How to Quit Your Job

http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/03/10/how-to-quit-your-job/

by wheels • 16 years ago

124 89 16 years ago

Kliment• 16 years ago

Very informative article. Seems a lot of startup advice sites will gladly tell you to quit your job, but this is a great explanation of how exactly that works out.

jonnycowboy4• 16 years ago

Especially relevant, as I have to tell my boss exactly this today!

robotron• 16 years ago

Godspeed, jonnycowboy, godspeed!

jonnycowboy4• 16 years ago

the deed is done ;) I think I maybe have had too big of a smile walking into my boss' office though!!

pvg3• 16 years ago

I wonder if this advice is informed by the author's experience in the UK. In the Northern California software/tech industry, 2 weeks notice is the standard courtesy. It's also, I've found, widely accepted that having someone who doesn't want to be there can be corrosive to team dynamics so both employer and employee have an interest in aiming for the minimum time needed for an orderly hand-off. That tends to be two weeks or less.

patio11• 16 years ago

My day job wanted nine months. We compromised on four. Salaryman life, banzai.

ytinas3• 16 years ago

Wow. Where I am, the notice is 2-3 months and contractual so there is no negotiating it.

Personally, I would tell the person "Go ahead and go now, and we'll just continue to pay your salary to the end of the contract". If the person is really unhappy with the place, having them around bringing everyone down is going to cost a lot more than paying someone 2 months to not be there IMO.

nandemo• 16 years ago

For the record, in Japan the minimum notice period (for both sides) is 2 weeks by law. However, no company will fire you under such a short notice unless you do something egregious like punching your boss.

If you're leaving, most companies will expect at least a 1-month notice. Two months is common. Even if you're changing jobs that's not too long because the other company (if it's a Japanese company) will understand and actually expect it. On that 1~2 month period you're expected to hand over your tasks to a colleague.

If you're leaving for a reason other than changing to another company (like Patrick), then it's not uncommon to give a longer notice. For instance, many women still leave their jobs after marrying, or after getting pregnant, or when their husbands get transferred etc.

I've heard of key technical staff having a 3-month notice written out in their contract. Nine months is ridiculously long no matter what.

shpxnvz• 16 years ago

So long as your relationship with the company is pleasant, the "proper" notice to give depends on the specifics of the position and could be longer than 2 weeks. It's polite to give enough time so that you can transition your responsibilities to whomever will be taking them over. In senior positions I've often given 4 weeks notice, but I know some people who commonly give 6 or more.

Continuing to be a productive part of the team during that period of time is simply a matter of professionalism. It's true that occasionally one party or the other is incapable of continuing to work together, but that's pretty rare in my experience.

pvg3• 16 years ago

I don't think it's a matter of being able to work together. It's just better that everyone move on. Two weeks is standard and expected in Silicon Valley. Also keep in mind that the workforce there tends to be pretty mobile (there are a lot of startups, after all) so this essentially defaults to a standard protocol. Nobody really needs to be told how to quit other than perhaps the first time. I'm sure other locations and industries have different expectations and conventions.

bonsaitree• 16 years ago

Assuming the employer/employee relationship is healthy, I give the customary 2 weeks, but always allow for up to 4 additional weeks of off-site 1099 consulting and communication.

This can be especially helpful when transitioning a large codebase, or really any suitably complex project, where some of the undocumented "lore" isn't readily apparent to either party until after the formal transition effort is already well underway.

sjf2• 16 years ago

When I worked in Germany, I had to give _3 months_ notice. (It was related to leaving at the end of the quarter, but I don't recall the details). It made for a very uncomfortable atmosphere. I can't imagine what the reasoning was, maybe just that it simplified things for some bureaucrat somewhere in HR.

biafra4• 16 years ago

3 month to end of the quarter was more common in past in germany. And it goes both ways. Its actually to protect you as an employee. Its a contract thing. If you had wanted you could have changed that before signing. But its not unusual for reasons mentioned in this thread to let people go earlier. But both sides have to agree to that. Usually a pay-off is involved when youre fired and asked to leave erlier.

brown9-2• 16 years ago

Can you elaborate on the "had to" part?

i.e., was it a contractual thing, a legal thing, or just an accepted practice? Or a request from your previous company which they wouldn't budge on?

jcromartie• 16 years ago

I've had a few jobs where two weeks notice turned into two weeks paid vacation. It was standard practice as they were routinely paranoid about sabotage.

pvg3• 16 years ago

Yep, that happens as well. In fact in many US states, certainly in California, 2 weeks notice can also turn into collect-your-things-and-go. But this relatively rare, given normal a employer-employee relationship.

roc• 16 years ago

I've never even heard of anyone asking for 4-6 weeks from an exiting employee. In my experience, offering 2 weeks is the standard courtesy but most ex-employers will work to get you out the door ASAP so they can get on with things.

mstevens• 16 years ago

When I left my last job my notice was 3 months and they insisted I work it.

ytinas3• 16 years ago

Good advice. I just had to do this recently and morale is pretty low where I'm at. Everyone was saying "so did you complain about <random issue from a laundry list>?". All were shocked when I said "no, I had nothing but good about the place. I side stepped every negative point".

