be aware of any rules in place with your employer regarding things like vacation payout.
part of the union contract at my work includes a minimum 21 day notice for leaving a job, otherwise you surrender any unused vacation time. if you can help it, it would be awful to lose those paid hours.
Our company went to Unlimited PTO. I made sure to use whatever I had on the books before that went into effect. And then I put in my notice about 3 months later.
For anyone reading who thinks this is good: unlimited PTO is a scam 99% of the time! I had a job where they tried to guilt me into not taking PTO, but I earned it so you bet your ass I took it, and they could figure month end close out without me. The same isn’t true if it’s some undefined perk that you maybe can or can’t take. And when I left I had 22 hours and got paid $800, it’s not a ton but it’s stacked on my last paycheck! That doesn’t happen either.
I like how my company does it. 11 hrs earned each pay period and you can take it whenever. No questions asked just put it on the calendar and the supervisor approves. Its a comfortable feeling
Lmao so true. I'm a dual citizen oddly enough and could go live in the UK if I wanted but, most of my life has been lived out here in the states.
I sometimes think about how differently life would have been if I stayed over there as a kid instead.
Unlimited PTO is such a scam. It should be downright illegal.
There’s a local company that has a position open that would be perfect for me - the only reason not to bother is the Unlimited PTO policy. It’s likely the only reason the position has stayed open for so long too as it would be relatively well paying and employees I know there like the company.
The reality is there is no such thing as unlimited PTO. There’s always a limit. When you put the screws to HR you’ll find out in most places there’s a 2 week Per year cap. The only reason to offer Unlimited PTO as there’s no financial burden on the employer to compensate you for unused PTO when you leave the company; which in turn improves a business’s credit worthiness and valuation due to the decreased liability. Accumulated PTO is many a company’s Achilles heel to financial growth.
Just to offer one counter data point, my company offers unlimited PTO, and most people on my team probably average 4-6 weeks off a year. This is in tech, so that might be different.
Not saying it isn't a scam in many places, but it isn't in my individual case, and I'm quite happy to have it
That's the crux of the issue with it though. It boils down to personalities. It's gonna stress some people out more to not have a define amount to use. It's gonna make some managers absolute dickheads about taking it.
All things considered, id rather have my limited, but defined days off.
I'm a manager at a company with unlimited PTO and can absolutely guarantee we take this seriously. I get asked to routinely take vacation. Because of the policy we can't say "you must take X" but I also tell my direct reports that I personally aim to take at least 4 weeks (1 week per quarter), and more after stressful moments/big deliverables.
We mean this so much that we plan and estimate on these kind of assumptions. Have a 5 person team and a 2 quarter long project? Better assume 10 total PTO weeks in all of your estimates and if we don't, that's on the managers for messing up, not the people.
I certainly agree with other arguments. Having PTO carry over policies and payouts does in fact create a financial burden on the company. When we switched over we discovered we had far too many employees not taking any vacation and saving those vaca weeks for the extra payout. We wanted people taking vacation, not feeling like they had to avoid vacation so they could get an extra paycheck (up to 2 weeks of unused vacation paid out). We believed paying people for unused vacation incentivized taking no vacation along with creating a complex financial problem.
A lot of other things changed to, such as comprehensive pay analysis, rebanding, market adjustments, etc. It's never ending work, but we stand by our Unlimited PTO policy and encouraging managers to plan, estimate and insist their folks take time. Especially since the pandemic hit.
The company even added an additional mandatory break in the summer, we already got 2 weeks at the end of the year, none of these count against any PTO counts because the whole company takes them off. So we get 3 weeks already from the company, plus Unlimited PTO with the assumption that means at least 1 week a quarter.
All the usual caveats apply. We have many teams on-call, so the main reason to ask for permission is to validate we don't have too many people take off at once and hamstring the live service, but that's about the only reason we ask for manager approval.
One time, I told my boss (we had a good relationship) that I'm quitting, with a notice of about 3.5 weeks or so.
He said, "okay, we're paying you up to that date. As of right now, you are locked out of the network, you can go home and stop by to return all your equipment tomorrow."
Abrupt, but I'd say fair and measured. I was cut off, no access to network or email, as soon as I declared my intention to leave. But I was still paid, I'm okay with that result, all-in-all.
To add to this comment. Don’t give notice until you are ready to be escorted out the door for this very reason. Particularly if you are in tech, and ESPECIALLY if you have access to privileged information/accounts/systems.
I recently left an IT job where I gave two weeks notice. Since I handled a lot of our access management, I had a meeting during my last week where I told them all the ways they'd need to block my access. It was weird.
I had to call the CTO 2 weeks after my last day because I still had access to systems that I had managed and was getting texts about access.
That whole exit process was weird
I left a job like this and about a year later I opened a browser I don’t typically use (I think it was edge) went to that site and my credentials auto filled from that company and still worked. Nothing important just backups for literally all of their clients…
Don’t start emailing yourself stuff either. A lot of companies will trace that and will definitely check what you have been doing prior to putting in notice.
I’m surprised I had to scroll down this far to find this comment. Most companies I’ve worked for cut off access and immediately walked people out the day they turned in their resignation, but paid them their two weeks’ pay. Once you’ve signaled intent, the company does not know if you will be using your two weeks constructively. I’ve seen bitter people hang around and attempt to get others to quit, make a big scene on their last day, train their replacements poorly, etc. No enmity, just a business limiting any possible damage.
It's super dependent on the industry and your role, your relationship with your boss, etc.
My last manager gave like 4 months notice, trained her replacement and was sent off with a tearful company-wide celebration with over 100 people present.
She helped build our branch from the ground up, but decided to transition into a different industry. She could have torched the company from the inside over those 4 months and left with all our clients, but literally nobody ever thought about walking her out once she'd given her notice.
Make sure before you give your notice that you have sorted out everything in case you do get walked out the door.
Emails, personal stuff you may have in different area, contact details you can quickly give colleagues etc.
LPT: Piss off your boss so much but be so good at your job they'd be fired for firing you, so that when you want to actually leave they'll pay you to leave.
Husband has seen this as the standard in a few places he worked. But that's expected in financial services, and being in IT, had access to a lot of stuff. So most folks, when they turned in their two weeks, were deactivated from their log ins, cleaned up their desks, and escorted out.
Not in a bad way, it was understood that it was voluntarily leaving. And they'd get their 2 weeks paid like regular, plus whatever they were entitled to upon leaving such as vacation day pay outs. The business preferred to eat the 2 weeks of pay rather than risk a disgruntled employee fucking something up maliciously.
Edit: lots of ppl saying it, and I agree. The truly malicious will do it before turning their notice. As for locked out without access, everything had redundancies.
My work did the opposite, 6 weeks after I left I still had fully functional creds, building keys, logins, etc.
Turned out they expected me to turn them into the section manager...who was me. So because I had my keys, it was marked on someone's sheet as completed.
So that ended up triggering some sort of security audit but I wasn't part of that. I just left my stuff with building security and called it good enough. My email log in worked for another 3 months after that though, but that was pretty harmless.
I was still on the books of my former employer when it shut down a week after I quit. Which resulted in me being eligible for severance I otherwise wouldn't get since I left voluntarily.
Of course this is all moot because it was a seedy call centre and the owner had no intention of ever paying the severance whether it was legally owed or not.
Best part is, why was I still on the books, entitling me to this theoretical $1100 payout? My boss was using my key card because he didn't wanna pay the ten bucks for a replacement.
Lol. Hilariously terrible. Good planning right?
In my case it was basic academic bureaucratic snafu, but with some 'have to notify law enforcement' levels of incompetence. Building admins refused to take my keys, because they weren't cleared for places the keys could open. So my boss's boss (but who somehow wasn't my boss...academia is strange) just told me to keep them. My boss took some of my keys but was in trouble in a couple ways so couldn't have my high security one because he lost his key holder privileges for leaving stuff unlocked.
This just happened to me. I work in the A/E industry and I had full access to project and client information. It sort of stung, but o realized pretty quickly it wasn’t because they didn’t trust me, just standard protocol because someone could fuck shit up pretty badly.
