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How to Quit Your Job
- Kliment 17y agoVery 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.
- jonnycowboy 17y agoEspecially relevant, as I have to tell my boss exactly this today!
- robotron 17y agoGodspeed, jonnycowboy, godspeed!
- jonnycowboy 17y agothe deed is done ;) I think I maybe have had too big of a smile walking into my boss' office though!!
- aonic 17y agoHow'd it go down then?
- jonnycowboy 17y agoVery well, told him I was dissatisfied with the way employees were treated, with the way management was going and apparently the big smile was a dead giveaway that I had already made my decision and that he wouldn't be able to sway me. So I guess my advice related to this article would be, if you're hiring somebody and he has to tell his boss that he's quitting, make sure he looks as enthusiastic as possible about the new job, to make sure the boss rolls over right away ;)
- imp 17y agoHmm... it sounds like you didn't follow any of the advice in the article. Shows that there's more than one way to quit a job. What was his reaction when you said that you didn't like the way employees are treated?
- jonnycowboy 17y agoDefinately two ways to skin a cat! I think he knew we were being treated unfairly, but yet he couldn't do anything about it. One of the problems of a large company like that is that there are so many layers of 'management' that nobody is left with any responsibility or autority (like treating employees better).
- imp 17y agoAhh, yes. I know exactly what you mean. I felt that at BigCo. also.
- pvg 17y agoI 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 17y agoMy day job wanted nine months. We compromised on four. Salaryman life, banzai.
- ytinas 17y agoWow. 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.
- jrockway 17y agoWow. Where I am, the notice is 2-3 months and contractual so there is no negotiating it. How do you contract this sort of thing? If I wanted to quit and I had a contract like this, I would just stop coming to work, or I would come to work and do a bad job.
- ytinas 17y agoIt's pretty cultural. The contract is a two way street. Most people don't do what you describe because they wouldn't want the company doing it to them. People probably also worry about burning bridges. Since it's a legal contract violating (by leaving) it could lead to lawsuits.
- lutorm 17y ago
- ytinas 17y agoGood 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?
- SandB0x 17y agoI 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 17y agoIf 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 17y agoIf 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 17y agoBecause they're not the middleman, they're the principal actor.
- phsr 17y agoI 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!
- spuz 17y agoI 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.
- phsr 17y agoYou gave notice via email?? I talked to my boss face to face a week ago. His reaction was priceless "Oh no.....Really?"
- spuz 17y agoMy boss is 3000 miles away. I wish I was able to talk to him face to face :p
- phsr 17y agoAh, that explains alot
- dustingetz 17y agopick up the phone next time. and get some social skills.
- aonic 17y agoWhat happened? Share the details!
- spuz 17y agoThe 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 17y agoUnfortunately, 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.
- anamax 17y 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 17y agoIn regards to young people, that only works if they have no preexisting conditions. Otherwise loss of group coverage risks long term loss of coverage.
- anamax 17y agoYou can transition "pay yourself" from your employer's (or parents) plan without running into the pre-existing condition problem. Preexisting conditions are only a problem if you have a gap in coverage. Besides, most people don't have preexisting conditions, so the ones that do are treatable as a special case.
- stevenbedrick 17y agoIt'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.
- JoachimSchipper 17y agoThis reminded me of Rands' piece at http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2010/01/04/wanted.html http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2010/01/04/wanted.html, which is also an interesting read about getting people to actually show up.
- j_baker 17y 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 17y agoThis 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_baker 17y 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.
- lyudmil 17y agoIn your criticism you've missed an important factor. The former sentence is better writing. I also struggle with this when I write, but I try to catch myself and avoid going down that slippery slope. You can spend the time trying to make each of your statements precise so that no one can challenge it like you've challenged this one. Alternatively, you could choose to put something strongly, trusting your audience to see your point and find your readers are more engaged and eager to discuss your ideas.
- zupatol 17y agoI think it's really sad to change jobs without a period of a few months doing nothing in between.
- SandB0x 17y agoNot everyone can afford that luxury.
- jasonkester 17y agoSure 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.
- happenstance 17y agoNo, not anybody can. What if you have a family and are barely making ends meet as it is? It's very difficult to convince a wife that you'd like for the family to spend a little less so you can have a few months off next year between jobs.
- jasonkester 17y agoAssuming you have a job in IT, how does one get to the point where he's only making ends meet, even with a family in the mix? Assuming a low-end IT salary, you're still bringing in 5k+/month. Minus $2000 for tax, zero for your 10 year old cheap car, $1000 for rent, and another $500 for food, that leaves $1500 for conspicuous consumption or savings. If you've chosen to use up that excess by upgrading apartments, leasing a car, buying a flatscreen on the Visa card, etc., that's what is eating up your ability to save money. There's no reason to be living month to month on $60k+ a year. Unless that's what you've chosen to do.
- seanc 17y agoI 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 17y agoI'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.
- taylormays 17y agoI quit my job solely to build my business. One of the best decisions I've ever made.
- abecedarius 17y agoI'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.