The thing is, trashing a company as you leave never does anything positive. Maybe you can brag about it to your friends, but chances are they will be laughing at you, not with you. Most of the time the things you would complain about are something your boss knows about is trying to fix, so it just makes you look like a whiner.

They will also tend to take it personal. You're leaving, chances are they will to at some point. How would you like to sell yourself to that same guy 3 contracts down the road after dropping a turd on his desk?

SandB0x2• 16 years ago

I had one month's notice in my contract, knew I was leaving three months in advance and gave six weeks. Figured that was a good balance between giving a generous amount of time, and the risk of things turning sour or being asked to serve out one month only.

I found it quite a hard thing to do, not dissimilar to breaking up with someone. There was a lot of "it's not you, it's me"...

tbgvi• 16 years ago

If you're really good, your boss is going to do everything they can to get you to stay. This is great advice on how to leave as quickly and painlessly as possible.

I usually thought that if someone is interviewing with you they probably made up their mind on quitting their job, so I didn't push it at all. But I've seen this happen, where it ends up taking 3 or 4 weeks because they're finishing up a project. I'm glad they finish what they started, but its true, I probably could have used them yesterday.

ggruschow• 16 years ago

If the new employer is getting involved trying to make this as easily as possible, why not just give the present employer a call and work it out? The employee has their part in it already, why also make them into an emotional middleman?

nollidge• 16 years ago

Because they're not the middleman, they're the principal actor.

phsr3• 16 years ago

I just told my boss last week I was leaving so that I could join a startup! I unfortunately gave a longer notice than I would have liked to because I have my hands in a lot of the details around. I have the open door here at my current (for the time being) employer, so if it hits the fan (god forbid), I do have a job. I wish I had read this last week!! At least I start my new job in a couple weeks!

spuz3• 16 years ago

I wish I'd read this before I gave my notice to my boss this morning! Who knew what chaos could be caused by one simple email.

phsr3• 16 years ago

You gave notice via email?? I talked to my boss face to face a week ago. His reaction was priceless "Oh no.....Really?"

spuz3• 16 years ago

My boss is 3000 miles away. I wish I was able to talk to him face to face :p

aonic2• 16 years ago

What happened? Share the details!

spuz3• 16 years ago

The job market is heating up dramatically here in London so a lot of people are finding it hard to find good developers. My company doesn't want to see me go so I've had many teams come to me to try to convince me to stay and join their team. The reasoning I've given is "I want to work in an entirely new environment with new technologies and with new people" but it's difficult when you're being offered more money to stay. Hopefully I'm making the right decision :)

wallflower• 16 years ago

Unfortunately, in the United States the number one reason people do not retire early is that they are not yet 65 and qualify for Medicare coverage. Even well-off individuals are hesitant because of the potential for adverse personal medical events depleting their nest egg.

Yes, early retirement is not the same as quitting your job when young and presumably good health - however the fact that in the U.S. medical care is tied to the company you work for is a major burden on those who want to quit.

anamax3• 16 years ago

> however the fact that in the U.S. medical care is tied to the company you work for

That's not a "fact". One can buy health insurance and there are other ways to get it. (For young people, it's often reasonable to "go bare" or just buy catastropic coverage.)

Employer-paid health insurance isn't free - it's just (mostly) paid for with money that you don't see.

Would you argue that food/shelter/energy is an obstacle to quitting that someone should do something about? If not, what makes health care, which is arguably under more personal control, different?

If you can't afford your lifestyle without an income ....

lief79• 16 years ago

In regards to young people, that only works if they have no preexisting conditions. Otherwise loss of group coverage risks long term loss of coverage.

stevenbedrick• 16 years ago

It's never reasonable to "go bare" in the US, no matter how young and/or healthy you are. You never know when your gall bladder or appendix will decide to turn on you, or when a hernia will pop up (or pop out, as it were), or when an unexpected pregnancy will occur- to say nothing of bike accidents or other misc. injuries. One day you're feeling fine, the next day you're in the hospital with a ruptured appendix and end up with a $20,000 bill. Oh, you had a bad reaction to the anesthetic they used, and needed an extra day in the hospital? Make that a $25,000 bill. Thank you, come again!

