A couple of jobs ago I didn't give any sort of notice when I quit. I waited until the CEO and CFO (a husband and wife duo) left for the day, said my goodbyes to my coworkers, and left a note with my office key under the door of the CEO informing him that I was quitting effective immediately and requesting that they do not contact me for any reason whatsoever. Frankly I'm inclined to think I was too polite. The way they treated their employees (not so much me, but the others) was cruel. A textbook example of psychopathic tryanny writ small. I wish them nothing but the worst.<p>My last job, however, I gave my employer three weeks notice. I cried when I had to tell my boss I had taken a job elsewhere. It wasn't the hardest thing I've ever done, but quitting that job definitely cracks the top five most emotional moments of my life. I'm happy where I am now, but I was happy there too, surrounded by good people and working under a manager I not only respected but admired as a person. I am keenly aware of how rare a thing that is. The only reason I left was because of the company policy that allows people to leave and then come back no questions asked if they left on good standing. I needed to take a personal risk and they actually encourage that.<p>The point of my anecdotes is: you reap what you sow. Treat people like shit, pay them poorly, humiliate them publicly and they will quit the moment they can with spite instead of hesitation. Show people kindness, pay them what they're worth, and give them chances to learn from their mistakes and you will routinely have people work for you for decades. If more people are quitting without notice then employers need only to look at how they treat people to see why.
Slavery has been illegal in the US for about a century and a half. The answer is, of course, "yes." If an employer doesn't like that, then they should make sure their people are motivated to stay. Warning: this may involve paying them more.<p>Certainly you <i>shouldn't</i> unless you have a really good reason. If you just can't agree about the new product name, you should definitely give notice. If they handed you a gun and ordered you to kill a customer, quit on the spot.<p>A lot of employees are loyal to companies, not so much the other way around. They're both quite similar: when a loyal employee thinks about quitting, they worry about the impact it'll have on the company. When the company sees someone quit (or fires them), they too worry about the impact it'll have on the company.
I've always given notice, but over time its been much more acceptable for employers to lay people off without notice/let people go without notice/walk people who give notice - in that environment, I feel no loyalty, nor obligation to give notice myself. It's also perfectly acceptable to quit without notice in the first two weeks of work. Quitting because of severe malfeasance on the part of the employer is also somewhat obviously OK.
If you flipped this and asked all these people arguing that it's never ok to quit on the spot if it's fine to fire someone on the spot, do you think a single one would say no? Of course not. Employers wanted right-to-work laws to make it easier for them to fire workers at will; workers should feel free to return the favor and leave when and if they want.
> “Well, good for you,” Mr. Tremblay says he thought at the time. He could understand wanting a vacation, but felt “you’re also screwing our business,” leaving the company short-staffed at a busy time.<p>Turned around that becomes "You're laying me off, in exchange for higher corporate profits, when I have bills due".
Given the total lack of loyalty given to employees by employers, combined with an unwillingness to give references (limiting the impact on professional reputation), why would anyone be surprised by this?
What's interesting about this article is I saw only two parts where it mentioned critical, employer behavior. That behavior is treating people like disposable objects with no concern for their pay or well-being. Also, reinforcing it by pushing for "at-will" employment where they can even drop good workers without cause. Lots of layoffs of loyal employees at the big firms over the past decade just reinforce this issue.<p>So, after all that crap, they want to say a person is doing a disservice to the company to quit without two weeks of extra benefit to the company? Funny stuff. They keep forgetting that capitalism says that <i>everyone</i>, not just business owners, should act in their self interest. Truth told, unless it's a stakeholder-oriented business, then everyone should be giving the company as little as possible. Like the company does them.<p>Companies that want loyal employees that will make sacrifices for them know what to do. They can go back to old IBM Watson or current, Publix Crenshaw approach of taking care of workers along with incentives for them to improve bottom line. Then, the workers will take care of them and much less likely to disappear in a day. That simple. My money says they won't do it, though. So, ditch them the second you get a better offer much like the CEO or board members would.
It appears from across the pond that the US heavily favours employers when it comes to workers rights. I could be wrong, but I believe in most states you can be fired even without a reasonable cause. This is extremely different from the UK, at least for full time workers 1-year+ at the company.<p>As this is the case, I don't think quitting on the spot is an unfair use of the system.
Giving notice is a courtesy. I think it's the 'right' thing when you think you and your employer have mutual respect for each other.<p>However, if you feel you are being underpaid, under-appreciated, or asked to do unethical things, why do you owe them anything? Just get out! Maybe if it stings a bit, they'll treat their remaining/future employees a bit better (or go out of business).
"Others cite an increased tendency among employers to rescind job offers"<p>I was under the impression an employer could get in litigation trouble for rescinding a formal job offer that costs the employee significantly (ie moving across country, losing their old job, etc).<p>At the very least I'd imagine they would get one hell of a glassdoor black mark pulling a stunt like that.
I think many of us have probably felt the temptation, but please do realize, you are building a reputation over time, and it is probably best to be remembered as someone who acts like a professional. If you work in the Bay Area, it is really common to reconnect with past co-workers years later at a different company.
