Slashdot Mirror
Computer Jobs -- How to Resign Professionally?
MikeDawg asks: "I submitted a letter of resignation yesterday, and today I'm at home posting stories to my weblog and Slashdot. I gave my employer two weeks notice, and almost immediately, I had my accounts disabled, and my permissions revoked on all the computers at my work, which makes me unable to do anything in my position of being a 'Systems Analyst/Systems Administrator'. I spoke with the HR rep, and gave her my notice yesterday, then I spoke with her today about what had happened to my access, and they honored my resignation... 2 weeks early. (Luckily, I'm compensated in pay for the next two weeks). What I want to know is, how do you computer and IT professionals out there put in your notice of resignation (if you are with a permanent employer, and not contractual), and not get immediately shutdown, and shunned away from the computers? The CIO immediately thought I was going to do something terrible to the system, and destroy accounts, and any other activity that I have access to, but I was giving him notice that I was leaving. What is the professional thing to do?"
.. but I can also understand your employers position.
While as a ethical professional you wouldn't do anything malicious with your access, that doesn't mean everyone in your position wouldn't. Granted, people who plan to act maliciously generally don't do so after putting in notice, from their point of view, it is better safe than sorry.
You get your pay (which is pretty nice of them), you did the right thing. I wouldn't take their actions personally.
-Adam C. Greenfield
Really - this is SOP in many, if not most places. At my company, anyone with "sensitive" access is immediately revoked upon receipt of written resignation. Period.
I would be more surprised to hear anything else.
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
I submitted my two weeks notice and gave them transition plan outline. About two days later I was called into a room with three HR reps, my manager, a lawyer, and the chief of security. Supposedly, I was working on sensitive information and the lawyer said that it would be prudent if I left immediately. Five minutes later, I was packing up my stuff under supervision of the chief of security and then promptly escorted to my car. They took my parking pass and id and bid me farewell. Of course I was paid for the rest of the two weeks.
No hard feelings, but with concerns over security nowadays, I don't blame employers for going through this extra step. I mean, IF I had done something malicious, what would their course of action be? Besides a lawsuit in which most cases side with the employee not the employer, they couldn't fire me because I had already quit.
exactly right.
Besides you should have disabled all those system account services that were going to detonate and take lots of things with them a year+ 1 month after your accounts were disabled BEFORE you put in your letter of resignation... they are there for sweet revenge in case of downsizing right?
Ok, all joking aside. When you tendered your letter you should have already had everything in order BEFORE you handed it in. All personal items already removed from your office/cubicle. All your code and porn backed up on a CD already in your possesion, your work computers sanitized and swept clean, your pet projects documented so the next guy can live with them for the 30 days he takes to rip them out and put his ideas in place instead..... etc...
It's not only IT, any professional job they hit you in the arse with the door the moment you resign. most companies have way too much sensitive or percieved sensitive information they they becom instantly paranoid about the second you announce you are becoming an "OUTSIDER".
I do strongly suggest anyone even thinking of resigning or outright quitting in a blaze of glory sanitize their workspace and machines, anything you leave behind will come back to haunt you later if it is something you are not proud to leave behind.
In a side note, any awards you may have won, It's not a bad idea to leave them behind at that empty desk. At your new workplace they will only serve to piss off your new coworkers and make your integration that much more difficult.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Yeah, flip them the bird...but that's really all you can do. But that stuff about respect is off base, because he was the one who gave notice. It says nothing about how he was treated while on the job. IT professionals have a lot of responsibility and a lot of power, and can seriously f-up a company with a few clicks. Any sane employer doesn't want that to happen.
The lesson is: give a month notice next time, and hope they will do the same thing. I'd rather have a month's severance than 2 weeks.
-johnson
As it has been said before, it sounds like the OP did the ethical and professional thing in his resignation, and the company opted for the (now fairly standard) rude and unprofessional immediate termination. That said, everyone should know what your state's employment laws are. They vary widely, and give the employee a variety of options and rights, and also can help you set expectations.
I'm going to speak about California, since that's where I work now. IANAL, but I've talked to one about this, and you should too. It's cheap ($100 or so for 30 minutes or so), and will give you information that is very much worthwhile, both at the start phase (negotiating your employment) and exit phase (termination/resignation) of your job.
CA is an "at will" state. For those employees (not contractors) not covered by a union contract, there are really three different ways to end employment:
Now, what happens often these days is that the company notifies you that you are terminated, and then tells you (e.g. locks you out, etc) that you are not to come to work for the next 2 weeks. The same applies to people resigning when they give notice (as the OP found out). HOWEVER, you are STILL CONSIDERED EMPLOYED by the company until the 2 week period is up. This is often important for Stock vesting, etc. And don't let them fool you that the "2 weeks pay" thing is a "severance package". It isn't. They are REQUIRED to pay you as long as you are an employee.
