How to resign
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After a recent round of
firingslayoffsreprioritizationdownsizing, those of us still here had numerous discussions on how one might intentionally leave a position.Personally, I think that if you leave by your own choice and your boss is a decent person, you should give as much notice as possible (min 2 weeks). If your boss is a jerk, 2 weeks is the max, and zero if the guy is a boil on your butt.
This led to some rather heated discussions with the more senior folks leaning toward being nice about it and the more junior folks leaning toward leaving without telling anyone.
Thoughts?
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There are employers will actually contact your old employers, and if you left on poor terms, that may not help your chances with new work. I'd go with the long notice, good terms choice.
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@skippy said:
There are employers will actually contact your old employers, and if you left on poor terms, that may not help your chances with new work. I'd go with the long notice, good terms choice.
These days, in the US, at least, it is inadvisable for an employer to provide a reference, good or bad, for a former employee. It's recommended that you do little to nothing more than confirm that the person was an employee.
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I would give notice if I wanted to show respect.
This that have lost my respect (hence the reason I would be leaving) would get little to no notice.
This kind of goes hand in hand with the idea that IT holds to much power and anyone leaving or planning to leave is usually let go immediately. We never get notice of a firing (really who does) and when giving notice about half of the places give me essentially 2 weeks severance starting immediately but hold the option to call me if needed. Other places remove me from actual hands on work and place me in a knowledge transfer mode.
Basically if they have lost my respect, no notice, and I would not be using them as a reference anyway. Burning bridges here in the USA is nearly impossible from this standpoint as there are a lot of companies that simply say, "yes he worked here"
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@bstorer said:
@skippy said:
There are employers will actually contact your old employers, and if you left on poor terms, that may not help your chances with new work. I'd go with the long notice, good terms choice.
These days, in the US, at least, it is inadvisable for an employer to provide a reference, good or bad, for a former employee. It's recommended that you do little to nothing more than confirm that the person was an employee.
It seems like there's a difference between cold calling somebody's boss, or asking the candidate to provide a list of references. Generally you should gather up a few people and ask them ahead of time to provide you a reference. Doesn't have to be your boss, but other coworkers, etc. If you piss everybody off by leaving in a hurry and sticking them with a bunch of undocumented code, they won't be willing to provide you with a good reference.
Regardless of whether the new company actually calls the old one, they'll still look at the list of references and see that the only people on there are your college professors and the manager from your summer jobs. They'll know you did something to piss everybody off at your last job.
If they do call your old boss, he can pretty easily say, "I can't give a reference... good [u][i]or bad[/i][/u]" and still be safe from litigation.
One good strategy would be to stay there until you find something new. That way:
1) You keep a paycheck coming in while you're looking
2) You can ask the new company not to call your current boss because you fear repurcussions. They'll understand.
3) If you get the new job, tell them you need 2 weeks to finish up at the old on. Then tell your current boss you're quitting and see if he needs you to stick around for 2 weeks. If he says yes, you just got 2 weeks to be as much of a lazy asshole as you want without repurcussions. If he tells you to go ahead and quit now, you just got an extra two weeks of (unpaid) vacation, and it still doesn't prevent you from telling your boss what you really think of him on your way out.
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@bstorer said:
@skippy said:
There are employers will actually contact your old employers, and if you left on poor terms, that may not help your chances with new work. I'd go with the long notice, good terms choice.
These days, in the US, at least, it is inadvisable for an employer to provide a reference, good or bad, for a former employee. It's recommended that you do little to nothing more than confirm that the person was an employee.
Most company policies are: Person X worked here from day x to day y with the following positions: a,b,c,x,y,z.
Because the employers will get sued! Even if the employee was a jerk.
Leave on good terms because often you may meet the same people at diff positions for w/e reason.
So to intentionally get fired? Um this worked for my uncle: He didn't get a salary increase for seven years because company had "financial issues" then both the owners got ferraris... he was a senior engineer... and so here's a quote:
To the CEO: "I believe that I won't be doing anymore work here from now on"
CEO: "Huh? Ok what can we do to make you keep working?"
To the CEO: "Give me the red ferarri!"
