Should I fight a forced resignation? | Hacker News Reader

Should I fight a forced resignation?

14 points0xtaj23 comments

I was offered a resignation today in my role with a State Government organization. Should I fight it?

The facts: 1. The role is 5 hours away. I was commuting on a weekly basis to the office, every Tue-Thur and did 10 hours a day on site. 2. I was remote on Mondays, and off on Fridays. 3. I was still in my state-mandated probation of 1 year. 4. There has not been a documented issue. IE: there was never anything that I signed that said I was deficient in an area of my job. 5. There was one undocumented issue about 7 months in that I received a verbal counseling for. Again, nothing formal, and it was a personality conflict between myself and another manager/supervisor.

I have already been interviewing for other roles and had a final interview that I thought went well, but am waiting for the offer.

On one hand, it doesn’t really seem worth it to “fight” it, but on the other hand, I haven’t ever been formally counseld/written up.

Look forward to hearing everyone’s thoughts.

Thank you.

An hour with an attorney usually brings clarity about your options in such a case. Very helpful (and not too costly) to go confidently into such negotiations.

You can also think of it as face-saving since you didn’t get fired but left on your own.

But no, I wouldn’t fight it, just see what you can negotiate before signing.

> An hour with an attorney usually brings clarity about your options in such a case.

Not in my experience.

An hour with an attorney usually brings an hour of trolling from an attorney who wants to get you into so much trouble that it will cost you your life savings to avoid jail time when the original issue was "how much money should I ask for?"

You might want to mention which country you're in. In some countries reasons need to be given for dismissal. In some countries you can be dismissed without cause. In some countries when you are dismissed without cause you are eligible for more benefits than if you resign.

The fact the country wasn’t mentioned means it’s almost certainly USA. ;)

This in the US.

Is your employment at-will, then? If it is, you can be asked to leave for any reason as long as it is not a legally protected one (like discrimination). What does it mean to "fight" the termination?

I was able to drag details out of HR, and I would have some significant grounds for a discrimination suit.

Sometimes it's better to be fired as you might qualify for state or federal Unemployment Insurance. Depends entirely on your specific circumstances.

Pros of resigning: Maybe maintain some relationships? Maybe HR will respond to future reference requests with 'you resigned' rather than "you did not work out". Maybe you can negotiate some severance pay?

Pros of being fired: Maybe eligible for unemployment insurance. Maybe it will take ages for them to do it, so you'll lose less income.

Apart from the considerations above, it's worth reflecting on the experience and what you might have done differently. Even if only 1% of the responsibility lies with you, there may be some valuable lessons. Your perspective on this situation may change a year from now, or 5 years from now.

There are stressful work situations from 10-20 years ago, where my perspective today is totally different from how I saw things at the time. And in some cases my perspective evolved several times in the intervening years.

Being it was a well known probation period, I would say not to fight it.

IMHO - the government, especially the US government has a hard time getting rid of people who do not fit in. As such they have their probation period to make life easier.

When I worked in regular industry, we liked to hire people as contractors first and if they worked out convert them. This avoided having to layoff people who did not work out. You just claim the need for their contract work went away.

DO you want to stay where they do not want you? Be active in finding a new job. Worked your hardest on delaying your departure, until you line up a new position.

Sounds like a toxic work environment and at an excessive commute. Perhaps it would be best to distance yourself from it. As several other HNers have noted, make sure you leave on the best possible terms for yourself. Being forced to resign is a sign that they know that they are in the wrong. Typically when on probation dismissal is not an issue, so why the manipulations? Seems like there is more to the situation than you able to determine. The "personality conflict" is strong hint.

It depends on your circumstances. If the exit package offered covers more than six months of expenses and meets your needs, it may be wise to accept it. For instance, my exit package included a clause preventing me from discussing the events leading to my departure, but I accepted it to focus on supporting my family.

However, if no exit package is provided, it might be better to let them terminate your employment. This would give you the freedom to discuss their practices and warn others.

Yeah this right here. Make sure they are giving you better than what you’d do with unemployment and if not then let them fire you.

I’m pretty interested to hear what you perceive as the issues with your performance and to hear more about the undocumented problems. I’ve worked in state government for 20 years in many roles and agencies. I’ve seen a few people get fired for fraudulent activities and seen a few people who could have already retired get forced out because they didn’t want to accept change but those were few and far between.

How does this work again?

"Sign here that you are resigning"

"No thanks, you'll have to fire me if that's what you are trying to do"

That’s literally the option I was presented. Thankfully since, it’s a State government organization, I have “time”. But the more I reflect, and the more feedback I get here here, I may go this route.

Maybe wait until you get an actual offer somewhere else.

Just treat it like any other time you would leave any other role.

If you wouldn’t normally casually resign without an actual written offer to go somewhere else, don’t.

They actually can't force you to sign anything, if there were no wrongdoing from your side. But for some reason you have to do that, probably not worth to fight it. Because, first it will cost you your time and of course money to hire a lawyer (otherwise things get tricky down on the road).

Especially since the worksite is far away from your home.

Agreed. That’s kind of why I’m not super invested in fighting it.

What do you get in exchange for resigning?

What happens if you get fired?

if they want you gone you may be able to negotiate this to e.g. control the timing

There is things in my head that whoever is going to take over will need to know. Nothing crazy, but a LOT of stuff. I may look into this.

That’s not your problem. That’s your employer’s problem.

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