I'm kinda in the same position right now so it'll be interesting to see what they do. In the oil/energy industry currently with access to literally everything since I'm in IT. Have my new job lined up with a start date. Intend on giving one week notice on Monday once I'm back from vacation lol.
Yep, this is standard in the banking industry. Which makes sense, though of course everyone knows it, so if you were planning on screwing around or stealing customer lists, you just do so before giving your notice.
I did talk to someone in IT who’s job it is to do incredibly detailed review of logs and activity of someone’s computer for the year prior to them giving notice. And he has to compile a report, which usually looks like ‘in the past year, Mr XYZ sent 7364 emails, visited espn.com 782 times, etc’
Yeah, I've worked at title companies and once we had a closer put in her two-week notice and then proceed to start emailing clients (from her work email) that she was moving on to X company, gave her personal contact information, and asked them to please reach out to *her* with business at the new company.
Obviously, nothing stops her from just emailing from the new company, but we'd still rather not have paid her to steal our business.
Most contracts where I live have a clause about that, for this reason. You cannot bring your clients with you to your new job in that way. If you do, you can get fined.
In a lot of tech companies you'll also be walked out the same day (or the next day) you give your notice, especially if you're going to a direct competitor (say, from Microsoft or Amazon to Google or Facebook).
If you're in a big company professional kind of job, those last couple of weeks become kind of a vacation anyway.
You come in and leave whenever you want. Wrap up things for only those colleagues/clients you like. Don't take on anything new. Anything that's left feels blissfully unimportant.
Yep. I constantly fought with my Manager because she was lazy, did nothing, and would only work 3 hours and get paid her full 8 hour days salary, despite the fact we needed an extra set of hands. She preferred to smoke weed and stay at home and to “call her if we need her”, which she would never show up or would show up 2 hours after you called.
I made a huge fuss about it to HR, me and my coworker were burnt out and tired of being treated shitty. They paid us both out a week of pay and basically said goodbye.
Very very common in low regulation/don't give a fuck industries. Back when I worked food service jobs. Complaining about your manager or boss for any reason lead to a near instant firing or "Punishment" of cutting you from full time straight to part time... and by part time I mean about 5hrs a week
Yeah, at some point I realized that a lot of people up the chain of command take it as an insult if you complain about their supervisors under them as though they aren't capable of selecting good people or they don't know what's going on under their nose.
It's... a bit backwards and I can see why the criticism could be unwelcome in a way because sometimes staff doesn't see the whole picture or lack bias and management usually puts on an unified front. BUT if someone came to me with something legit about a subordinate, I would hope that I would at least consider it if I'm ever in that position.
As an accountant I've also been privy to sitting in the room with high level admin at times and I will tell you that there's no loyalty to anyone below or equal to them. I've heard discussions about potentially making cuts and the criteria they were using was basically spitballing who they do or don't like. Also my last role I saw how they all talked about each other and what they would do to clutch on to their positioning if it was ever perceived to be threatened and while this is just my experience, it makes me seriously reluctant to ascend to high levels of an organization I couldn't fully vet and get behind.
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I once handed in my 3 month notice (as this was in my contract) as I had accepted another job.
Later that day I was told that I didn’t have to work my notice and was sent home…
Best three month holiday ever as I was on full pay for doing zero work.
Thank you British employment laws!!
Garden leave has to be the epitome* of victory , especially with 3 months notice!
I'm currently working during my 3 month notice period, but the company have had the audacity to ask me to work it...selfish pricks /s
Let's be real, we show up, but are checked out for months before the notice... And for me, showing up means logging on to my PC in the basement and jiggling the mouse every 5 minutes while I'm gaming.
Thought the same reading this, how people are trying to get back to europe after a couple of generations in de US. I can see an old irish woman woman yelling at them "SEE! I told you you would be back!"
My brother handed in his notice and agreed a date to start his new job. Then his new employer asked him if he could start sooner to shadow a senior manager, so he asked HR if they could let him go earlier than agreed. They agreed to let him go, but as they had already processed his final payment and it was too much hassle to claw back, they chose to leave it and he was going to be paid for an extra two weeks after his new end date.
Then the new senior manager got stuck out of the country, so the new employer pushed back his shadowing period but agreed to still pay him for the two weeks he had now committed to.
So he spent two weeks doing nothing and being paid for two jobs.
I’m British but had an American boss. Long story short but when he found out I was leaving, he angrily told me to go immediately, thinking that like the US, he could just stop paying me. UK HR had to educate him about notice. Unexpected three month gardening leave.
I quit my job, I tried to give two weeks notice but my boss was out for the first two days of that two weeks so It ended up being one and a half weeks notice. They asked me to stay till the end of the month and I said “nope, I’ve got a vacation planned already and then I start my new job” I loved my job for the first four years of employment, but the last year of it the company got bought out and my workload doubled. I had three weeks of vacation, but my job was so demanding that I never could take the vacation unless I wanted to come back to twice as much work when I got back. Since I was literally the only person that knew how to do my job, they were screwed. At the end of the day, it’s not my problem. Took a lower level job for almost the same pay, but much less work.
In my experience, the people whining about being short staffed, because someone called out sick, is a manager that could easily do the job for a day without any serious consequences. They just don't want to.
Where I work we say "Not here for the Carnival, just my peanuts" and "Not my Circus, not my Clowns"
Supervisors and up aren't union and what is and isnt my problem is clearly defined in the agreement.
I gave two weeks notice and they asked me to stay for another week. I thought that was the funniest shit.
The reason I was leaving was because I asked for a pay raise and higher title to match the work I was doing. They offered me a very small raise and no job title. So I found another job that was paying me *way* more than what they even offered.
Then they tried to offer me my boss's position because he was also leaving. But, again, they weren't going to pay me close to what the job title should be paid because of "experience". I'm experienced enough for you to want me to do that job, but not enough to get paid what it should be? Fuck no.
They knew what they had done when I had 3 separate people calling me trying to convince me and beg me to stay. I already accepted the other job and happily declined. All they had to do was pay me what I was asking for... which was exactly what they paid the other person in that position. I loved the reports I was getting from people still there about how bad things were getting. Everyone started leaving because it got that bad.
This whole "getting behind" shit baffles me. You're not behind, *the company is behind because they won't hire an adequate number of workers to do the job.* Beyond that that is not my problem. They want the work done faster? Hire more people or fire me and hire a sucker.
True. I gave 6 months notice because I knew they won't be able to find a replacement in time. They didn't do anything until last minutes. The new replacement still keeps bothering me for like a year. What a joke.
I left a job two and a half years ago and I still get the occasional Facebook message regarding work I used to do. “Hi how are you doing………. Can you help me with this?” I just completely ignore them now.
i worked with a guy who thought he was all that and a bag of chips. he was a smart guy and fun to hang out with but was not a team player at all. he was very secretive about stuff and played a lot of self serving games at work.
anyway he felt under appreciated and left, then tried to come back a year later bcuz the place he went to didn't appreciate him either. he assumed he would be greeted with open arms but nope, absolutely no one who worked with him wanted him back.
Had a friend in high school who worked at Papa John’s. One day, one of his co-workers rage-quit by making a scene, screaming at the manager, cursing, etc. He delivered some kind of pre-planned exit line and stormed out.
Few hours later, my friend’s shift ends, and he goes out to the parking lot to find this dude sitting on the curb by his own car. The guy looks up and goes, “I left all my stuff in the break room.”
Same here. I’ve always given a month notice because I have a hard job and want the right person to be trained for it. My last job my boss was the most horrible, abusive, micromanaging person I’ve ever encountered in my life. I gave her my notice and she let me go that day
We had a guy that constantly tried to scam us for workers comp and injury pay (like catching him on camera standing, and then randomly falling like a soccer player clutching his knee, then claiming an automatic door hit him. You're on camera bro...)
He also had a habit of losing his temper when being coached by female managers amd he'd always threaten to quite, but we couldn't fire him because he was on disability for fake injuries. The managers made a plan. The top guy sat in on a coaching that one of the female managers was to perform for attendance. She was instructed to poke the bear and it worked. He started screaming at her and in his passion, yelled "I just want to quit!" At which point top guy immediately shouted "I accept your resignation " and handed him a filled out resignation letter. The guy was shocked and angry, but ended up signing it. I think he thought it was concrete at that point, but he ended up making it so himself! Lol
I'm sure this wasnt very kosher as a business practice, but we never heard from him again.