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FYI, in Europe, there are rules your must follow. Am quite surprised you can quit a job "without telling anyone". Here the rules, depending on how much time you worked for the comapny varie from 3 days notice (if you are still on evaluation period, that is mainly first month of work), to more than a month of notice. Usually it's around 2 weeks for Belgium. Other rules might have been decided upon work contract signature, but there are legal limits...
Well, thecnically, you can leave without notice, you will be only fine a few months worth salary by your employer!
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@tchize said:
FYI, in Europe, there are rules your must follow. Am quite surprised you can quit a job "without telling anyone". Here the rules, depending on how much time you worked for the comapny varie from 3 days notice (if you are still on evaluation period, that is mainly first month of work), to more than a month of notice. Usually it's around 2 weeks for Belgium. Other rules might have been decided upon work contract signature, but there are legal limits...
Well, thecnically, you can leave without notice, you will be only fine a few months worth salary by your employer!
Here in Germany, you have to notice your employer four weeks before leaving, and you can only leave on the 15th and last day of a month (don't ask me why). For the pleoyer to fire you, the duration starts at four weeks and goes up to (depending on how ong you've been with the company) seven months (after 20 years in the same company). And being that long with a company is not uncommon in Germany, unlike for exaple in the US (AFAIK).
It's §622 BGB, in ase anybody needs it ;).
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@tchize said:
Well, thecnically, you can leave without notice, you will be only fine a few months worth salary by your employer!
If you are paid on a monthly basis, your employer is entitled to refuse to pay the entire month in which you left, if you broke the contract in doing so. If you're paid in advance (extremely rare), they can require you to return the last month's pay.
There is nothing else they can do. If they want you to give notice before leaving, and you're paid in arrears, they should be offering a severance package of some kind. If your employer doesn't, then there is no particular financial/legal reason for paying any attention to the notice period in your contract, because they can't do a damn thing about it.
I'm continually amazed by how so many people fail to realise that an employment contract is supposed to offer you things, not just take them from you.
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@asuffield said:
@tchize said:
Well, thecnically, you can leave without notice, you will be only fine a few months worth salary by your employer!
If you are paid on a monthly basis, your employer is entitled to refuse to pay the entire month in which you left, if you broke the contract in doing so. If you're paid in advance (extremely rare), they can require you to return the last month's pay.
There is nothing else they can do. If they want you to give notice before leaving, and you're paid in arrears, they should be offering a severance package of some kind. If your employer doesn't, then there is no particular financial/legal reason for paying any attention to the notice period in your contract, because they can't do a damn thing about it.
I'm continually amazed by how so many people fail to realise that an employment contract is supposed to offer you things, not just take them from you.
In the contract i got a few months back i found the following gem.
De werknemer verbindt zich aan Werkgever terstond mededeling te doen van alle
uitvindingen, ontdekkingen, verbeteringen, modificaties en ontwikkelingen die door de werknemer,
al dan niet in samenwerking met anderen, zijn gedaan, uitgedacht, gemaakt of aangebracht,
onverschillig of deze al dan niet voor octrooiering vatbaar zijn en onverschillig of de werknemer dat
binnen of buiten normale werktijd heeft gedaan. Deze bedoelde uitvindingen, ontdekkingen,
verbeteringen, modificaties en ontwikkelingen zijn automatisch eigendom van Werkgever en de
werknemer verplicht zich om in dat verband alle medewerking aan Werkgever te verlenen(very) Roughly translated
The employee will make notice of all inventions, discoveries, improvements, modifications and development that have been made by the employee or in cooperation with the employee. This accounts for both in work time as well as outside of work. These are automatically property of the employer.Besides the fact that it even breaks a few laws, i doubt this was meant to "offer" me things.
A employment contract lists the terms of your employment, these give you certain rights but can also take away certain rights. saying that it only restricts or only gives, is simply only half the story.
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@stratos said:
The employee will make notice of all inventions, discoveries, improvements, modifications and development that have been made by the employee or in cooperation with the employee. This accounts for both in work time as well as outside of work. These are automatically property of the employer.Besides the fact that it even breaks a few laws, i doubt this was meant to "offer" me things.
A employment contract lists the terms of your employment, these give you certain rights but can also take away certain rights. saying that it only restricts or only gives, is simply only half the story.
