I usually work harder during that period than any time before, sprinting to finish every project I started while documenting everything and training my peers. At one job I pulled an all-nighter on my second to last day finishing up a project.<p>This industry is small and I want to leave a good last impression.
When I've had notice periods the bulk of the "work" has usually been creating / extending / clarifying documentation, and attending knowledge-transfer sessions with colleagues. I have rarely if ever done any true "net new work" during those periods. Maybe if there was some task that was half-finished that I could finishing knocking out, I might finish that up.<p>The rest of the time, which would generally be the bulk of it, was spent surfing the 'net, going to long lunches with my colleagues, or hanging out in the break-room swapping war stories, talking about out-of-work hobbies (mountain biking, etc.) and such-like.
When I've had to work a notice period it has been a month (in the UK).<p>I focussed as much as I could on handing stuff over, going into "question and answer" mode, and generally refused to go into meetings for new projects, excluding myself from discussions on the basis that it was better for everyone if I did not.<p>I did some genuinely new work in one case to help a colleague I liked get started.
I usually switch from 'work' to 'dumping everything in my head that I haven't already documented in to a doc'. I've never really been sure if anyone ever reads the doc. I guess that means I stop working.<p>EDIT: You're on day 4 with 6 more to go, so that means you're giving 10 <i>days</i> notice? My current contract says I need to give 3 months. Most roles prior to that have been 4 weeks. What sort of job has such a short notice period?
New work? None, I just try to bring open work to a stopping point and document/answer questions for peers who will pick them up.<p>IMO it’s kind of a dick move to deploy in your notice period. Each deploy is a missed opportunity for knowledge transfer. Better to point out to peers what you would do and help them get up to speed while you are still around.
What is necessary. Sometimes, I've worked overtime the last day. Sometimes they want me out of the building. Professionals bring their A game with them, and reputation spreads way faster than demonstrated success.
When I left my last job, my manager said he trusted me to hand off my work (Only took about 2 days), then take the remaining 8 work days of my 2-week notice as essentially PTO. He only asked me to check my e-mail once a day to see if anybody had any questions for me and to just meet him at the office on my official last day to turn in my laptop.
At the last job I left, I liked my coworkers, and wanted to leave my work in a good position for them to pick up, knowing we were now understaffed. I was working right up until 4pm on the last Friday, and only stopped because I had my own going away party to attend. I believe I put in some after work time in the last couple of weeks, to get everything documented and ship-shape.<p>At the previous job, I quit because the management was awful, and I was more or less working by myself. So, I absolutely did not put in much effort after giving notice. I didn't feel I owed anybody anything more than the minimum.
One time I actually came in on the Saturday <i>after</i> my last day to put the finishing touches on my final deliverable. I don't think you should follow my example to that extreme, but it's advisable to try to wrap up everything before you go to leave a good impression on your co-workers; they won't be too happy if you leave a mess for them to clean up. For me, personally, those contacts led to multiple later employment opportunities.
One of the first things I do after Mgmt and HR know is to get with the bosses and outline exactly what is due and what isn't.<p>I'm usually pretty aggressive in setting expectations. "I'll try to close out X & Y, and I'll stand-in on Z for calls but I don't plan on finishing anything but the outline."<p>I've straight up ask my boss: what is the minimum I need to do in this 2-weeks to ensure I can get a favorable review later, keeping in mind the past few years of work as well? And that's alls I do.
Usually stuff gets pulled off my plate so fast after giving notice that it doesn't matter what my intentions are. Often makes me wonder what the point of giving notice was.
I think there's a difference if your employer locks you in to an unreasonably long notice period. (Which is usually something I like about German employment law, but let me elaborate). So I guess if we're talking the first couple weeks, there's always stuff to wrap up and document better - unless you've already done that. I also like not taking on any new tickets which are big in scope, but support your coworkers with their stuff. Or schedule dedicated handover meetings for subsystems you've had a big part of.<p>It can get really annoying if you have to sit out some 3 months though and I think that's the reason why many companies might actually let you leave earlier than stated by your contract - they know you will not be 100% in anymore if you're already looking forward to your next gig.<p>That said, I 100% prefer this over at-will.
The most critical thing I do is to make sure I'm not the only one who knows something. Warm handoffs, writing docs, wrapping up tasks, etc. Other than that I work as normal, minus taking on new work, so as I handoff/finish tasks, the workload dwindles. Usually the last day or three I have essentially nothing left to do.
It can depend.<p>If I've been with the company for a while and there are still projects that actually need wrapping up or documenting, sure, I'll fill my final days with work.<p>In other cases I've done very little during the notice period because there maybe nothing I need to "wrap up", the only thing left for me to do being general tasks. No, I can't say that I'll work very hard in my last days in this case.<p>I'm of the belief that, if you have nothing to do for your final days, you should just quit without the whole "2 weeks notice" thing. Some good employers will say they don't mind if you don't work 2 more weeks before you even have a chance to explain why you are quitting immediately. Surfing HN 8 hours a day for 2 weeks doesn't do you or the employer any good.