Good. You know what? In a world where overzealous HR departments can fire valuable contributors out of the blue for infractions only HR is responsible enough to know, fuck a two week notice. If HR is going to make employment adversarial, let them reap what they fucking sow.
This is one of those 'it depends' questions (like most important ones are!).<p>I've quit on the spot once and I think it was ok. I was consulting (paid hourly), had multiple disagreements with my 'boss' (CEO) about major work behaviors (wanted to literally sit behind me while working and watch, critiqued my work despite not being technical and tried to control everything). No loss, had plenty of work elsewhere, wasn't going to use him as a reference.<p>Other times I've quit from places I've worked at for > 6 months I gave at least 2 weeks notice.<p>So, use your judgment :)
A lot of people are approaching this as an employer/employee relationship, which is fair, but I think it's more important to understand how quitting on the spot affects the employee - employee relationship.<p>If someone I work with quits day-of, and there's no obvious signs that it was over an ethical no-go, I'm going to conclude that it's someone I don't want to collaborate with in the future.<p>If you can't make the effort to spend a week cleaning up loose ends, document your projects, and pass on knowledge to the rest of the team, you are certainly not someone I want to work with in the future -- much less ever consider having as a co-founder. It's just basic professionalism.<p>Obviously not the case if the employer asked you to do something unethical, but you need to make that clear to the rest of your team if it happened, in order to reasonably retain their respect.
i agree with one of the points the article made - in any company where employees are routinely fired/laid off without notice, quitting without notice is implicitly acceptable.
Why is it that there is a cultural meme and expectation for an Employee to give notice to an Employer but, none the other way around?<p>In fact, it largely happens only because it's mandated by law.<p>If I have loyalty to an organization and I don't want to hurt the people who keeping that organization running, then yeah, I'll give notice but, that is a gift.<p>No one has ever told me that the company is going to be downsizing in two weeks; an exit interview and an escort out of the building is the only thing I've gotten.
I usually try to provide the courtesy of a 2 week notice. I've even stayed 3 weeks at a previous employer's request and found them a suitable replacement.<p>However, at one of my jobs a COO yelled at me in front of everyone over an issue he could've resolved himself by sending out a well written email like I had done.<p>He thought I should just start tearing code apart to "find" a solution until 12am if that's what it took. I told him that I was not doing anything until I spoke with our vendor and that he will just have to wait until the vendor responds as 24 hours had not even passed since I sent the email. The CTO didn't even defend me. Well the next day it turns out that I had done the write thing and that the COO and friends had changed the admin settings and broke the system. No code needed to be changed like I suspected. They just needed to use the admin settings correctly.<p>The COO did not even apologize for yelling at me in front of everyone. On top of that he still owes me $400. So yea... Three weeks later I had an offer in hand and a vacation starting the next day that I had already paid for the month prior. What do you think I did? I gave my two weeks notice and hopped on the plane.<p>I can think of a time when I probably should've quit on the first day. It was right after they told me they use SVN and half of their code base was located in their content management system which was comprised of some messy jsp files some html css and a mountain of horribly written javascript (This javascript had one letter variable names everywhere that were not the result of a build tool and not simply located in for loops). I hated every second of it. Yet, I still managed to work there for a year and I gave a two week notice.
<i>"Is It Ever OK to Quit on the Spot?"</i><p>The title reminds me of Bill Burr's sketch about "You should never hit a women".<p>I though the default was to quit using email the evening you found a better job ?<p>Maybe its just the Millennial in me talking.
About 30 years ago I had a boss (who I liked) ask me for 7 weeks more work, after I gave notice. I gave him the 7 weeks (new company was OK with that; I had worked for them before), even though it was a personal hassle. Fast forward to 5 years ago: same ex-boss and his wife visited my wife and I when they were traveling through Arizona, and we had a great time.<p>That said, now in most cases, everything is at-will and neither side really owes the other anything, although it is good to be polite and not burn bridges.
from a game theory standpoint, giving two weeks notice should be considered from the perspective of managing your reputation with your peers in your industry, not about whether we 'owe' something or not to our employer. teamwork, communication, cooperation (see Stephen Covey) are as important as technical competency.<p>it's a bit like the mark twain quote: "never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference."
The huge down-side risk when giving notice is that the company can take advantage and fire you as soon as you give notice, cutting your paycheck, health insurance, etc. that day. I've seen this happen on more than one occasion, and have since been extremely wary of following the "tradition" of giving notice. When you're living paycheck to paycheck or close, you don't need that kind of risk.
I quit my only professional 'full-time' job on the spot. It was a very emotional decision. However, even then I gave two weeks notice. After a week off, they hired me back as a consultant [which was a bit rocky; but at least I got sent home after 8 hours]. Since then they've hired me as a consultant multiple times and I'm glad I didn't burn that bridge.
You can walk out on the spot and should if you really have to, but it's been my personal experience that if you do then the employer just doesn't pay you what they owe!