You seem to be missing the point. A contract has to offer you something in order to get you to accept the rules and restrictions that your employer would like to impose. On the most basic level it offers to pay you, but in various circumstances things get more interesting. One notable case is the termination case: if they aren't offering to pay you any more afterwards, there's no reason why you should accept anything they want you to do - if they want something from you, they have to offer you something in return. Since the contract is already terminating, you can simply break whatever is left of it, and there usually isn't anything they can do about it.
The other important case is where you already have a contract, and they want to change it. You should never accept additions favouring them until they give you something for it.
It's strange how often people forget that a contract is an exchange, not a list of rules dictated by the employer, and should be treated exactly like any other negotiable transaction.
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@tchize said:
FYI, in Europe, there are rules your must follow. Am quite surprised you can quit a job "without telling anyone". Here the rules, depending on how much time you worked for the comapny varie from 3 days notice (if you are still on evaluation period, that is mainly first month of work), to more than a month of notice.
Here in Austria, its similar; one month is the mininum after the evaluation period, my contract even requires 3 months of notice.
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@asuffield said:
It's strange how often people forget that a contract is an exchange, not a list of rules dictated by the employer, and should be treated exactly like any other negotiable transaction.
It is easy to forget.
Food, lodging, internet etc.
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@stratos said:
In the contract i got a few months back i found the following gem.
De werknemer verbindt zich aan Werkgever terstond mededeling te doen van alle
uitvindingen, ontdekkingen, verbeteringen, modificaties en ontwikkelingen die door de werknemer,
al dan niet in samenwerking met anderen, zijn gedaan, uitgedacht, gemaakt of aangebracht,
onverschillig of deze al dan niet voor octrooiering vatbaar zijn en onverschillig of de werknemer dat
binnen of buiten normale werktijd heeft gedaan. Deze bedoelde uitvindingen, ontdekkingen,
verbeteringen, modificaties en ontwikkelingen zijn automatisch eigendom van Werkgever en de
werknemer verplicht zich om in dat verband alle medewerking aan Werkgever te verlenenNegeren kun je leren.
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@stratos said:
In the contract i got a few months back i found the following gem.
-cut-
(very) Roughly translated
The employee will make notice of all inventions, discoveries, improvements, modifications and development that have been made by the employee or in cooperation with the employee. This accounts for both in work time as well as outside of work. These are automatically property of the employer.Besides the fact that it even breaks a few laws, i doubt this was meant to "offer" me things.
That's a pretty standard clause where an employee might be creating original things or improving on existing products. Having brainstormed for ways around this type of thing before, I can assure you that they are needed :P You'll find that in general if it's obviously something you've done on your own then any sensible boss will release the <whatever> back to you. If you used company equipment or IP to do it it's another matter.
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Well i didn't think it was pretty standard, so i of course told them to take it out.
I even find it pretty disturbing that anyone would think that was "ok" to agree too.
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Back in September I gave 2 months notice. My contract stipulated 1 month (or 4 weeks, I can't remember.)
If I hadn't booked 3 weeks holiday at the beginning of October and/or I could trust Payroll to pay any holiday due, I would have only given a month. (It was payroll fucking up my pay 2 months running that was the final straw that caused me to quit.)
And no, I didn't have another job to go to at the time.
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@snoofle said:
After a recent round of
firingslayoffsreprioritizationdownsizing, those of us still here had numerous discussions on how one might intentionally leave a position.Personally, I think that if you leave by your own choice and your boss is a decent person, you should give as much notice as possible (min 2 weeks). If your boss is a jerk, 2 weeks is the max, and zero if the guy is a boil on your butt.
This led to some rather heated discussions with the more senior folks leaning toward being nice about it and the more junior folks leaning toward leaving without telling anyone.
Thoughts?
You should think about not only your boss, but your colleagues. Is it fair to leave them with a mess to clean up?
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@m0ffx said:
@snoofle said:
After a recent round of
firingslayoffsreprioritizationdownsizing, those of us still here had numerous discussions on how one might intentionally leave a position.Personally, I think that if you leave by your own choice and your boss is a decent person, you should give as much notice as possible (min 2 weeks). If your boss is a jerk, 2 weeks is the max, and zero if the guy is a boil on your butt.
This led to some rather heated discussions with the more senior folks leaning toward being nice about it and the more junior folks leaning toward leaving without telling anyone.
Thoughts?
You should think about not only your boss, but your colleagues. Is it fair to leave them with a mess to clean up?
yes. That's their job.
