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?"

Comments

What did you expect?

[Sylvestre]

You're a liability. You got paid. Be happy.

Re:What did you expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

You got paid two weeks without responsibilty to do anything else - take the money and move on, that's being professional...

Re:What did you expect?

[ajs]

I've never worked for anyone who thought like that. In fact, I'm pretty sure I WOULDN'T work for someone who seemed to think like that. It's just unprofessional. When I resign, I give 3-4 weeks notice, and I expect the company to make the most of my time. I usually have an equity stake in the company, and I want them to succeed just as much as they do. If your company is treating you this way it is for one of two reasons: 1) they don't trust you or 2) they feel compelled to behave in a detrimental manner because a manager with either too much or too little authority thinks it's their job.

Now FIRING SOMEONE... that's different. In that case, I compartmentalize them starting the day before, backing up anything that they can touch. I then shut off their machine after they leave, remove or lock accounts and remove their remote access if they had it.

This is all as much for their benefit as mine. If they had no means of access after they found out, no one can accuse them of anything.

I also ALWAYS offer to forward people's mail, though that's gotten harder in the last few years. Companies now feel that there's too much of a chance of mail being sent to their old account with proprietary information in it. Oh well.

Re:What did you expect?

[JanneM]

A mature, thoughtful organization would realize a couple of things. First, he is sitting with a whole lot of implicit knowledge about the current assignments. Having him spend the last two weeks document it all and bringing other people up to speed on it is a pretty good idea.

Second, he is leaving. There is a reason for it. Is it the salary? Personal conflicts? The hours? Too little challenge, or too heavy a workload? Is there a problem with the social climate at the IT department? A good organization will want to know, and conduct exit interviews to see if there are points they should improve. Perhaps even catch a disaster in the making before it explodes in their faces.

Third, he is now an ex-employee. He will go out in the world and socialize with his peers at other companies - some of whom his previous employer may well want to hire at some point in the future. If his final impresion of the company is that of a bunch of posterior orifices, that's what he'll be telling people when they ask him about his opinion on applying for a position there. If, on the other hand, they do a good job of taking care of him up until the moment his contract ends, showing interest as above and so on, the impression will be vastly better, and they'll effectively be sending out a PR representative that will be giving a much better impression about the company for years to come.

So yes, there are very good reasons not to just cancel his passcard and give him thirty minutes to pack his personal belongings before having him escorted out by a rent-a-cop.

Re:What did you expect?

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

I'll tell you the point.

No supervisor, no HR flack and no VP ever got fired for running off an employee that gave notice. OTOH, there's a fair possibility that they could be fired if the employee did something grievious after giving notice.

Re:What did you expect?

[AndyKron]

I've personally never seen anyone being escorted to the door unless it was something they were being fired for. People have always been allowed to finished their two weeks. Hell, we usually need more than those two weeks to pick their brains dry of all their tribal knowledge! I'd hate to have a key person leave the company, leaving us to figure out their job without their input. Ex employees are also usually available for consultation after they leave, too. At least this has been my personal experience, and what I've seen for others that I've worked with.

-AC

Re:What did you expect?

[kogus]

How resignations are handled are really an indicator of the hiring process, not the termination process. If a company goes out of it's way to hire people who are trustworthy, and treats them with respect while they are employees, then it isn't necessary to lock users out. On the other hand, if the hiring process is slack or employees are treated poorly, then these procedures are an absolute necessity.

Re:What did you expect?

[IAmTheDave]

If a company treated me that way, it would be worth flipping them the bird... along with three customers and a couple of line cooks who happened to get in the way....

I couldn't disagree more. Speaking of professionalism, doing what the CIO did was probably just as professional as your resignation. There may be policies in place that dictate his actions, or more probably, your resignation ended your employ, and they took action to protect their assets.

As others have posted, you get paid for two weeks, so they show professionalism again by not trying to rob you of the pay for the two weeks notice you have given. However, expecting that you'll have carte blanche access to the systems during your two last weeks is a bit silly. Most people spend that time backing up code to personal computers or otherwise stealing IP belonging to the employer.

Re:What did you expect?

[Anonymous Luddite]

I think parent post is bang on.

If the management has _any_ brains, they realize you would have/could have committed nefarious acts _before_ giving notice. The termination of system access is absolutely _not_ personal. It will be mandated by policy in many places and in fact protects the person who gave notice. If you gave notice and something "bad" happened immediately afterwards, server crash, corrupt database _whatever, suspicion would naturally fall on, you the terminated employee, unless you had no access to the systems.

As someone else has said, just take the pay and smile for 2 weeks. Where I work, you wouldn't have got past security the next day... again, nothing personal, just policy.

Re:What did you expect?

[poot_rootbeer]

I am a contractor now, having shunned full time work myself. Why? because it is my experience that companies are in it for themselves regardless of the impact the have for their employees.

That's funny, because as an IT decisionmaker at a company, I have shunned contractors. Why? because it is my experience that contractors are in it for themselves regardless of the impact the have for the company that's giving them money.

Re:Liability

[Maxo-Texas]

Unfortunately, they have insurance liability if they don't lock you out and something bad happens.

Because someone, somewhere gave notice and then got mad during the last 2 weeks and did something nasty.

This is a GOOD thing

[draxbear]

It's a matter of perspective.

The employer is doing themselves, but more importantly YOU a favor with this behaviour.

Why? Well besides the nice paid two weeks off, you are now officially not responsible.

If they didn't do this you are vulnerable to accusations at a later date if something goes wrong with a server that is traced to a point in time you were on your two weeks to bail.

Yes it's possible you could have sabotaged something before giving notice, and tough luck if they catch you at it. However you can't be held responsible for anything from the point of resignation onwards if removed as he described.

Saved from a living hell!

[OldCrasher]

I have seen those 2 weeks you longed for turn into a living hell. You are a lame duck in those 2 weeks. No wants to speak to you, except to talk about the weather, or how some dimwit in purchasing just ordered a ton of toilet paper. No one gives you any constructive work to do, just 'write down everything you know about anything this company does, and that you had a hand in programming, over say, the last 99 years...' You were saved from someones timetabled exit startegy that would have had you doing 35 debriefings, none of which would have been attended, and seven planning for the future meetings, none of which you could care a hoot about.

That 2 week notice, and its subsequent conversion into personal TV time, saved you from a whole lot of really boring nothing. Now, go home, get in the car, switch off the GPS and head in which ever direction you see a hawk flying, and don't stop for anything other than gas for 500 miles.

Live a little; the new job is just as likely to suck the life out of you as the old one did.