Ready to leave? Why you shouldn't give two weeks' notice (2005)

You should be _prepared_ to leave immediately when you give notice, but wow, giving no notice is up near the top of the list in terms of dick moves. The exception to this is if you're being grossly mistreated (as in harassed or demeaned or abused, not as in underpaid).<p>I've given less than two weeks before, but it was a contract I'd only been on for 3 weeks, so 2 weeks notice was excessive. Anything else, 2 weeks is a minimum. If you're a key person at a startup or small company, 4-8 weeks is more appropriate.

"You may want to give two week's notice, but from a security standpoint, you are out the door that day. Locks are changed. Passwords and IDs are terminated so you should have no access to files or other confidential information. That is the reality of today's workplace."<p>This policy always mystified me. If you've decided to leave and have decided to do something malicious, you would have done it <i>before</i> telling your employer. By the time you tell them, it's too late.

Getting a 500... Cache is here: <a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:n5nvfo7nIAoJ:wistechnology.com/articles/1757/+http://wistechnology.com/articles/1757/&#38;hl=en&#38;gl=us&#38;strip=1" rel="nofollow">http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:n5nvfo7...</a>

It should be noted that this article is from 2005.<p>I also have to say that my personal experience is the opposite of what this article says. How you treat your former company and co-workers stays in their minds, and affects their future opinion of you. Most fields, in most cities, form fairly small communities and you <i>will</i> wind up working with people again. You don't want to burn bridges like this.<p>That said, you should be mentally prepared for the possibility of having access yanked.

Alternate title: How to burn bridges in one easy step

The guy forgot to caveat his article.<p>I would suggest that anyone on the cusp of resigning consult their actual employment contract before resigning without notice.<p>Most employment contracts have a clause related to employee notice.

Sounds like a very pessimistic view geared towards drones working in cube-farms for Corporation, Inc.

In the example at the end, how does the lady leaving with no notice affect the scenario. I understand how being involved with the lawsuit and server crash could affect her next job, but why does how she quit affect it?<p>Overall, I think this is horrible advice. When I quit, I want to let my boss know so he can ensure my responsibilities are covered the next day. If they want to kick me out early for security reasons, that is fine, though I haven't seen that often when leaving on good terms.<p>And what happens when my now former boss, who is mad at me, leaves for a new company that I am interested in? I might have burned that bridge.

I'd be curious to see other peoples opinion's on this article.<p>In my experience the moment you are an "anyone" in a company then your employment contract almost always stipulates the amount of time that you must give before leaving.<p>It almost always works both ways, with your employer being required to give the same amount of notice before letting you go, or severance in replacement.<p>I can't imagine any one other than an entry level worker not having a defined time to give before leaving.<p>I also think it speaks pretty poorly on someone to just announce that they are leaving as of today.

I don't think it's more accurate to say you should <i>never</i> give notice than to say you should <i>always</i> give notice. Make your own decision based on the context of your situation and your knowledge of the pros and cons.

Here is a follow up to this article where he talks a bit more about the ethics involved: <a href="http://wistechnology.com/articles/2786/" rel="nofollow">http://wistechnology.com/articles/2786/</a>

And people wonder what happened to things like "responsibility". This is a professor teaching this? Whatever happened to the golden rule?