the bar for how this works.

That's why it's always good to have a few months of essential living expenses in a savings account if you possibly can. More people could do this than actually do it.

I've quit without notice once in my career. I already had the next job line up though.

Right. I only meant the legality.

There are A TON of people people who would probably love to walk in and quit tomorrow if they had another job lined up or the means to go without one for a short while.

And the health insurance.

That’s why they call it FU money.

"Pretty rare unless you do something bad."

Or there are layoffs.

That’s fair. I was thinking of when they single out a single person.

> you can walk into your job and say goodbye forever and never come back.

when I was an intern, a person next to me just didn't come back one work. And wefound a large-font printout of employment contract with corresponding section highlighted by marker.

I still wonder what made him quit, but as an intern I didn't talk to to people much and didn't care about company politics.

> As an European, I thought that's only something people did for movies, I learned not long ago that it's actually reality in the US

It’s not quite like this in New Zealand, but wow would an employer be foolish to have an employee leave under a cloud and not immediately block all access.

It’s borderline impossible to fire someone here, so it’s not US style lockdown, but cutting access seems basic.

At a minimum in the US the company has to pay you for unused vacation days and send you your outstanding pay within 3 days. Also, if you give two weeks notice they might reasonably can you but pay you for the extra two weeks if they are afraid of looking punitive (a smaller company thing — big companies typically don’t worry about being sued for that kind of thing).

But not always; my kid resigned from AWS in November and they asked him to work the two weeks, even having him push to prod on the second to last day.

I've only ever encountered the unused vacation days and outstanding pay by end-of-week in California. It's certainly not true in several other states.

Unused 7 days of annual PTO. And there are companies with "unlimited" vacation which means no unused vacation.

Yeah unlimited vacation is nothing more than an excuse to avoid paying for unused vacation time.

Unlimited vacation is a marketing bulshit. It is unlimited only if you have really good relationship with your manager.

If I have unlimited vacation - I'll take 4 weeks every month!

It's complicated.

https://www.helpside.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Vacation...

Keeping a known-to-be-terminated employee is a huge risk for the employer. People are usually not happy when they lose their jobs which sometimes leads to irrational behaviors (like intentionally sabotaging the no-longer-employer).

I've personally been involved on the employer side of such a situation with an irrational person and it's a pretty scary deal when you're in a small team where each dev has a lot of power.

INAPL but I think is what by default both the employee can expect some weeks after the notification (and depending om the circumstances - have an opportunity to move to another job of similar title and/or pay in the same company) and employer can expect some weeks if nothing unexpected surface up. But both parties can terminate their relationship in the same dame on a mutual agreement.

It strongly depends on the circumstances of the firing, but it's not uncommon to see 'gardening leave': you are technically still employed for an extra month or more, but all your access is revoked and you're basically forced to stay home. Generally it's a good time to start applying for other jobs.

It really depends on the job.

I think even in Europe it's relatively rare to make someone work their notice period if they've been fired due to the risk of retaliation. They just pay them to not work instead. In certain high-risk professions (sales is a big one) you don't even work your notice period if you resign.

It's a very different thing between firing an employee immediately and cutting out access. You can still cut out access without firing the employee. And in many case, it could be a wise thing to do.

I've never met a "European" in real life. Frenchmen, Spaniards, Poles, yes, but never a "European". They only seem to inhabit internet forums.

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