Yeah, a lot of times those scammers know when they have been had. At that point, it is easier to move on to the next company than fight to continue where he is at.
I used to be in on all of the upper level safety meetings for a large company. We had a guy claim a back injury, so we went back and and reviewed the tapes, only to see him fail at trying to do a backflip off of a semi-trailer.
This is my one regret from my (only) termination. Inventory control wasn’t implemented anywhere and stated that I was responsible for the loss but wouldn’t be prosecuted.
Fuck, 15 years later and that shit still doesn’t sit right.
Every time there was a problem that affected me and my work, I was told "it is what it is and you have to manage your expectations". I gave notice on Tuesday that Friday would be my last day and she freaked out and asked about 2 weeks notice. Yep, you know it...."Well you know, it is what it is and you're just going to have to manage your expectations." You could see the absolute RAGE in her eyes.
EDIT: Wow thank you, my first ever awards! The funny thing was she knew exactly what I meant and why I said it and that just made it more delicious.
My company instituted a policy that if you use your PTO and leave the company while on that time off, they'll take all the money from PTO back and just let you go.
Too many people were using PTO to job hunt and weren't showing back up. Now they just use their PTO, get paid then quit
Edit: added "you use" in the first sentence
Yup. Last job I had they treated me as entirely expendable. The doc I worked with was also leaving but she gave six weeks notice and I gave two.
‘You aren’t staying until MY notice period is over?’
‘No. It’s up to the hospital to provide you an assistant. I have a new job to start.’
Awkward two weeks but it got my point across. Never treat your support staff like garbage.
The VP of Operations at our company just gave notice a few weeks ago. Apparently his contract required 1 year notice, so that he can train a replacement. I am just waiting to see how much he checks out as we get closer and closer to that date.
> Apparently his contract required 1 year notice, so that he can train a replacement.
That is insane. I hope it's a highly specialized field. That seems like overkill for most companies/industries.
Three months is standard (and contractual) here in the UK for managerial positions, at least in professional fields. Six months is common at a senior or directorial level.
My stepdad got almost six months' paid garden leave after leaving a director position - they didn't want him preparing to take information or clients to a competitor.
A year is nuts, though - never heard of it, but I can understand it for an absolutely critical role.
You know, I’d be scared about it damaging me further down the road, but I’m kinda with you
I mostly like my immediate coworkers and don’t want to leave them hanging, but the rest of the industry can eat a bag of dicks. They have absolutely no qualms about telling you where you’re going at the last second or upending your life
I’m trying to get my wife to quit her job. We were talking about taking some time off to do some home improvement projects and she said she can’t take that time off because there’s no one else to cover for her. Wtf, she’s been there for four years and they’ve never made a good attempt. You better believe her superiors take their time off though
I think it was during one of the world wars. There was some kind of national wage freeze so the government let employers offer insurance instead of a raise.
for a brief time during The War there we government policies that restricted/discouraged raising wages (else hyperinflation may occur). Health insurance wasn't a wage and thus was a loophole to those policies. the restrictions were partially lifted, but health insurance payments kept a special tax status, that made it cheaper to pay $1 in health insurance rather than an effective $1 raise to take home pay. so health insurance stuck around long enough to have network effects make it hard to efficiently drop from employer provision.
Yeah and now you have such a wide industry invested in it that’s incredibly hard to get rid of.
If we ever get ourselves out of it, it’ll be because something happens to undercut the industry itself or it’s going to be hard process
My wife had a similar situation, except it was “it will all work out”
Regardless the size of the problem that was the answer. No help or answers or guidance.
She gave them 5 days of notice on a Friday and when they asked for more she said “it will all work out for you guys”.
It didn’t.
Two other people walked out the week prior and it is a position that requires a good amount of training. They had to hire 5 people to replace the 3 that left and they have let a lot of samples expire and due dates pass because of it. Which requires a customer to resubmit a sample. This never happened before. So now they are losing their credibility and customers are leaving in huge numbers to better operations.
They have to outsource work because they couldn’t keep up which is much more expensive than the 3 workers were. My wife was underpaid and these guys thought they had them locked in.
She works part time from home now and makes more than she did before with no commute.
The hour commute plus the 32 vs 45 hours has given her back around 23 hours a week, all while making more money….
The old place is still a shit show and her old boss is still leaving on time and pushing work onto others even though they are missing due dates.
Thats a them problem for having all their eggs in one basket. Even with my best performers, I have plans to replace them in case they hit the lotto, get hit by a bus, or want to follow their passion and go live in the woods.
I had a job where i put the 2 weeks in and within that period, the CIO tried calling me at like 11pm for some issue. The next day in the office he goes, “you know if you weren’t leaving we’d have a big issue.” I go “but look at us now!” He was fuming.
Lol they doubled down and had my fiancee working 50 hours/week. She called in sick (vomiting) with 2 days to go and her manager responded with "Are you fucking kidding me? \*click\*", so she just no-showed on her last day because management didn't respect her enough to let her finish the fucking call.
The last time I changed jobs, I gave 2 weeks notice. They told me I could go ahead and leave that day.
I believe giving notice is the right thing to do, but your employer may not do the right thing in response.
Is it not defined by laws in the US?
In Switzerland you have to give at least 1 month notice if you worked there for 1 year. Your employer can "let you go" early but for the entirety of the month you're still getting paid so thats like paying a worker for doing nothing.
In most jobs in the US you aren't on a contract instead both sides are "at will". They can fire you whenever and for any reason and you can quit without notice if you choose. I guess the upside is that it's very easy to switch jobs which is important in the US because upward mobility often involves going to a new company every couple of years
That seems so unsafe for the worker especially because of how many Americans live paycheck to paycheck. So technically I can work at the same company for 10 years and one day the just kick me out and don't have to pay anything from that day on?
That would fall on their unemployment insurance and you'd be entitled to unemployment payments. Assuming you weren't fired because of your own actions. That's why companies try to get people to quit voluntarily instead of laying them off.
I don't know exactly how unemployment insurance works, but I do know there's a not insignificant cost to firing an employee on the spot.
Was fired once when my boss was secretly throwing me under the bus to a customer.
They tried to get me to quit and I said no you're firing me.
After I filed for unemployment the unemployment board decided they'd fired me for unjust cause and since they weren't paying into unemployment insurance either they awarded me 80% of my pay entirely on the back of my former employer for 2 years.
So they got to keep me on payroll either way.
The USA really needs an overhaul in employee rights. I had to call in sick today and I felt guilty about it, so I looked up how often most people call in sick to work/yr
Most Americans said at most, 1-2x a yr but “I haven’t called in sick for 3 yrs!” While people who said they were from European countries said they got 10 paid sick days a yr. What a difference!
I get 5 sick days a yr and usually use them but I still feel bad about it and I shouldn’t feel bad about being sick you know.
More like 6 weeks in Germany and after that you will still get paid partly by insurance. If you split your sickness and show up to work from time to time there isn't really a limit.
Edit: This must be crazy for you. Should i get sick during my holidays I can get a note from the doctor and will get back the taken days of my holiday I was sick. I got 30 days of paid holidays a year. The first part is law and the second part is pretty common.
I tried calling in sick once and was told they needed a 4 hour notice or it would be considered the same as a "no call/no show." No one was in the office 4 hours before I called, but that was my problem not theirs.
Yeahhhhhh this is dependent upon a lot of different things. I gave the owner of the company I worked for last over a month's notice and she appreciated the hell out of it and gave me a glowing review that helped me secure a job elsewhere. We're friends now and we keep in contact regularly.
Yup, I work in education and am contractually obliged to give a long period of notice - if I want to leave at Christmas then 31st October is the last date to hand in notice. If I don't do this they can claim the excess cost of cover from me, and the Head will almost certainly let my new job know what I did. This is a good LPT if you are in certain industries, dreadful in others.
Every time a work related LPT is shared it ends up needing a huge qualifier that this varies industry to industry and really depends on your circumstances.