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@tster said:
@m0ffx said:
@snoofle said:
After a recent round of
firingslayoffsreprioritizationdownsizing, those of us still here had numerous discussions on how one might intentionally leave a position.Personally, I think that if you leave by your own choice and your boss is a decent person, you should give as much notice as possible (min 2 weeks). If your boss is a jerk, 2 weeks is the max, and zero if the guy is a boil on your butt.
This led to some rather heated discussions with the more senior folks leaning toward being nice about it and the more junior folks leaning toward leaving without telling anyone.
Thoughts?
You should think about not only your boss, but your colleagues. Is it fair to leave them with a mess to clean up?
yes. That's their job.
Then 3 years from that lovely day, Thier friends walk out of your department leaving all the shit, just for you.You don't have to keep a shity job, just be a little compasionate about those who your leaving it to. They don't always have a choice, and you can probably afford some insurance against bad karma.
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@Kain0_0 said:
You don't have to keep a shity job, just be a little compasionate about those who your leaving it to.However, if they are the reason why it was a shitty job, feel free to shuffle the contents of the filing cabinets and drop all the keys down a drain before you leave.
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@tster said:
@m0ffx said:
You should think about not only your boss, but your colleagues. Is it fair to leave them with a mess to clean up?
yes. That's their job.
snort
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In Texas, at least, it's at will employment. Which means we don't have employment contracts and you can leave at any time. Of course, the flipside is that they can fire you for any reason (such as they don't like the color of your tie) except for those outlined in the Equal Opportunity laws (race, religion, etc). Beyond EOE, the only things a company has to do is follow their own employment handbook.
That said, employers typically pay out vacation time when you quit or are cut loose, which is nice. Some of them will even give a severance of some sort, depending on what you did, whether they actually liked you, and whether they think they might have to call you for a password in the near future. My last job payed out 2 months severance after cutting me because of this.
Personally, it's a difficult choice whether to just stop showing up (done that once), or give some type of notice (2 weeks is typical). On the one hand, corporations don't give any notice when walking you to the door. On the other, I'm usually proud of what I've done so I like to see an orderly hand off of that work. I guess it depends on how much I liked working for them.
On the management side, I have walked people out immediately after they have quit and I have gone the other extreme in letting one person hang around for 6 weeks after he said he was going to quit as soon as he found another job. It boiled down to how much damage I thought they were capable of compared to how much productivity I thought I could still get out of them.
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@clively said:
In Texas, at least, it's at will employment. Which means we don't have employment contracts and you can leave at any time. Of course, the flipside is that they can fire you for any reason (such as they don't like the color of your tie) except for those outlined in the Equal Opportunity laws (race, religion, etc). Beyond EOE, the only things a company has to do is follow their own employment handbook.
We have at will employment in Ohio too, but (I would say) most companies still have "employment agreements." They're just rules on what each party will do. Time is not mentioned, and neither is money i.e. "Person X will work for y hours a day for 90 days and be paid z dollars." That kind of thing would go into an employment contract if it were contract work.
I signed an employment agreement when I started with my company, but my company is run using the laws of New York state.
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@belgariontheking said:
@clively said:
In Texas, at least, it's at will employment. Which means we don't have employment contracts and you can leave at any time. Of course, the flipside is that they can fire you for any reason (such as they don't like the color of your tie) except for those outlined in the Equal Opportunity laws (race, religion, etc). Beyond EOE, the only things a company has to do is follow their own employment handbook.
We have at will employment in Ohio too, but (I would say) most companies still have "employment agreements." They're just rules on what each party will do. Time is not mentioned, and neither is money i.e. "Person X will work for y hours a day for 90 days and be paid z dollars." That kind of thing would go into an employment contract if it were contract work.
I signed an employment agreement when I started with my company, but my company is run using the laws of New York state.
This is a dumb question, but what prevents your bosses from walking you out the door after you finished your work but before you got paid?
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@snoofle said:
After a recent round of
firingslayoffsreprioritizationdownsizing ...I think it's called "rightsizing" nowadays.