Also, besides the immediate proximal financial impact of having to deal with any of those situations while uninsured, remember the pre-existing condition trap: while you're in the hospital getting that appendix out, you'd darn well better hope that your CT scan doesn't turn up anything else of interest (cancers, hernias, etc.), as anything they discover while you're uninsured will be most likely be excluded from whatever future health coverage you might end up with. Oh, wait-- that'll probably be a moot point, since insurance companies usually refuse to sell individual policies to people with pre-existing conditions (even to otherwise-healthy young people with minor conditions).

Catastrophic coverage is an absolute bare minimum to have, and, even then, make sure you really read the fine print. A lot of catastrophic or other low-premium plans have pretty major strings attached in terms of what they will and won't cover.

gcheong• 16 years ago

Through an employer, premiums are paid with pre-tax dollars whereas on your own, they are paid with after-tax dollars.

JoachimSchipper• 16 years ago

This reminded me of Rands' piece at http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2010/01/04/wanted.html, which is also an interesting read about getting people to actually show up.

j_baker3• 16 years ago

"Job hoppers NEVER make good employees."

I don't agree with this. I think the author can make the case that job hoppers aren't good employees in his experience. And maybe he can even say that job hoppers are generally bad. But human beings are quirky animals. Any statement about human behavior that contains the word "always" or "never" is almost certainly wrong.

ellyagg• 16 years ago

This criticism is a pet peeve of mine. People use "never" and "always" all the time and everyone knows (ok, almost everyone) that they don't literally mean "never" and "always". For example, in this case he means, "Don't make the mistake of hiring a job hopper because you somehow think this time it'll be different. You're almost certainly wrong, and there's no way to tell in advance besides, so don't bother taking the risk. There are other similar candidates without that risk."

j_baker3• 16 years ago

'People use "never" and "always" all the time and everyone knows (ok, almost everyone) that they don't literally mean "never" and "always".'

I think it still makes a difference though. I mean consider the following two sentences:

"Job hoppers NEVER make good employees."

"Job hoppers ALMOST NEVER make good employees."

The former is much more strongly worded to the point of requiring overwhelming evidence that I feel you won't be able to find when dealing with human behavior.

javajones• 16 years ago

Good point. What if a "job hopper" is someone who is looking for a good fit and won't settle for less? I don't see that as a negative.

ible• 16 years ago

I suspect that in many, especially larger, organizations excellent people need to hop to advance. Think about how co-workers and bosses react to a junior employee who quickly outstrips more experienced colleagues. Promoting someone junior rapidly past other people can cause resentment, or be structurally unavailable. The company may have policies about maximum annual raise, so an excellent person may advance in responsibility but not in pay. When taking a new job your position and pay are determined by your capabilities to a greater degree.

There are definitely alternatives to 'job hopping' including consulting/contracting to get rid of the stigma while essentially doing the same thing. Alternatively you can get a job with (or start) a start-up so you can have 'measurement and leverage'.

melling• 16 years ago

Never look back!

abalashov2• 16 years ago

Yet hopping is, within the working world, the fastest way to advance in rank and income.

zupatol2• 16 years ago

I think it's really sad to change jobs without a period of a few months doing nothing in between.

SandB0x2• 16 years ago

Not everyone can afford that luxury.

jasonkester3• 16 years ago

Sure they can. By definition, if you have a job, it is paying you money. Anybody can choose to save some of that money every month with the intention of taking a good long vacation in the future. It doesn't matter how little you make, you can always adjust your lifestyle to allow for savings.

So while it's entirely possible that you can't afford that luxury right this minute, that's entirely something you've chosen for yourself. And the interesting part is that you can do something about it.

With a few basic changes to your life today, you can afford to take 3 months off next year.

seanc• 16 years ago

I really don't like the idea of a new boss micromanaging my exit. It's none of his business.

If we've agreed on a start date and he doesn't trust me to show up on time, that means he doesn't trust me to live up to my commitments. What other trust issues might we have in the future?

I've given notices anywhere from 2 weeks to 6 weeks. In the longer ones, when I've explained my outstanding commitments and the consequences to my customers and colleagues, new employers have always understood. Taking care of people when you have little financial incentive to do so is a sign of an ethical person.

Periodic• 16 years ago

I'm sure it's more of an attempt to be sure you're going to be fine with leaving. If you sound like someone who is confident and will get this all done in a reasonable time frame, I doubt you'd get much push.

The important part is making sure the person has thought about their exit. If you know what you are going to do and are confident in your decision, great. Lots of people haven't really given it much thought and just try to muddle through and stay nice.

abecedarius• 16 years ago

I've never needed to lie about how soon I've been asked to start working. I've never needed to be that evasive about why I'm leaving, though it could happen. I'd have second thoughts about working for this poster after getting all this micromanaging advice slanted his way.

How to Quit Your Job

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