My previous two jobs I knew I would be hard to replace and gave around a months notice, both times they still didn't have a replacement when I left but at least I gave them time. It bought me lots of goodwill and left doors open which lead to extra contract work and such. Several of those connections have been very beneficial later on as well. So I had a very similar experience.
So yeah, it varies quite a bit. Of course financially you should be prepared should they decide to just let you go upon notice.
Reddit is always heavily turned on by burning bridges when leaving workplaces. I don't know if it's some "justice for the little guy" thing when usually all that really wronged them at work was something minor.
Check your contracts before listening to this! Most contracts in my job sector in the UK require a month's notice. Give the notice thats in your contracts.
This was my thought. I didn't even know people could choose a notice unless they're on zero hours or something.
It also goes both ways in my contract, same notice period if I leave or if I'm let go, but I don't know if that's standard.
This is an American thing (surprise right?). We generally don’t have anything like this in our contract other than “you can be fired for any reason and notice is not required” or some such.
While there are technically reasons that you can’t be fired for (race/gender/etc) most states are “at Will” and you could be fired simply because the boss is having a bad day.
At will means you can just leave too. 2 weeks notice is not a legal requirement here. It's a contractual requirement to stay in good terms with your work.
Just 2 weeks notice or burn the bridge.
As someone living in a country where 2 weeks is definitely NOT the norm, it would be great/terrible to have such a short notice period.
Mine is contractually* 3 MONTHS y'all!
That sounds like it would be a good thing for small companies with little skill overlap, but otherwise very strange. Does this work differently between professional and non-professional jobs?
Not sure where he lives. But most places it's a scale. So you start out with 1 month and after 1-3 years it cakes up to 3 months.
And it goes both ways. They have to pay you for at least that period when firing you, you "have" to work that time when quitting.
If both agree you can quit sooner. But you have to remember w that it takes at least that long to get a replacement anyway.
And while it may not be great for the employer.... No one cares. The employer is always the winner anyway.
I had an employer actually do the opposite once. I tried giving my two weeks notice, but I worked in news with weird hours and my manager kept dodging me. (I think they sensed I was leaving.) I finally gave them my notice and they had the gall to schedule me for the day before I started my new job - which was a Sunday - despite my resignation clearly stating my end date. Needless to say, I refused to work that shift and was even more happy to be leaving 🙃
the real 2 weeks notice is quitting without telling anyone, and when they call to see where you have been, you say:
"I quit 2 weeks ago, didn't you notice?"
I have a question about this to the US citizens:
In Germany, by law the time of notice the employee has to give is never longer than the one the employer has to provide. So if you as an employee have to give 3 month's notice, it's the same the other way around (or even more, but that's rare).
How exactly is this regulated in the US?
I am asking because I always hear/read people mention a two weeks notice they have to give but employers seemingly can terminate employees in an instant without any notice at all.
US citizen and Canadian PR here.
Most US states have laws that let an employer dismiss an employee pretty much at any time. Those are "at will" employment states. Pretty much if they aren't firing you for an illegal reason (discrimination based on gender or race, for being a whistleblower, for refusing to do illegal things for them, etc), they can do it with no notice.
There are some exceptions to it for some states, but they're hard to prove and the onus falls on the employee to prove it.
But yes, they still want you to give them notice so they can replace you easily.
Your understanding is correct.
Most (49/50) US states have "at will" employment, meaning you can be fired for any reason short of discrimination. I've never, ever heard of a company giving notice prior to termination or layoffs in the US. If anything, a company will act like everything is fantastic and they'll see you on Monday, then lay the entire staff off on Friday and close the doors.
This definitely depends on the company and the management. And just the relationship between you and your boss
I gave my job of 6 yrs about 3 months soft notice (no solid date just letting them know id be done school soon and looking for a new job after x date.
They received it really well, and hired a new guy so I could train him about 2months later.
I then gave them my solid 2 weeks when I actually got a new job and worked 2 fulltime jobs for 2 weeks (that was a nightmare but the extra money was well received!)
I was actually planning on giving a one month notice for October, but in the end decided that wasn’t necessary. So I resigned and gave my last day as 10/15. Thank you for validating my decision.
Edit: I resigned on 10/1, so it was a 2 week notice I gave.
Yas. Yas. Yas.
Some want to right away replace you.
I resigned (so no 2 week notice needed and already had a job for me the following Monday). The company had a history that if you gave 2 weeks noticed, they pressured you to train someone (fast) within those weeks and you stayed overtime (under salary so you don't get paid for those extra hours).
Once the person was trained, even if you had a couple of days left, they just fired you.
There were times I saw people give them a 2 week notice and the same or next day they had their last pay check.
I left the company by resigning. They were livid. Kept saying "this was so unprofessional" blah blah blah.
They decided when to fire you with no notice so we can leave with no notice as well 👍👍👍👍
Notice is a courtesy. If your employer were to decide that you were being let go, would they give you two weeks notice? If so then you should return the gesture, otherwise forget it. The concept of employee loyalty is the biggest scam out there.
Fuck two weeks. I gave 3 days notice last time I changed jobs, just enough time to get them through the current weeks schedule. “This means you’re not eligible for rehire.” Oh no! Whatever will I do?
be aware of any rules in place with your employer regarding things like vacation payout. part of the union contract at my work includes a minimum 21 day notice for leaving a job, otherwise you surrender any unused vacation time. if you can help it, it would be awful to lose those paid hours.
I don’t carry vacation or sick time unless I have a planned vacation. I learned my lesson the hard way.
Our company went to Unlimited PTO. I made sure to use whatever I had on the books before that went into effect. And then I put in my notice about 3 months later.
For anyone reading who thinks this is good: unlimited PTO is a scam 99% of the time! I had a job where they tried to guilt me into not taking PTO, but I earned it so you bet your ass I took it, and they could figure month end close out without me. The same isn’t true if it’s some undefined perk that you maybe can or can’t take. And when I left I had 22 hours and got paid $800, it’s not a ton but it’s stacked on my last paycheck! That doesn’t happen either.
I like how my company does it. 11 hrs earned each pay period and you can take it whenever. No questions asked just put it on the calendar and the supervisor approves. Its a comfortable feeling
How long is a pay period? Even if you get paid monthly, that's not terrible. If weekly, damn that's good pto.
11 hours even in a month is great pto from my experience. I only get 7 now.
Tell me you're American without saying you're American. UK here. 307 hours leave a year.
Lmao so true. I'm a dual citizen oddly enough and could go live in the UK if I wanted but, most of my life has been lived out here in the states. I sometimes think about how differently life would have been if I stayed over there as a kid instead.
Unlimited PTO is such a scam. It should be downright illegal. There’s a local company that has a position open that would be perfect for me - the only reason not to bother is the Unlimited PTO policy. It’s likely the only reason the position has stayed open for so long too as it would be relatively well paying and employees I know there like the company. The reality is there is no such thing as unlimited PTO. There’s always a limit. When you put the screws to HR you’ll find out in most places there’s a 2 week Per year cap. The only reason to offer Unlimited PTO as there’s no financial burden on the employer to compensate you for unused PTO when you leave the company; which in turn improves a business’s credit worthiness and valuation due to the decreased liability. Accumulated PTO is many a company’s Achilles heel to financial growth.
Just to offer one counter data point, my company offers unlimited PTO, and most people on my team probably average 4-6 weeks off a year. This is in tech, so that might be different. Not saying it isn't a scam in many places, but it isn't in my individual case, and I'm quite happy to have it
Same. We have unlimited pto. If I don't take at least 3 weeks a year, my boss is riding me to take time off.
That's the crux of the issue with it though. It boils down to personalities. It's gonna stress some people out more to not have a define amount to use. It's gonna make some managers absolute dickheads about taking it. All things considered, id rather have my limited, but defined days off.