Last time I did it, not much apart from some code reviews and discussions. I also filled out a minimal knowledge transfer doc and asked my team to put in questions that they thought I could answer for them. I had a project I had started before, but I was pretty burnt out and it wasn't close to being finished. So I didn't do any more work on it. In some ways that may burn a bridge because it meant disregarding previous responsibility, but on the other hand I knew I wouldn't be able to make a good enough dent in the two weeks of notice. Not only that, but I figure that someone on the team would be more ideal to finish it because it would mean that knowledge remains, versus it disappearing (other than docs) when I leave on my final day.
I make sure everything I was directly responsible for is in the hands of someone else, whether that be writing documentation or just letting them know casually. I cleanup any messy code I would consider myself responsible for and that I know probably won't get looked at - mostly for my own sanity's sake.<p>Once those things are done I largely get by doing smaller tasks and helping out where I can rather than directly involving myself in anything. Nobody has really seemed to mind.<p>Funnily enough, the last two days at my previous job involved HR and IT slowly revoking my access to most of the systems and groups we used at work (email, repositories, etc), to the surprise of my manager who said I could just kick back and relax until my last day.
Depends heavily on what needs doing and what the org wants. Some want you to stop so there are fewer things you have touched. Others want things to progress as normal. Others walk you out the door.
Probably harder than usual. It's not for the company, reputation, or even friends. It's for me.<p>Working days are often filled up with some long term crap like meetings and training. Notice period is a good time to actually deal with the issues that matter. Cleaning out and flagging legacy code, documenting stuff, mentoring people, actually having lunch with colleagues. Sometimes there's that client they really want to land. Maybe let's focus on that instead of Q3 planning.
Whatever they need you to do. The point of a notice period is they get time to prepare for your departure. If nobody is asking you to do anything then there's not much you can do. I would begin preparing for my next role.<p>I've been on notice periods of 2-3 months for the past 5-6 years. Generally it involves finishing projects, training others and writing documentation for whoever takes over your work.
4 week notice periods are common in the UK. Some employers negotiate longers ones, but often recognise that a leaving employee is never an asset. Usually in the first couple of weeks I will carry on as if I am still at the company forever as it does take time to sink in. Tidy up tasks, work etc. Then the last couple of weeks is tapering off, knowledge transfers etc.
As much as I need to wrap up current work, write docs, hand over stuff etc.<p>> It's only like day 4 and there's six more<p>You're in the land of 2-week notice periods. The most recent company I joined has a 3-month notice period (it's in my contract) which is kind of ridiculous. I'll probably try to get it waived down to 1 month when it comes to it.
I'd focus mostly on enriching the documentation and slow down on work towards other projects. Having though a document first approach for everything that touches production should leave one with very few work to do during notice period and would mostly mean clarifying to the others what is already documented.
Depends on where I'm at. Some places where I'm leaving on good terms, like the people, etc I'll work until the very end. The current place I'm leaving is f'ing toxic, and I'm doing as very little as possible. Basically just documenting what I've been up to.
Working my last week at a company. I'm treating it like a vacation (its wfh). I join my meetings and work the few tickets. Ihave but I'm not stressing about getting anything done. I've already documented my work the first week of my two week notice so I'm goooooood
I run through the finish line, so the full effort. People notice.<p>Of course, you should not do anything that will leave work hanging around for others, but in most environments I've been in, there's plenty of clean up work and documentation to be done.
Hard learned lesson is that it's best to have hands off keyboard for anything in service and just spend the time writing documentation, including all the little quirky things that are fubared and 1/2 the reason I'm leaving.
Every time I've been in a "notice period" (changing jobs internally, or going elsewhere), it's been all about handing-off whatever I've been working on to whomever is going to take my workload
When people on my team anounce they're leaving, I try to get them to do the first week finishing out whatever bits of code/docs they have half written, then the second week putting together and sharing transition documents.
You want to transition as much as possible as quickly as possible. It usually depends on the manager if this is successful or not. But you should be ramping down quickly and go into Q&A mode in final rundown.
I do a normal amount of work but I'm not about to work a bunch of overtime.<p>Sometimes they just don't have any work for you and that is fine. If there is nothing to document / button up then yeah it can be painful.
I really try not to relax and put in a proper effort to wrap up anything I have in progress and do a proper handover. Sometimes this results in a bit of additional overtime for my own peace of mind.
The marginal value to your career of a day's work is probably highest during your notice period, because of the opportunity for a last impression on your network for future job references etc.
It depends.<p>Some employers seemed to be in denial about the change.<p>Other lean in and address the elephant in the room.<p>But it shouldn't be a drastic load increase. You're still an employee and a human being.<p>What are they going to do? Fire you?
For me it’s a steep drop-off of productivity going from “I really want to complete this” to realizing after a couple of days that it doesn’t matter<p>Other people have there own lanes to worry about
Handoff if I can find takers documenting if I can't<p>If that runs dry I find 1-off things to fix or improve that either I personally care about or that a customer I will miss cares about
I take pride in the quality of my work. Part of that involves doing everything I can to ensure that work's legacy; in my case, notice period typically involves handoffs in all its various forms, no new development. Lots of documentation and training.