Don't Ever Sign Any End-Of-Employment Contract To Get a 2-Week Severance. You're an idiot if you do - they owe you the money in any case. The only time you should sign one of the agreements is to get money beyond what would be coming to you AFTER YOUR RESIGNATION/TERMINATION DATE (not the date you gave/received notice).
As a side note, this idiotic "walk-them-out-when-they-resign" policy seems to have originated in Silicon Valley in the 90s, as a consequence of the Dot-Com boom. Too many companies with no proper HR department not having any sort of a clue as to how to professionally hire/fire people. Unfortunately, it seems to have become a trend (it's the norm here in Silicon Valley for everyone, including the huge companies), which is telling as to the lowered quality of management (and HR) of companies these days.
-Erik
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
It's against the law to give a bad reference in my state (TN). You can only answer "yes" or "no" to the question: "Is person eligible to work at your company ever again?
I don't moderate anymore. Karma penalty for 90% fair mods? Can I mod that unfair?
Just remember that you have no control over how other people react to your decisions.
When I left my last job, I gave my notice and then talked to the director of data security and asked him how he wanted to handle transitioning my authority around. I told him straight up that my reputation is too important to me to leave privileged accounts behind, and that I would appreciate having the opportunity to disable my own access so I would be sure it was done properly. I didn't want something to happen and then for the company to think it was me because I'd recently left and had all sorts of authority on the systems.
My boss had already known of my feelings about that sort of thing, because we had talked about it in the past when others had left. He was fully aware of the conversation I had with the director of data security, and he was cool with it. He knew me well enough to know that I took my responsibilities seriously and wasn't going to do something that would bite me in the ass down the road.
I've seen that sort of thing happen; when I was in college, we had a guy who said he wanted to learn, so we gave him administrative access on the systems. He never showed up, and as inexperienced as we were, we didn't revoke his access. He went in and changed all of the passwords and locked out all of the administrative accounts after deleting his own account. He left a trail so blindingly clear that when the US Air Force called to do a security background check on him, they were informed about it (though not by me - but I was in the room when the call came in). The last I heard (and this was many years ago, so his circumstances may have changed), he was finishing up a 6 year ROTC tour of duty but unable to get a security clearance. Do you know how many jobs there are in the US Air Force involving computer science degrees that don't require a security clearance? Not many....
My boss understood that having seen someone screw their career over (former boss was ex-Navy, and had a top secret clearance) because they decided to act stupid with their authority meant that I wasn't about to do the same. I've always assumed that when it comes to IT systems, someone's watching me and I may not know how they're watching me, so I just don't screw around with the authority.
Being a systems administrator means that you have to be trustworthy - and trusted by your management. I've always said that if management doesn't trust a systems administrator (and if they don't for a good reason), then the systems administrator shouldn't be administering their systems. The fact that there is a lot of very sensitive corporate data accessible to someone with those types of rights means that you have to trust that they're not going to abuse their authority. That doesn't mean that you don't put auditing systems in place to audit access to sensitive data, but in most companies, the ones putting those systems in place are the system administrators, so they know the ins and outs of those systems - including how and where to disable them.
Insanity is a gradual process; don't rush it.
I sent a key member of staff home within an hour of his resignation. There were two reasons for this:
1) Morale of other staff - There is nothing worse than hearing somebody tell you that grass is greener where they're going.
2) I knew that if I sent him home and there was a good chance that I'd find out within a month whether he had some vital knowledge that we needed. This would not be have been noticed if he had worked his notice period. If he did have knowledge or skills that we needed, better to find out during his notice period at home. If we call him while he is still on the payroll, he has a duty to respond.
"Corporate secrets" or "vandalism" were pretty low on my priority list to be honest. If this was going to happen, it had probably happened already.
You could have done all kinds of things ahead of time just as easily as after putting in the two weeks. Let us not all forget that any such acts, before or after are criminal and if caught, there can be repecussion, i.e. civil lawsuits for damamged! If you do malicious things and they can find evidence of it, you are liable!
/....I meant... take the pay, go home buy a new computer and have fun playing games and streaming porn for 2 weeks! GF for a /. user...what was I thinking!! ;)
My HR director worked at a facility where they fired the facility manager. He was a bit of a quack, which is part of the reason he was being fired, but a nice enough guy. They allowed him to go around the facility with HR escort to say goodbye to a few people after they fired him. As he walked by the production machine, he walked over to a control console and hit the main e-stop button and then whith his escort left the building never to return. It didn't take but a couple of days for the corporate lawyers to have the suit drawn up and file for damamges.
The company cutting off access is just covering themselves against possible wacko's. Don't let it bug you, take the pay, have a party, take your gf out to a fancy dinner and have a good time....hold on a sec, posting to