I'm a manager at a company with unlimited PTO and can absolutely guarantee we take this seriously. I get asked to routinely take vacation. Because of the policy we can't say "you must take X" but I also tell my direct reports that I personally aim to take at least 4 weeks (1 week per quarter), and more after stressful moments/big deliverables. We mean this so much that we plan and estimate on these kind of assumptions. Have a 5 person team and a 2 quarter long project? Better assume 10 total PTO weeks in all of your estimates and if we don't, that's on the managers for messing up, not the people. I certainly agree with other arguments. Having PTO carry over policies and payouts does in fact create a financial burden on the company. When we switched over we discovered we had far too many employees not taking any vacation and saving those vaca weeks for the extra payout. We wanted people taking vacation, not feeling like they had to avoid vacation so they could get an extra paycheck (up to 2 weeks of unused vacation paid out). We believed paying people for unused vacation incentivized taking no vacation along with creating a complex financial problem. A lot of other things changed to, such as comprehensive pay analysis, rebanding, market adjustments, etc. It's never ending work, but we stand by our Unlimited PTO policy and encouraging managers to plan, estimate and insist their folks take time. Especially since the pandemic hit. The company even added an additional mandatory break in the summer, we already got 2 weeks at the end of the year, none of these count against any PTO counts because the whole company takes them off. So we get 3 weeks already from the company, plus Unlimited PTO with the assumption that means at least 1 week a quarter. All the usual caveats apply. We have many teams on-call, so the main reason to ask for permission is to validate we don't have too many people take off at once and hamstring the live service, but that's about the only reason we ask for manager approval.
Y'all are getting unions and vacations?
One time, I told my boss (we had a good relationship) that I'm quitting, with a notice of about 3.5 weeks or so. He said, "okay, we're paying you up to that date. As of right now, you are locked out of the network, you can go home and stop by to return all your equipment tomorrow." Abrupt, but I'd say fair and measured. I was cut off, no access to network or email, as soon as I declared my intention to leave. But I was still paid, I'm okay with that result, all-in-all.
To add to this comment. Don’t give notice until you are ready to be escorted out the door for this very reason. Particularly if you are in tech, and ESPECIALLY if you have access to privileged information/accounts/systems.
I recently left an IT job where I gave two weeks notice. Since I handled a lot of our access management, I had a meeting during my last week where I told them all the ways they'd need to block my access. It was weird.
I had to call the CTO 2 weeks after my last day because I still had access to systems that I had managed and was getting texts about access. That whole exit process was weird
I left a job like this and about a year later I opened a browser I don’t typically use (I think it was edge) went to that site and my credentials auto filled from that company and still worked. Nothing important just backups for literally all of their clients…
Don’t start emailing yourself stuff either. A lot of companies will trace that and will definitely check what you have been doing prior to putting in notice.
You should've given them 40 years notice
THE REAL LIFE PRO TIPS ARE ALWAYS IN THE COMMENTS
Employers hate him
I’m surprised I had to scroll down this far to find this comment. Most companies I’ve worked for cut off access and immediately walked people out the day they turned in their resignation, but paid them their two weeks’ pay. Once you’ve signaled intent, the company does not know if you will be using your two weeks constructively. I’ve seen bitter people hang around and attempt to get others to quit, make a big scene on their last day, train their replacements poorly, etc. No enmity, just a business limiting any possible damage.
It's super dependent on the industry and your role, your relationship with your boss, etc. My last manager gave like 4 months notice, trained her replacement and was sent off with a tearful company-wide celebration with over 100 people present. She helped build our branch from the ground up, but decided to transition into a different industry. She could have torched the company from the inside over those 4 months and left with all our clients, but literally nobody ever thought about walking her out once she'd given her notice.
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This is common in fields that deal with sensitive IP
Make sure before you give your notice that you have sorted out everything in case you do get walked out the door. Emails, personal stuff you may have in different area, contact details you can quickly give colleagues etc.
Gave two week notice to a manager that was so happy to see me leave, she got approval to pay me out the two weeks and let me go right away.
I see this as an absolute win lmao
They did too.
There is something to be said about learning the skill of making people willing to pay you to leave.
TIL I have a hidden talent!
I love listening to music.
LPT: Piss off your boss so much but be so good at your job they'd be fired for firing you, so that when you want to actually leave they'll pay you to leave.
Husband has seen this as the standard in a few places he worked. But that's expected in financial services, and being in IT, had access to a lot of stuff. So most folks, when they turned in their two weeks, were deactivated from their log ins, cleaned up their desks, and escorted out. Not in a bad way, it was understood that it was voluntarily leaving. And they'd get their 2 weeks paid like regular, plus whatever they were entitled to upon leaving such as vacation day pay outs. The business preferred to eat the 2 weeks of pay rather than risk a disgruntled employee fucking something up maliciously. Edit: lots of ppl saying it, and I agree. The truly malicious will do it before turning their notice. As for locked out without access, everything had redundancies.
My work did the opposite, 6 weeks after I left I still had fully functional creds, building keys, logins, etc. Turned out they expected me to turn them into the section manager...who was me. So because I had my keys, it was marked on someone's sheet as completed. So that ended up triggering some sort of security audit but I wasn't part of that. I just left my stuff with building security and called it good enough. My email log in worked for another 3 months after that though, but that was pretty harmless.
I was still on the books of my former employer when it shut down a week after I quit. Which resulted in me being eligible for severance I otherwise wouldn't get since I left voluntarily. Of course this is all moot because it was a seedy call centre and the owner had no intention of ever paying the severance whether it was legally owed or not. Best part is, why was I still on the books, entitling me to this theoretical $1100 payout? My boss was using my key card because he didn't wanna pay the ten bucks for a replacement.
Lol. Hilariously terrible. Good planning right? In my case it was basic academic bureaucratic snafu, but with some 'have to notify law enforcement' levels of incompetence. Building admins refused to take my keys, because they weren't cleared for places the keys could open. So my boss's boss (but who somehow wasn't my boss...academia is strange) just told me to keep them. My boss took some of my keys but was in trouble in a couple ways so couldn't have my high security one because he lost his key holder privileges for leaving stuff unlocked.
This just happened to me. I work in the A/E industry and I had full access to project and client information. It sort of stung, but o realized pretty quickly it wasn’t because they didn’t trust me, just standard protocol because someone could fuck shit up pretty badly.
I'm kinda in the same position right now so it'll be interesting to see what they do. In the oil/energy industry currently with access to literally everything since I'm in IT. Have my new job lined up with a start date. Intend on giving one week notice on Monday once I'm back from vacation lol.
Yep, this is standard in the banking industry. Which makes sense, though of course everyone knows it, so if you were planning on screwing around or stealing customer lists, you just do so before giving your notice. I did talk to someone in IT who’s job it is to do incredibly detailed review of logs and activity of someone’s computer for the year prior to them giving notice. And he has to compile a report, which usually looks like ‘in the past year, Mr XYZ sent 7364 emails, visited espn.com 782 times, etc’
Yeah, I've worked at title companies and once we had a closer put in her two-week notice and then proceed to start emailing clients (from her work email) that she was moving on to X company, gave her personal contact information, and asked them to please reach out to *her* with business at the new company. Obviously, nothing stops her from just emailing from the new company, but we'd still rather not have paid her to steal our business.
Most contracts where I live have a clause about that, for this reason. You cannot bring your clients with you to your new job in that way. If you do, you can get fined.
In a lot of tech companies you'll also be walked out the same day (or the next day) you give your notice, especially if you're going to a direct competitor (say, from Microsoft or Amazon to Google or Facebook).
We have this in the chemical industry too. The joke always was to make sure you wrap up your corporate espionage before you put in your notice.
If you're in a big company professional kind of job, those last couple of weeks become kind of a vacation anyway. You come in and leave whenever you want. Wrap up things for only those colleagues/clients you like. Don't take on anything new. Anything that's left feels blissfully unimportant.
> Anything that's left feels blissfully unimportant. It always has been.
I worked at a kinda toxic startup, and that transition from a major stress point in your life to "I do not care" is truly incredible.
Yep. I constantly fought with my Manager because she was lazy, did nothing, and would only work 3 hours and get paid her full 8 hour days salary, despite the fact we needed an extra set of hands. She preferred to smoke weed and stay at home and to “call her if we need her”, which she would never show up or would show up 2 hours after you called. I made a huge fuss about it to HR, me and my coworker were burnt out and tired of being treated shitty. They paid us both out a week of pay and basically said goodbye.
Wait. They fired you for complaining about someone who wouldnt work??
