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In Booming Job Market, Workers Are 'Ghosting' Their Employers (washingtonpost.com)
A notorious millennial dating practice is starting to creep into the workplace: ghosting. Employers are noticing with increasing frequency that workers are leaving their jobs by simply not showing up and cutting off contact with their companies [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; syndicated source]. From a report: "A number of contacts said that they had been 'ghosted,' a situation in which a worker stops coming to work without notice and then is impossible to contact," the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago noted in December's Beige Book, which tracks employment trends. National data on economic "ghosting" is lacking. The term, which usually applies to dating, first surfaced in 2016 on Dictionary.com. But companies across the country say silent exits are on the rise. Analysts blame America's increasingly tight labor market. Job openings have surpassed the number of seekers for eight straight months, and the unemployment rate has clung to a 49-year low of 3.7 percent since September. Janitors, baristas, welders, accountants, engineers -- they're all in demand, said Michael Hicks, a labor economist at Ball State University in Indiana. More people may opt to skip tough conversations and slide right into the next thing.
... is good for the gander
If your company is going to lay you off, it's not like they give you a whole lot of notice in most cases. You turn up for work, bright and eyed and bushy tailed, only to find a Manager and HR type waiting to give you some really bad news
Sure, most places have severance, but it's not like they take your feelings into consideration so if employees are just up and leaving, that's behavior the corporation does all the time
at will employment goes both ways!
Fuck you bill I'm not working weekends after being told at 4:55 PM on Friday and go fuck your self and put that in the TPS report.
I'd be hesitant about using this practice, especially in small markets where everyone knows each other. Our college placement office had a story of a student who accepted an offer from a company but continued to go on interviews afterward. They got another offer, but the partners of the two companies (accounting firms) talked to each other and found out what happened and both rescinded their offers. If you get a reputation of being unreliable and leaving without any contact, it may haunt you in the next downturn. Two weeks isn't much time to stick it out, and if you have an immediate offer, at least tell the previous employer why (and probably expect to not work there again).
If your company is going to lay you off, it's not like they give you a whole lot of notice in most cases.
Do you WANT more companies to do that?
If not why escalate like that?
Telling other people you plan to leave, is just basic human decency.
There is nothing good about either side giving the other one no warning about actions like this.
Besides, the equivalent to what YOU are talking about it not a company laying you off unexpectedly. It's more like if you kept coming to work and after two weeks you just got no paycheck, and the company said "we fired you but dd not tell you".
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If everyone adopts your reasoning, employees will quit without giving notice. Employers will let employees go without severance or adequate notice.
For the best outcome, everyone has to be considerate of each other. Employers have to give employees adequate notice, and provide severance to help carry the ex-employee through while they find another job. Employees have to give their employers adequate notice, and wrap up their projects and help train their replacement employee before they leave.
Also, being a jerk to a company you work at just because another company screwed you over, is no different from a company being a jerk to an employee just because another employee screwed them over. Again, that sort of behavior just creates a race to the bottom, and is in fact the basis of all discrimination. Retribution needs to target the company or individual who wronged you, not someone else who just happens to belong to the same class, type, race, gender, etc.
Who in the recent decade of depression saw numerous companies a) let workers go with little to no warning and no compensation or b) witnessed the extremely common scenario where an employee informs their employer they are taking a new job, gives their two weeks notice, and are immediately escorted out the building and left with no job for two weeks.
Companies keep trying to pull shit on employees. I don't think these greedy CEO's realize that there are consequences for their policies. If employers fail to respect 2 weeks notice, than they cannot expect their employees to do so. If corporations find every loophole and means to pay their employees less regardless of the effect on their employees. Than employers can't complain when those same folks keep jumping jobs for more money - if YOU make it ALL about money, than expect it to be all about MONEY.
<Platitudes>
Try not to burn your bridges after you cross them. Because the grass only seems greener from the other side.
</Platitudes>
While there is an employment shortage, this isn't a long term issue, and the market will move from an employees market back to an employers market. So if that great new job you got turns sour (because they gave you too much more then what you are actually worth, because of employee scarcity) You may be out of a job, and the company that seemed to suck so much, may still have a spot for you, because its conservative investments meant such a turn in the market didn't hurt them as much.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I don't think people forget this at all. If you are professional, you want to leave with a good impression with the company. For good references, good relations with your fellow employees who may be hiring managers in the future, and if things go south, there may be an other company to get hired again with.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Given that I've never even seen the same employer under 100 employees advertise the same job twice, it's pretty hard NOT to end up burning bridges, but this ghosting seems to take it to a whole new level.
I think you are confused. Leaving a job doesn't have to result in burned bridges. It is possible to leave a job without burning bridges.
Why leave like that? You miss out on cake, and sincere heartfelt wishes from your fellow employees, as well as earnest conversations about “we must catch up some time soon”.
When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."