Long Notice
I knew I was quitting, so I gave 2 month notice at my job. I know, two MONTHS? But I figured it was the right thing to do, and they could hire my replacement in plenty of time. After I gave notice my boss started treating me really badly. I called in sick a few days later, leaving a message on his voicemail, and the next day he changed the sick policy to say we had to personally call everyone in the department (about 7 people) when we were calling in sick.
Effective immediately, anytime you must call in sick you are required to call each person in the department to let them know you won’t be in for the day. You must repeat this each day you do not come in to work. Print out the phone numbers for each person and keep it at home so you know how to reach everyone.
Then my boss takes me aside, tells me I’m doing a bad job. I remind him I am quitting anyway and he threatens to fire me earlier than I plan on quitting, but in the end does not.
Four months later, he emails me out of the blue and tells me he has not found a replacement and asks if I will do some contract work. Of course I say no. I learned my lesson, never give 2 months notice again!
I have not found a sufficient replacement for your position. I am the only programmer currently in the department. Would you be interested in doing some temporary contract work starting on Monday?
A very similar thing happened to me a few years back, except I gave only one month notice. I was trying to be a nice guy. Suddenly, everything I did was wrong. They loaded me up with work, and made no real attempt to find a replacement. I did the work for the first week, but when the personal treatment got bad, I basically just put in my forty hours and left it at that.
I had a good relationship with everyone else in the office, but by the end of the month my supervisor was so angry with me that I knew I’d never be able to use him as a reference.
Strangely enough, the exact thing happened to me as you: a month later, he called and asked me to do some contract work (I was a graphic designer). I, too, said no.
You should have agreed to do some contract work for 2X the money you were getting earlier. Or even better, talk to his superior and if they really need the work done, swap jobs with the boss you had.
Thanks for this, I plan to quit soon and I was actually going to give them a couple months notice just because I thought it would be nice, but lately they don’t like me much anyway and that’s probably the last thing I should do!
Really, I’ve rarely heard that giving more than 2 weeks goes well for the employee. Many companies have policies that forbid you from taking time off after you’ve given notice. If you call out sick, they’ll won’t pay you. Also once you’ve given notice, depending on the state where you live, certain changes to your benefits may kick in. Your employer can kick you out with no notice so give your two weeks to protect yourself but don’t go beyond that. You’re only upping the ante for everyone else and you may find yourself in for some very nasty surprises.
Well, I said yes to my former bosses when they needed my help, even though I didn’t need their extra work.
What happened is that I delivered on time and within requested quality and my boss did not want to pay me anything, but instead proposed that he gives me a 2 h/ day contract, effective 2 weeks before, paid peanuts (but peanuts every single month), and I will do my work when they needed me. The trouble was – he had already promised very high project based benefits to my former colleagues – in writing – and now he needed someone to accept a small monthly fee, so he can go back on those benefits…
Since he was a huge SOB, I told him to take his money and put it where the sun don’t shine. He eventually paid me, about 1/10 of what my work was worth and we never spoke of business again, which suits me just fine. He did call to tell me “Happy Birthday!”, but by then I would not have accepted work, even if he paid me 10 times the value of it.
What’s up with all this giving notice? They never give you notice before they fire you. I’ve never seen giving notice go well. Some do it becouse they feel it’s the rigt thing to do. You’re going to get screwed, believe me. When it’s time to go just work up till the end of the pay period, get your check and go. Better yet take all you vacation and sick time and see how far you can push em before they fire you. It’s amazing what they’ll take becouse they’rr so scared of getting sued nowdays. I’ve never gotten fired before although I did get laid of one time. I got all my sick leave, vacation time, 8 weeks severance pay and unemployment. I even got 100% vested in my 410k since I got laid off even though for the time I put in with the company I should have only been 40% vested. Hell, I was planning on quiting in 2 weeks anyways. It sure worked out better this way.
It would have been best if he had fired you, he would have to give you a huge settlement, but that depends on the type/size of the business and on the country it’s in.
However, obviously, they would never fire you, because they wouldn’t want to pay you anything or get sued for not paying. What they´re doing is called BULLYING, and it’s becoming more common and more illegal now-a-days.
2 months notice is ridiculous. you gave your boss more time to just screw with you.
NEVER give more than 2-3 weeks notice. Preferebly 2-weeks MAXIMUM. Just enought time for YOU to get loose ends tied up for your departure.
Common sense tells us never to give more notice than is stipulated on your contract with the company. My current job requires a 2-week notice. No way in hell am I going to give them more than that.
You’re just trying to be nice but nothing good usually comes out of it.
This boss sounds like the many technically-oriented managers we had at my former company. We brought them over from another country (yes can guess where, most likely) without giving any training whatsoever in North American employment/management practices. This is the kind of crap they pulled.
Like a total idiot, I signed a contract with an ad agency to give 4 weeks notice. After working there for about 5 months, I got sick and tired of my morbidly obese female owner/boss’ attempts at micromanaging me (things like changing a font from semi-bold to demi, etc.), her refusal to start up my health insurance and refusal to give me creative director projects (which I was hired to do and was only given production jobs) and gave my notice.
It was the most painful four weeks of my life, as I was trying to get my own business started and working nights to get projects done.
During that time, the fat boss sat in her office (next to mine) and called every single vendor that knew me and told them what a terrible employee I was and how I made mistakes all the time, etc., basically badmouthing me to the local market.
A year later, she went under and I’ve been in business ever since. That was 18 years ago.
Oh, one other thing: When I suggested that the company started doing websites for businesses (this was in 94, just before the big web boom) she said “I don’t want to do animation, that’s not what we do.”
Yeah… good times, good times.
Eheheh, this is one of the many differences with US.
Here (Italy) the situation is ultra messy for work (well… For everything…): if you manage to get a permanent contract, which is something extremely rare nowadays, they basically cannot fire you unless you do something really bad like beat your boss, steal something etc.
So they move all people they want to fire into a secretly declining dept, and the year after they close the dept (they can do that).
Or they propose you like 1.5/2x year salary to get your resignation letter.
In ANY case the notice must be given (this is law, not just fair-play) from 1 to 6 months in advance, depending your level (and I’m speaking about clerks only, not mentioning managerial roles…).
It’s really really shit.