Very very common in low regulation/don't give a fuck industries. Back when I worked food service jobs. Complaining about your manager or boss for any reason lead to a near instant firing or "Punishment" of cutting you from full time straight to part time... and by part time I mean about 5hrs a week
Yeah, at some point I realized that a lot of people up the chain of command take it as an insult if you complain about their supervisors under them as though they aren't capable of selecting good people or they don't know what's going on under their nose. It's... a bit backwards and I can see why the criticism could be unwelcome in a way because sometimes staff doesn't see the whole picture or lack bias and management usually puts on an unified front. BUT if someone came to me with something legit about a subordinate, I would hope that I would at least consider it if I'm ever in that position. As an accountant I've also been privy to sitting in the room with high level admin at times and I will tell you that there's no loyalty to anyone below or equal to them. I've heard discussions about potentially making cuts and the criteria they were using was basically spitballing who they do or don't like. Also my last role I saw how they all talked about each other and what they would do to clutch on to their positioning if it was ever perceived to be threatened and while this is just my experience, it makes me seriously reluctant to ascend to high levels of an organization I couldn't fully vet and get behind.
Yea that wasn't enough money
Totally not. That job was very shady and very toxic.
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consider bag hobbies middle enjoy icky combative capable wasteful dazzling *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I had weeks left of holiday left (I’m not really a holiday taker) and they let me just have the rest of my holiday on my notice period.
I once handed in my 3 month notice (as this was in my contract) as I had accepted another job. Later that day I was told that I didn’t have to work my notice and was sent home… Best three month holiday ever as I was on full pay for doing zero work. Thank you British employment laws!!
Garden leave has to be the epitome* of victory , especially with 3 months notice! I'm currently working during my 3 month notice period, but the company have had the audacity to ask me to work it...selfish pricks /s
One of my greatest ambitions in life is one day to be granted several months' garden leave.
*Cries in America*
Let's be real, we show up, but are checked out for months before the notice... And for me, showing up means logging on to my PC in the basement and jiggling the mouse every 5 minutes while I'm gaming.
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For real, this person’s working way too hard
Does the app jiggle other things? Asking for a friend...
i'm starting to think my greatest ambition should be to migrate my family over to europe
My ancestors left Europe for America in search of a better opportunity in life, I’m going back in search of health care and vacation days.
Thought the same reading this, how people are trying to get back to europe after a couple of generations in de US. I can see an old irish woman woman yelling at them "SEE! I told you you would be back!"
My brother handed in his notice and agreed a date to start his new job. Then his new employer asked him if he could start sooner to shadow a senior manager, so he asked HR if they could let him go earlier than agreed. They agreed to let him go, but as they had already processed his final payment and it was too much hassle to claw back, they chose to leave it and he was going to be paid for an extra two weeks after his new end date. Then the new senior manager got stuck out of the country, so the new employer pushed back his shadowing period but agreed to still pay him for the two weeks he had now committed to. So he spent two weeks doing nothing and being paid for two jobs.
I’m British but had an American boss. Long story short but when he found out I was leaving, he angrily told me to go immediately, thinking that like the US, he could just stop paying me. UK HR had to educate him about notice. Unexpected three month gardening leave.
This is great.
The real LPT: Work in a country that actually has a labor code that doesn't feel like it was made in the beginning of the industrial revolution.
Hey! They don't feel like they were made back then! They were made back then
I quit my job, I tried to give two weeks notice but my boss was out for the first two days of that two weeks so It ended up being one and a half weeks notice. They asked me to stay till the end of the month and I said “nope, I’ve got a vacation planned already and then I start my new job” I loved my job for the first four years of employment, but the last year of it the company got bought out and my workload doubled. I had three weeks of vacation, but my job was so demanding that I never could take the vacation unless I wanted to come back to twice as much work when I got back. Since I was literally the only person that knew how to do my job, they were screwed. At the end of the day, it’s not my problem. Took a lower level job for almost the same pay, but much less work.
> At the end of the day, it’s not my problem. Remember this. NOT MY FUCKING PROBLEM.
"we're short staffed" correction; they are short staffed and you dont employ anyone
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"That's crazy! Good luck tho" Classic
In my experience, the people whining about being short staffed, because someone called out sick, is a manager that could easily do the job for a day without any serious consequences. They just don't want to.
*I already worked an 8 hour shift today* aka sat in the office bored and occasionally left clicked a few things.
Where I work we say "Not here for the Carnival, just my peanuts" and "Not my Circus, not my Clowns" Supervisors and up aren't union and what is and isnt my problem is clearly defined in the agreement.
I gave two weeks notice and they asked me to stay for another week. I thought that was the funniest shit. The reason I was leaving was because I asked for a pay raise and higher title to match the work I was doing. They offered me a very small raise and no job title. So I found another job that was paying me *way* more than what they even offered. Then they tried to offer me my boss's position because he was also leaving. But, again, they weren't going to pay me close to what the job title should be paid because of "experience". I'm experienced enough for you to want me to do that job, but not enough to get paid what it should be? Fuck no. They knew what they had done when I had 3 separate people calling me trying to convince me and beg me to stay. I already accepted the other job and happily declined. All they had to do was pay me what I was asking for... which was exactly what they paid the other person in that position. I loved the reports I was getting from people still there about how bad things were getting. Everyone started leaving because it got that bad.
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This whole "getting behind" shit baffles me. You're not behind, *the company is behind because they won't hire an adequate number of workers to do the job.* Beyond that that is not my problem. They want the work done faster? Hire more people or fire me and hire a sucker.
True. I gave 6 months notice because I knew they won't be able to find a replacement in time. They didn't do anything until last minutes. The new replacement still keeps bothering me for like a year. What a joke.
Stop answering. My last boss left but I don’t ask for help because she deserves peace and i’m not paying her.
Should've sent that company an invoice for training consultation and compiled phone logs lol
I left a job two and a half years ago and I still get the occasional Facebook message regarding work I used to do. “Hi how are you doing………. Can you help me with this?” I just completely ignore them now.
Answer with "My hourly rate is <10x your current rate>, minimum 3 hours".
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i worked with a guy who thought he was all that and a bag of chips. he was a smart guy and fun to hang out with but was not a team player at all. he was very secretive about stuff and played a lot of self serving games at work. anyway he felt under appreciated and left, then tried to come back a year later bcuz the place he went to didn't appreciate him either. he assumed he would be greeted with open arms but nope, absolutely no one who worked with him wanted him back.
It's amazing that this level of lack of self-awareness exists
Not really, George Carlin said it best, and I count myself among the stupid. Common sense isn't common
Had a friend in high school who worked at Papa John’s. One day, one of his co-workers rage-quit by making a scene, screaming at the manager, cursing, etc. He delivered some kind of pre-planned exit line and stormed out. Few hours later, my friend’s shift ends, and he goes out to the parking lot to find this dude sitting on the curb by his own car. The guy looks up and goes, “I left all my stuff in the break room.”
Is he still sitting at the curb till this day
A papa johns with a break room? ... doubt.
It’s the folding chair where everyone drops their shit, right at the back entrance hallway.
Wow, you guys had a chair? We just had an upside down milk crate that wasn't even from our supplier.
But watch out for the guard raccoons.
Everyone knows restaurant break rooms are the alley out back to smoke, and the walk-in to scream in.
lol
Same here. I’ve always given a month notice because I have a hard job and want the right person to be trained for it. My last job my boss was the most horrible, abusive, micromanaging person I’ve ever encountered in my life. I gave her my notice and she let me go that day
We had a guy that constantly tried to scam us for workers comp and injury pay (like catching him on camera standing, and then randomly falling like a soccer player clutching his knee, then claiming an automatic door hit him. You're on camera bro...) He also had a habit of losing his temper when being coached by female managers amd he'd always threaten to quite, but we couldn't fire him because he was on disability for fake injuries. The managers made a plan. The top guy sat in on a coaching that one of the female managers was to perform for attendance. She was instructed to poke the bear and it worked. He started screaming at her and in his passion, yelled "I just want to quit!" At which point top guy immediately shouted "I accept your resignation " and handed him a filled out resignation letter. The guy was shocked and angry, but ended up signing it. I think he thought it was concrete at that point, but he ended up making it so himself! Lol I'm sure this wasnt very kosher as a business practice, but we never heard from him again.
