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Ask Slashdot: When Is It OK To Not Give Notice?
An anonymous reader writes "Here in the U.S., 'being professional' means giving at least two week's notice when leaving a job. Is this an outmoded notion? We've all heard stories about (or perhaps experienced) a quick escort to the parking lot upon giving the normal notice, and I've never heard of a company giving a two-week notice to an employee that's being laid off or fired. A generation ago, providing a lengthy notice was required to get a glowing reference, but these days does a reference hold water any more? Once you're reached the point where you know it's time to leave, under what circumstances would you just up and walk out or give only a short notice?"
I've never heard of a company giving a two-week notice to an employee that's being laid off or fired
It depends on the size of the layoff; see: the WARN Act. I was once given a paid 60 days absence before the actual layoff because they were shuttering the division. Gave me enough time to get another job, and get home from my first day of work to find a FedEx envelope with my final severance check.
That's how you downsize with class. Or, by being legal.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Depends on the situation. My current employer is in the process of outsourcing engineering to India, and keeping the US engineers on for varying periods of time (3-9 months) to facilitate the transition. There are incentives to stay through the end, but many have decided it's better to get out now. There is no bridge to burn, and people that are leaving already have new positions elsewhere when they resign. What is the possible incentive to give more than one or two day's notice?
If you already have a new employer then why would it raise flags? They've already hired you and (probably) have no idea what sort of circumstances you plan to leave your old employer under unless you have informed them and that would be pretty dumb to do.
Sometimes bridges are worth burning. Not a good idea as a general practice I'll concur but if someone came to me and said I'll triple your salary, you'll work with nice people and you get to work 20 hours a week I'd consider burning a few bridges for that. I've also had the "pleasure" of working for a few real douchebags and those are bridges I wouldn't mind burning either.
1 If I'm the hiring person and you don't give your current employer notice then I'll assume that you are a snake and will do the same to me later, regardless of whether I would need knowledge transition at that point. You're talking a professional (knowledge) position here, right? 2 How sure are you that you won't ever want the old job as a reference? I've been surprised at how well some older references have worked for me.
There is no bridge to burn, and people that are leaving already have new positions elsewhere when they resign. What is the possible incentive to give more than one or two day's notice?
I take it you haven't worked in IT long - Or have only worked for one, fairly stable company? Because you seriously ask what possible incentive exists in that situation???
Your current employer has outsourced their entire engineering staff to somewhere 10k miles away that speaks a different language and has an entirely different work culture. Put bluntly, can you say "ca-CHING" when the contracting hours start rolling in? Not a "maybe", they will realize they need some of you back on an all-but-permanent basis.
Believe me when I tell you this counts as quite possibly one of the greatest career-advancing opportunities you might have in your entire working life. Don't fuck it up because it feels good to tell your boss off.
Not a "maybe", they will realize they need some of you back on an all-but-permanent basis.
They may realize it, but that doesn't mean they'll admit it, because that would mean admitting management was wrong, and one of the cardinal rules of management is that Management Is Never Wrong. Employees may be wrong, customers may be wrong, suppliers may be wrong, but Management Is Never Wrong. How could they be wrong? They've studied Management! They know how to Manage Things!
And they will hold to this even as the company collapses, because in the age of the golden parachute, there's no incentive to do otherwise. The company may go bankrupt, but you can be damn sure they'll loot every remaining penny from it before the end. And then go on to an equivalent position at another company where they can do the same thing, because the managerial class looks after its own.
Not that I've ever actually seen this happen, of course. The above is completely speculative. Yep.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.