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Comment by MBCook | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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."

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.

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.

And the health insurance.

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.

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.

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