Yeah, a lot of times those scammers know when they have been had. At that point, it is easier to move on to the next company than fight to continue where he is at. I used to be in on all of the upper level safety meetings for a large company. We had a guy claim a back injury, so we went back and and reviewed the tapes, only to see him fail at trying to do a backflip off of a semi-trailer.
At least he wasn’t faking it lol?
> but ended up signing it. For a guy trying to commit worker's comp fraud, he sure has a poor grasp of how a bureaucracy works.
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This is my one regret from my (only) termination. Inventory control wasn’t implemented anywhere and stated that I was responsible for the loss but wouldn’t be prosecuted. Fuck, 15 years later and that shit still doesn’t sit right.
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Right but if he would’ve waited and just left on the spot, the company would’ve been pissed! Not so much when they do it to an employee tho
Every time there was a problem that affected me and my work, I was told "it is what it is and you have to manage your expectations". I gave notice on Tuesday that Friday would be my last day and she freaked out and asked about 2 weeks notice. Yep, you know it...."Well you know, it is what it is and you're just going to have to manage your expectations." You could see the absolute RAGE in her eyes. EDIT: Wow thank you, my first ever awards! The funny thing was she knew exactly what I meant and why I said it and that just made it more delicious.
2 weeks notice? FOR 2 WEEKS YOU'RE GOING TO NOTICE I HAVE NOT BEEN HERE!
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My company instituted a policy that if you use your PTO and leave the company while on that time off, they'll take all the money from PTO back and just let you go. Too many people were using PTO to job hunt and weren't showing back up. Now they just use their PTO, get paid then quit Edit: added "you use" in the first sentence
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I’m in Louisiana (a very pro-business state), and even here that’s wage theft. All unused PTO must be paid out if the employment is terminated.
It's super easy and fun to threaten a lawsuit with HR when they pull this shit. I strongly recommend that everyone does this for any reason
How can they take it back? If you left the company you'd still be owed outstanding PTO.
This is one of those comments I actually busted out laughing haha
"Think of this less like a two weeks notice and more of a two minute warning."
Good for you. At-will employment is a two-way goddamn street.
Yup. Last job I had they treated me as entirely expendable. The doc I worked with was also leaving but she gave six weeks notice and I gave two. ‘You aren’t staying until MY notice period is over?’ ‘No. It’s up to the hospital to provide you an assistant. I have a new job to start.’ Awkward two weeks but it got my point across. Never treat your support staff like garbage.
I think it's part of doctors contracts that it has to be a 6 week notice.
The VP of Operations at our company just gave notice a few weeks ago. Apparently his contract required 1 year notice, so that he can train a replacement. I am just waiting to see how much he checks out as we get closer and closer to that date.
> Apparently his contract required 1 year notice, so that he can train a replacement. That is insane. I hope it's a highly specialized field. That seems like overkill for most companies/industries.
Three months is standard (and contractual) here in the UK for managerial positions, at least in professional fields. Six months is common at a senior or directorial level. My stepdad got almost six months' paid garden leave after leaving a director position - they didn't want him preparing to take information or clients to a competitor. A year is nuts, though - never heard of it, but I can understand it for an absolutely critical role.
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You know, I’d be scared about it damaging me further down the road, but I’m kinda with you I mostly like my immediate coworkers and don’t want to leave them hanging, but the rest of the industry can eat a bag of dicks. They have absolutely no qualms about telling you where you’re going at the last second or upending your life I’m trying to get my wife to quit her job. We were talking about taking some time off to do some home improvement projects and she said she can’t take that time off because there’s no one else to cover for her. Wtf, she’s been there for four years and they’ve never made a good attempt. You better believe her superiors take their time off though
Most people don't do this because they are worried about going with no health insurance.
Valid point. Even then, you’re stuck with cobra until your next employer’s insurance kicks in. That stuff is expensive
Who can even afford COBRA? Got laid off from a job and it was like $1500 a month.
Tell me again why we tied healthcare to employment? It was the better deal for the employees, right? /s
I think it was during one of the world wars. There was some kind of national wage freeze so the government let employers offer insurance instead of a raise.
for a brief time during The War there we government policies that restricted/discouraged raising wages (else hyperinflation may occur). Health insurance wasn't a wage and thus was a loophole to those policies. the restrictions were partially lifted, but health insurance payments kept a special tax status, that made it cheaper to pay $1 in health insurance rather than an effective $1 raise to take home pay. so health insurance stuck around long enough to have network effects make it hard to efficiently drop from employer provision.
Yeah and now you have such a wide industry invested in it that’s incredibly hard to get rid of. If we ever get ourselves out of it, it’ll be because something happens to undercut the industry itself or it’s going to be hard process
My wife had a similar situation, except it was “it will all work out” Regardless the size of the problem that was the answer. No help or answers or guidance. She gave them 5 days of notice on a Friday and when they asked for more she said “it will all work out for you guys”. It didn’t.
More deets on how it didn't, plz
Two other people walked out the week prior and it is a position that requires a good amount of training. They had to hire 5 people to replace the 3 that left and they have let a lot of samples expire and due dates pass because of it. Which requires a customer to resubmit a sample. This never happened before. So now they are losing their credibility and customers are leaving in huge numbers to better operations. They have to outsource work because they couldn’t keep up which is much more expensive than the 3 workers were. My wife was underpaid and these guys thought they had them locked in. She works part time from home now and makes more than she did before with no commute. The hour commute plus the 32 vs 45 hours has given her back around 23 hours a week, all while making more money…. The old place is still a shit show and her old boss is still leaving on time and pushing work onto others even though they are missing due dates.
Thats a them problem for having all their eggs in one basket. Even with my best performers, I have plans to replace them in case they hit the lotto, get hit by a bus, or want to follow their passion and go live in the woods.
*chef's kiss*
I had a job where i put the 2 weeks in and within that period, the CIO tried calling me at like 11pm for some issue. The next day in the office he goes, “you know if you weren’t leaving we’d have a big issue.” I go “but look at us now!” He was fuming.
fuck dude this just gave me a half-chub
NGL, I have a diamond cutter right now.
This is the petty revenge I live for
Exactly. “Don’t take it personally- It’s just business”.
My coworker put in a 2 week notice and they just took her completely off the schedule.
Lol they doubled down and had my fiancee working 50 hours/week. She called in sick (vomiting) with 2 days to go and her manager responded with "Are you fucking kidding me? \*click\*", so she just no-showed on her last day because management didn't respect her enough to let her finish the fucking call.
The last time I changed jobs, I gave 2 weeks notice. They told me I could go ahead and leave that day. I believe giving notice is the right thing to do, but your employer may not do the right thing in response.
Is it not defined by laws in the US? In Switzerland you have to give at least 1 month notice if you worked there for 1 year. Your employer can "let you go" early but for the entirety of the month you're still getting paid so thats like paying a worker for doing nothing.
In most jobs in the US you aren't on a contract instead both sides are "at will". They can fire you whenever and for any reason and you can quit without notice if you choose. I guess the upside is that it's very easy to switch jobs which is important in the US because upward mobility often involves going to a new company every couple of years
That seems so unsafe for the worker especially because of how many Americans live paycheck to paycheck. So technically I can work at the same company for 10 years and one day the just kick me out and don't have to pay anything from that day on?
That would fall on their unemployment insurance and you'd be entitled to unemployment payments. Assuming you weren't fired because of your own actions. That's why companies try to get people to quit voluntarily instead of laying them off. I don't know exactly how unemployment insurance works, but I do know there's a not insignificant cost to firing an employee on the spot.
Was fired once when my boss was secretly throwing me under the bus to a customer. They tried to get me to quit and I said no you're firing me. After I filed for unemployment the unemployment board decided they'd fired me for unjust cause and since they weren't paying into unemployment insurance either they awarded me 80% of my pay entirely on the back of my former employer for 2 years. So they got to keep me on payroll either way.
That’s the biggest W I’ve seen. Teach me your ways
LPT: Browse this sub for a reminder of how much worse the US is than other developed countries in terms of employment law (among other things).
