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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?"
You're a liability. You got paid. Be happy.
Up front Disclaimer: I am a disgruntled former employee of a Telco... laid off after 21 years
You, kind sir, proffered as professional a resignation as necessary. There are no reciprocal gaurantees, and in the IT field it is more typical than not for you to be treated nearly as if you were a criminal.
Systems you once managed for your employers now are at risk. Former peers are now potential spies. Do not be surprised to be treated like you have some sort of exotic, deadly, contagious disease. Don't expect anything for references other than affirmation you actually did work there.
This is the fine world of trust we have achieved as a civilised and evolved society. Trust not.
I will still always give professional courtesy (e.g., sufficient lead time for resignation) but I've left the corporate world with a sour aftertaste.... It sucks, that's just the way it is.
Based on how you described it, you probably did nothing wrong, and they probably did the right thing.
Companies are rightfully paranoid that a departing employee -- particulalrly one with root access -- may decide to do something nasty on the way out the door. This doesn't mean that *you* would do this, just that they can't take a chance. Of course, if you had intended to do something nasty, you could easily have set it up before tendering your resignation. The best thing to do is act like a professional and understand that what is in your best interest and in the company's best interest are no longer related.
If you got an extra two weeks of vacation, enjoy it.
When I quit HP, they paid me to stay at home for two weeks, and my unused vacation. 6 weeks of pay for 2 weeks at home. Time to recover and prepare for my new job, buy new clothes, and figure out the bus schedule.
The professional way to handle it is to stop whining and enjoy.
Although it is not very professional.
Of course mine was just my review, but it sort of acted like a resignation letter.
Strengths: Over the last six months I have had the opportunity to learn how to smile when given projects that offer no challenge at all. Furthermore I can now hide my disdain for co-workers that have more in common with parasitic worms than with human beings. I've also grown to recognize the importance of recognition via comparison. For instance, I recognize that our environment here at (insert company name here) is really wonderful compared to other companies - the same way Syphilis is a great improvement over A.I.D.S.. Then there is the multitude of tasks that I can do with my eyes closed. It's truly a wonder how many mundane tasks I can accomplish with no effort at all. And lastly there is my recent discovery of how to divide by zero.
Weaknesses: Sometimes, I have trouble accepting that I actually am flawless.
Where am I going and why am I in this handbasket?
When I resigned in a professional manner, they made me stay the whole 2 weeks. Sometimes they escort people out of the building that day for security reasons and still pay them for the remaining 2 weeks. However, I had to stay and fill out paperwork and go to BS meetings and suffer. What they did to you is pretty standard and has nothing to do with you or how you resigned.
http://www.kubuntu.org/
Well, as you say, the OP got paid anyway, but...
In every job I've had that I've left (five in the last 12 years), I've never had my access cut off until I actually leave. I've always worked until the last day, and I would be surprised if an employer didn't want me to. Mind you, I've never been fired, and in all but one case, I was actually on fairly good terms with my employer. I've never even heard of employers terminating access for people who are leaving of their own accord.
As a matter of fact, in most of the occasions I've left a job, I needed to keep access to the last minute to assist with a smooth handover of my work.
In a situation where an employee has notified their employer that they wish to resign, there is no security risk in letting them keep their access (and do their job) until they leave. If they were disgruntled and were going to do anything nasty, they would already have done it prior to tendering notice.
(It's a very different situation if the employee is let go, of course)
"Software is too expensive to build cheaply"
What you should have done is to have copied all of your mp3s and ornpay off the system *BEFORE* you gave your notice. ;-)
Sean
I had an old boss that taught me this trick about 10 years ago -- When a sysadmin quits, give him a two week paid vacation and immediately change all the passwords. Most of them had something lined up anyways, and if they weren't backdooring things, they were just going to sit around shorttiming it.
Funny thing was nearly every system admin that resigned attempted to access the systems during their enforced vacation. Probably nothing malicious, but since you don't know that, it's a wise policy.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
He made a professional resignation, they said no thanks but paid him for two weeks anyways. This is standard business practice and was financially beneficial for him. (two weeks free pay?)
What he's probably dealing with is the feeling of rejection: if they could drop him on a days notice was he really needed? He'll just have to be honest with himself about that but he will just have to get over that himself. Again its a standard business practice in many places and not a reflection of his character.
-everphilski-
What you experienced is standard operating procedure for any organization with even a half-assed security policy.
Any organisation that's going to be afraid of what their IT professional is going to do once they've decided to leave, and who is still under an employment contract has real problems. If you can't trust the people you employ when they're obligated to you, why can you trust them to stay when they haven't handed in their resignation?