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<COLGROUP> <COL style="WIDTH: 237pt; mso-width-source: userset; mso-width-alt: 11556" width=316><FONT face="Times New Roman">If you have a contract that states how much notice should be given, abide by it. Otherwise, it is appropriate to give two weeks notice. Giving two weeks notice is the standard practice when resigning from a job.. However, an employee can resign without giving any notice if the employer commits a serious breach of the employment contract.</FONT>
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I hope you didn't just sign up for a new account to reply to a 2 month old thread...
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@PSWorx said:
belgariontheking: clively:In Texas, at least, it's at will employment. Which means we don't have employment contracts and you can leave at any time. Of course, the flipside is that they can fire you for any reason (such as they don't like the color of your tie) except for those outlined in the Equal Opportunity laws (race, religion, etc). Beyond EOE, the only things a company has to do is follow their own employment handbook.
We have at will employment in Ohio too, but (I would say) most companies still have "employment agreements." They're just rules on what each party will do. Time is not mentioned, and neither is money i.e. "Person X will work for y hours a day for 90 days and be paid z dollars." That kind of thing would go into an employment contract if it were contract work.
I signed an employment agreement when I started with my company, but my company is run using the laws of New York state.
This is a dumb question, but what prevents your bosses from walking you out the door after you finished your work but before you got paid?
In this case (hourly), they still have to pay for work performed, just as if you were a FTE. However, if you're doing something like a fixed bid contract, then you hire a lawyer.
(I know this was old, but someone else resurrected it... :) )
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I was going to leave my former employer (2 years gone now) with no notice. I had a job interview in Tucson and was going to pack all my stuff and move on a Friday night. I planned all this, but my boss got drunk and fired 1/4 of the company (me included). Another 1/4 walked out two weeks later (the general manager and all the techs included). I think he was left with a bunch of people who had no clue how to perform the actual functions of the company, but that didn't keep him from going out and buying two Jaguars with all the money he was saving on payroll. That place was terrible, I'm glad I left.
/This is my first mention of this place on this forum, I have conveniently tagged this post with the company name, as there are more stories to come, I'm sure.
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@tchize said:
FYI, in Europe, there are rules your must follow. Am quite surprised you can quit a job "without telling anyone". Here the rules, depending on how much time you worked for the comapny varie from 3 days notice (if you are still on evaluation period, that is mainly first month of work), to more than a month of notice. Usually it's around 2 weeks for Belgium. Other rules might have been decided upon work contract signature, but there are legal limits...
Well, thecnically, you can leave without notice, you will be only fine a few months worth salary by your employer!
Are you employees, or serfs? You have to be under contract in the USA for there to be any penalties like that! Most people work "at will," which means no contract and either party may opt out unilaterally. What you are saying would be unacceptable to me in a non-contract situation even if businesses were required to give you severance pay.
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@operagost said:
@tchize said:
FYI, in Europe, there are rules your must follow. Am quite surprised you can quit a job "without telling anyone". Here the rules, depending on how much time you worked for the comapny varie from 3 days notice (if you are still on evaluation period, that is mainly first month of work), to more than a month of notice. Usually it's around 2 weeks for Belgium. Other rules might have been decided upon work contract signature, but there are legal limits...
Well, thecnically, you can leave without notice, you will be only fine a few months worth salary by your employer!
Are you employees, or serfs? You have to be under contract in the USA for there to be any penalties like that! Most people work "at will," which means no contract and either party may opt out unilaterally. What you are saying would be unacceptable to me in a non-contract situation even if businesses were required to give you severance pay.
I think in the UK at least, employers HAVE to give you an employment contract, unless it's the most casual and short-term of jobs. Neither party can "opt out unilaterally". You can't just leave, you have to give notice, or they can withold pay (though it's usually not masses). But equally, they can't fire you without a good reason (ie you're not doing your job properly.
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@m0ffx said:
I think in the UK at least, employers HAVE to give you an employment contract, unless it's the most casual and short-term of jobs. Neither party can "opt out unilaterally". You can't just leave, you have to give notice, or they can withold pay (though it's usually not masses).
In the UK, if you don't have a contract that says something about it (most do, these days) then if you leave without "reasonable" notice then they can withhold anything they haven't already paid you, and anything they have paid you is yours. At least that's how I understand it; there may be subtleties. It's a rare case because most people have a contract which stipulates month-at-a-time behaviour: if you a work the whole month you get paid the whole month, if you quit without notice you forfeit the whole month, and if you quit with notice you get pro-rata pay for the last month.