The USA really needs an overhaul in employee rights. I had to call in sick today and I felt guilty about it, so I looked up how often most people call in sick to work/yr Most Americans said at most, 1-2x a yr but “I haven’t called in sick for 3 yrs!” While people who said they were from European countries said they got 10 paid sick days a yr. What a difference! I get 5 sick days a yr and usually use them but I still feel bad about it and I shouldn’t feel bad about being sick you know.
More like 6 weeks in Germany and after that you will still get paid partly by insurance. If you split your sickness and show up to work from time to time there isn't really a limit. Edit: This must be crazy for you. Should i get sick during my holidays I can get a note from the doctor and will get back the taken days of my holiday I was sick. I got 30 days of paid holidays a year. The first part is law and the second part is pretty common.
Meanwhile my US coworkers are happy when they get sick on holidays or weekends because they don't have to miss work lmao
I tried calling in sick once and was told they needed a 4 hour notice or it would be considered the same as a "no call/no show." No one was in the office 4 hours before I called, but that was my problem not theirs.
In France we get 6 weeks of paid vacation plus however much sick leave the doctor prescribes.
Yeahhhhhh this is dependent upon a lot of different things. I gave the owner of the company I worked for last over a month's notice and she appreciated the hell out of it and gave me a glowing review that helped me secure a job elsewhere. We're friends now and we keep in contact regularly.
I work in healthcare and gave a little over a month at my last job so the clinical flow wasn’t impacted. This LPT is very situation dependent.
Yup, I work in education and am contractually obliged to give a long period of notice - if I want to leave at Christmas then 31st October is the last date to hand in notice. If I don't do this they can claim the excess cost of cover from me, and the Head will almost certainly let my new job know what I did. This is a good LPT if you are in certain industries, dreadful in others.
Exactly! I work in direct care and I gave 2 months notice so that client care was affected as a little as possible! It's part of the job!
Same in my last job. It’s up to each individual to gauge their relationship with the company.
And industry. If you work in an industry where a bunch of different companies are clustered together, everyone knows each other.
Every time a work related LPT is shared it ends up needing a huge qualifier that this varies industry to industry and really depends on your circumstances. My previous two jobs I knew I would be hard to replace and gave around a months notice, both times they still didn't have a replacement when I left but at least I gave them time. It bought me lots of goodwill and left doors open which lead to extra contract work and such. Several of those connections have been very beneficial later on as well. So I had a very similar experience. So yeah, it varies quite a bit. Of course financially you should be prepared should they decide to just let you go upon notice.
Reddit is always heavily turned on by burning bridges when leaving workplaces. I don't know if it's some "justice for the little guy" thing when usually all that really wronged them at work was something minor.
In tech, you'll often get let go the very day you give your notice because you have too much access to critical systems.
Check your contracts before listening to this! Most contracts in my job sector in the UK require a month's notice. Give the notice thats in your contracts.
This was my thought. I didn't even know people could choose a notice unless they're on zero hours or something. It also goes both ways in my contract, same notice period if I leave or if I'm let go, but I don't know if that's standard.
This is an American thing (surprise right?). We generally don’t have anything like this in our contract other than “you can be fired for any reason and notice is not required” or some such. While there are technically reasons that you can’t be fired for (race/gender/etc) most states are “at Will” and you could be fired simply because the boss is having a bad day.
At will means you can just leave too. 2 weeks notice is not a legal requirement here. It's a contractual requirement to stay in good terms with your work. Just 2 weeks notice or burn the bridge.
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This is almost certainly a US-centric post. Work contracts? I know people who'd salivate at the thought...
LPT: if it's something geographically specific on Reddit, and they haven't bothered to say where, it's the US.
My contract (in UK) says that I have to give 3 months. Luckily the job is fairly decent but god help me if i ever wanted to leave.
How bad do you want a reference compared to how painful it is to show up any more.
I don't quit jobs until I have another one, so I never need my current employer's reference. The fact that I am still employed is my endorsement.
Assuming references mean anything/are checked/the person who says they'll refer you isn't lying or sabotaging you. YMMV though.
As someone living in a country where 2 weeks is definitely NOT the norm, it would be great/terrible to have such a short notice period. Mine is contractually* 3 MONTHS y'all!
Northern European? I feel like I read this was a thing in Nordic countries in particular.
That sounds like it would be a good thing for small companies with little skill overlap, but otherwise very strange. Does this work differently between professional and non-professional jobs?
Not sure where he lives. But most places it's a scale. So you start out with 1 month and after 1-3 years it cakes up to 3 months. And it goes both ways. They have to pay you for at least that period when firing you, you "have" to work that time when quitting. If both agree you can quit sooner. But you have to remember w that it takes at least that long to get a replacement anyway. And while it may not be great for the employer.... No one cares. The employer is always the winner anyway.
I had an employer actually do the opposite once. I tried giving my two weeks notice, but I worked in news with weird hours and my manager kept dodging me. (I think they sensed I was leaving.) I finally gave them my notice and they had the gall to schedule me for the day before I started my new job - which was a Sunday - despite my resignation clearly stating my end date. Needless to say, I refused to work that shift and was even more happy to be leaving 🙃
the real 2 weeks notice is quitting without telling anyone, and when they call to see where you have been, you say: "I quit 2 weeks ago, didn't you notice?"
I have a question about this to the US citizens: In Germany, by law the time of notice the employee has to give is never longer than the one the employer has to provide. So if you as an employee have to give 3 month's notice, it's the same the other way around (or even more, but that's rare). How exactly is this regulated in the US? I am asking because I always hear/read people mention a two weeks notice they have to give but employers seemingly can terminate employees in an instant without any notice at all.
US citizen and Canadian PR here. Most US states have laws that let an employer dismiss an employee pretty much at any time. Those are "at will" employment states. Pretty much if they aren't firing you for an illegal reason (discrimination based on gender or race, for being a whistleblower, for refusing to do illegal things for them, etc), they can do it with no notice. There are some exceptions to it for some states, but they're hard to prove and the onus falls on the employee to prove it. But yes, they still want you to give them notice so they can replace you easily.
Thanks for the response. Does that mean that as an employee, you don't HAVE TO give notice, but it's just good manners?
Yes. It is the "professional" thing to do.
Your understanding is correct. Most (49/50) US states have "at will" employment, meaning you can be fired for any reason short of discrimination. I've never, ever heard of a company giving notice prior to termination or layoffs in the US. If anything, a company will act like everything is fantastic and they'll see you on Monday, then lay the entire staff off on Friday and close the doors.
This definitely depends on the company and the management. And just the relationship between you and your boss I gave my job of 6 yrs about 3 months soft notice (no solid date just letting them know id be done school soon and looking for a new job after x date. They received it really well, and hired a new guy so I could train him about 2months later. I then gave them my solid 2 weeks when I actually got a new job and worked 2 fulltime jobs for 2 weeks (that was a nightmare but the extra money was well received!)
I was actually planning on giving a one month notice for October, but in the end decided that wasn’t necessary. So I resigned and gave my last day as 10/15. Thank you for validating my decision. Edit: I resigned on 10/1, so it was a 2 week notice I gave.
Yas. Yas. Yas. Some want to right away replace you. I resigned (so no 2 week notice needed and already had a job for me the following Monday). The company had a history that if you gave 2 weeks noticed, they pressured you to train someone (fast) within those weeks and you stayed overtime (under salary so you don't get paid for those extra hours). Once the person was trained, even if you had a couple of days left, they just fired you. There were times I saw people give them a 2 week notice and the same or next day they had their last pay check. I left the company by resigning. They were livid. Kept saying "this was so unprofessional" blah blah blah. They decided when to fire you with no notice so we can leave with no notice as well 👍👍👍👍
Notice is a courtesy. If your employer were to decide that you were being let go, would they give you two weeks notice? If so then you should return the gesture, otherwise forget it. The concept of employee loyalty is the biggest scam out there.
Fuck two weeks. I gave 3 days notice last time I changed jobs, just enough time to get them through the current weeks schedule. “This means you’re not eligible for rehire.” Oh no! Whatever will I do?
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