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Comment by pnathan | Hacker News Reader

Oh. My. That's going to be a mess. Some people will have quit their jobs, turned in notice, etc. CMU might want to be prepared to reaccept some of those people.

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My response exactly.

wasn't the error corrected quickly though?

I am sure that someone got the email, yelled loudly, and then wrote their "I quit" email to their fine employer.

Or perhaps turned down other graduate school offers...

Don't burn your bridges until the chickens are hatched or something.

You can't reasonably expect to be rejected /after/ being accepted though. Resigning when you apply, chickens not hatched yet. Get a letter from the program you applied to informing you of your acceptance, that's a pretty hatched chicken.

Perhaps I should have just said don't burn your bridges? It's not strictly necessary to quit in a way that can't be unquit immediately upon receipt of an acceptance letter.

can't reply to tedunangst but it doesn't matter how you do it, you can't "unquit" once your employer knows you've been applying elsewhere, no matter if it's for school or another job.

I don't know why you think you can't in general. If you're on good terms and quit on good terms I would expect most places you could undo it once you explained the situation. I know for a fact that I could at my employer.

Keyword being immediately. Waiting 24 hours from acceptance notification to quitting doesn't seem entirely unreasonable. One may not expect to be unaccepted, but a little prudence rarely hurts in the event of the unexpected.

That said, it certainly is possible to unquit at many employers provided you didn't quit by taking off your pants and running out the door shouting "adios, motherfuckers."

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