Perhaps the culture is a little different in Australia, but I've never been locked out of a computer system just because I resigned. They've gotten every day's work out of me that they could - it was expected that I remain professional.
Honestly if someone's going to do damage to a company they'd just do it before they send their letter of resignation. If you can't trust your staff under the usual safeguards once they say they're leaving, you don't have a decent security policy to speak of anyway.
Access should be terminated on the last day of employment.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Excuse me, but... where's the risk? Anything the OP wanted to do to "trash the system" could have been done before he handed his notice in. How does immediately cutting him off (and probably pissing him off in the process) decrease the risk?
"Software is too expensive to build cheaply"
I think the reason this is done, even though it seems illogical on the surface, is because of the company's responsibility to act with "due diligence" in regards to security.
If you as an employee compromise the system or act as some sort of mole or corporate spy, after you're busted when the shareholders come down on your boss, he can say "Well, hey we had no way of knowing he was bent, we had no warning that this was about to happen. It could happen to anybody."
But let's say you put in your resignation, then backdoored their network on your way out because they didn't cut off your access until two weeks later. This time when the Powers That Be come looking for blood, your boss is SOL: he could try saying "well, we had no idea he was bent..." but the shareholders are just going to respond "He had just turned in his resignation! He was on his way out the door! Why did he still have access?" And your boss becomes the next one on the chopping block, and depending on the nature of the business possibly liable for fines as well.
So really your boss, and your boss' boss, and probably their boss' boss, all the way up the CoC, are just covering their asses by pulling your access as soon as they get a hint that you're not going to be a career employee.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
that's right... he isnt.
managers are just jackasses and dont have a grip on reality.
The reason being that the vast majority of corporations would be classified as criminal psychopaths if they were human beings. There is even a big documentary/movie on this point.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
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.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Reverse Firing
In the corporate world you often get reviewed for your performance. The meetings are uncomfortable affairs where your manager goes down a checklist of things that 'could use improvement'. On Quit Your Job Day, you'll be calling a review meeting of your own. Create a list of things the company needs improvement in. Watch your manager squirm as you point out bad health benefits, impenetrable paperwork, inhuman working environments and other OSHA related problems. At the end of your review look your manager straight in the eye and ask 'What would you do if you were me?', pause and then announce 'I'm afraid I'm going to have to let you go.'
More ways to quit at:
http://www.quityourjobday.com/
Obviously, you should have planned your sabotage prior to resigning.
The Admin and the Engineer
Australia isn't First World?
He said South Australia. It's different down there, and a little scary. They've named their cricket team after a spider and make beer out of sewage. Their main football team wears the German flag for a jumper, and the state capital was designed by an obsessive-compulsive.
They do brew one some of the best mass-production beers in the country (Coopers), but if you're ever invited to a keg party in a small SA town, run like hell.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Yeah, and why can't they call him the night before and tell him "don't bother coming in tommorrow?"
Marge: The plant called and said if you don't come in on Friday, don't bother coming in on Monday.
Homer: WooHoo! Four day weekend!
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
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 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.
--- I've completed diagnosis of your problem and can classify it as a YOYO...You're On Your Own
Shhh, I'm angling for "Informative".
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
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.
Resignation letters should never be more than:
No more need be stated. As a new person was starting the following Monday, it would have been smarter for me to stay those 2 weeks training the new guy. As it was, they get to do it themselves.It is almost impossible to actually explain fully and honestly why you're leaving without sounding bitter or nasty. Gee, Mr BossMan, I'm getting a 50% pay raise, 75% shorter commute, working with new technology, doing interesting (very not-boring) stuff, and the new place uses source code control too!
At least most places are not as bad as banks: if they overhear you talking about leaving, that will be your last day at work.
I told them that I was walking off of the job, RIGHT NOW, and that was all there was to it.
One of the bosses got upset with me and said that it was discourteous to do something like that. You should give two weeks notice that it would get back to you later and you might not be able to get a job for a stunt like that.
I then told them that my employment was a contract where you paid me for services, and if you fired me, you would walk me out of the building immediately.
"So, I'm firing you. You're all incompetent, and the system is failing due to that. Consider my vacant position as a sign of things to come."
When I walked it stirred people. That next week they lost three. Two more quit the next week. I was an underground leader of the staff, and when I went, the whole place saw my lead and thought it wasn't worth it.
All in all, it was the most worthy thing I've done in years.
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.