
Is there a proper etiquette for quitting your job? - molbioguy
I regularly see posts on HN about quitting one's job to follow dreams, join a startup, or otherwise advance one's career.  I was recently on the other end of this thread, so to speak.  An excellent young software developer that had worked in my lab for 4 years walked into my office and told me he was quitting to join a startup.  No prior warning, no explanations and just 2 weeks notice. While he did try to wrap things up in the 2 weeks, much was left uncompleted and no replacement was even planned for. When encouraging people to follow their dreams, shouldn't there be a concomitant reminder that employers deserve some consideration, too?  If you recently quit your job, how did you handle it?
======
dstein
I've tried both ways. I tried to do the "nice sendoff" by giving a huge 2
month notice, and even trained my replacement, documented all my procedures
etc. What did I get? It turned out apparently I hadn't been at the company
long enough, so they revoked all the money the company had contributed to my
401K. On my last day, instead of having time at the end to go around and say
goodbye to my coworkers, security shows up 2 hours early and I was escorted
out of the building.

My next job I just quit without notice. The job had turned pretty sour, and I
was on contract, the company had acted in some morally questionable ways, so
when it was my turn to leave I didn't have too much hesitation about just up
and quitting.

Now maybe I'm a little more disillusioned than most people, or maybe it's just
the world we live in now -- reverse pay-it-forward.

~~~
molbioguy
That sucks. Your disillusionment is understandable. I guess my viewpoint on
this assumes the employer is honorable. Maybe too narrow an assumption in this
market. But your comment shows you did take your employer's situation into
consideration, which is what I'm hoping to find.

------
pasbesoin
Professionalism is to be expected on both sides of the relationship. Two weeks
notice is, in lieu of contract obligations, in most places in the U.S. not
even required. It was, and I guess generally still is, considered a common
courtesy.

The employer is responsible for structuring and documenting work in a fashion
to control the risk of this situation. What if the employee were in a
debilitating accident? Would you be complaining, in that case?

Employees see the way that employees, in general, are treated, these days.
When an employer decides against an employee, they are as often as not "perp-
walked" to the door. (I'm speaking of instances where no malfeasance has
occurred or been alleged to have occurred.) Even if you strive to be a "good
employer", you need to remain cognizant of the environment in which you exist.
Employee loyalty is not rewarded the way it used to be (or at least, used to
be shown -- true or not).

It was your responsibility to structure your environment to accommodate this
eventuality. If a resource really is critical, write a contract with them that
guarantees/incentivizes their sticking around and/or giving a longer notice of
termination. If such a contract costs you more, well, that's the price of
doing business.

("Time is money", and you've just asked for a greater commitment of another
person's time. In a similar fashion, expect to pay more in return for an
(effective) non-compete clause.)

~~~
molbioguy
All good points. I fully agree that the employee is not responsible for
ensuring that there is minimum disruption upon their departure, management is.
But what I don't see is why there seems to be so much difficulty in expecting
a departing employee to give more than a minimum notice. People jumping to
startups (and that's what this post is about) are usually very bright and have
valuable skill sets. They usually leave because they are undervalued/under-
compensated or disinterested, not because of an emergency or duress. So what's
wrong with giving some extra warning to help out? Isn't that part of an
amicable termination? Two weeks is common, but to fill a skilled spot takes a
lot longer than two weeks.

~~~
pasbesoin
Again, look at the context.

Also, in addition to hard incentives, are you providing any soft ones?
Literally saying, if you're bored or unhappy, we'd like to know. (And we're
not looking to screw you over with the knowledge.)

Are you backing up such statements with actions that demonstrate your good
will?

If you were taken by surprise, were you communicating effectively with this
employee? ( A primary action that can demonstrate good will.)

Finally, what's the demographic in question? Young people, on average, "go off
and do things". It's one reason some employers favor married, settled (even
"boring") employees. They are more predictable.

(And these days, getting married and starting a family is less "the thing to
do" than it used to be. It's still done, plenty, but it's not _the_ course of
action that it used to be.)

If you wanted them to "do things" with you, it seems perhaps you should have
been more pro-active in making that part of the assignment. Even then, there's
no guarantee.

For many employees, disengagement begins long before they quit. If you want
the relationship to be valued, your only course of action is to begin doing so
from your end.

Too many self-interested employers (speaking generally, not necessarily of
you) get their undies in a bunch when employees -- perhaps taking a cue from
them -- start acting the same way.

To repeat my and others' question: What's in it for them?

~~~
molbioguy
_To repeat my and others' question: What's in it for them?_

Nothing tangible. Just good will and (in some cases) a clear conscience.

I asked this question because I wanted to get a feel for whether my
expectations were right or wrong. The clear answer from the community is that
the etiquette for leaving is rather complicated and that two weeks is not
unreasonable at all. I also accept that the failure to retain this gifted
employee was my fault (that was not in question). So it was helpful to read
the comments as it tells me I need to do a lot better the next time around.
Thanks.

~~~
pasbesoin
Understand, for my part, that I was the guy who would cut vacations short
because a project was behind.

Perhaps counter-intuitively, over time this seemed to cause me trouble,
perhaps in part because it did not "fit" the broader culture nor others'
expectations. (People become "worried" when you do not do the expected, even
when the expected is bailing on the project for the sake of your vacation.)

I tried to be "the good employee". As often as not, it burned me. Eventually,
I was very much so with individuals (sometimes, 15 minutes of my time could
save them a couple of days), but tried to learn to be less that way in an
undifferentiated fashion towards the institution in general.

Many institutions become very rigid with regard to culture, expectations, and
reciprocation. Essentially, eventually, they "train" their employees not to
care. (Once again, it's what you _do_ , not what you _say_ \-- again, speaking
generally and not to you specifically.)

------
brudgers
Based on U.S. expectations, I don't really see any poor form on the employee's
part. The fact that it hit the supervisor out of left field is usually more
indicative of a lack of ongoing communication than anything else. The
implication that production employees are expected to wait while their
replacement is hired and trained may be a side effect the way in which the
workplace environment operates.

To put it another way, it sounds like management wanted all the benefits of
employment at will without accepting the costs.

~~~
molbioguy
My (poorly worded?) question was asking whether we should consider the
employer's perspective when leaving to join a startup, and how do people most
often handle this. In this particular case, there was clearly a failure to see
that the developer was getting bored and so nobody expected him to leave. He
had a private office, flexible hours, freedom to work on open source projects,
and excellent benefits (profit sharing, pensions, etc) -- but I found after he
left that bioinformatics development was just not his interest. He jumped to a
startup that used the open source code he contributed to. So in this case,
management was not taking advantage. Perhaps the other way around. But based
on comments so far, employee management relationships seem not so good, in
general, for developers.

~~~
brudgers
It is not necessarily the case that the employee did not consider the
employers perspective - after four years with the company it is probable that
he had seen other people come and go and developed a sense of how the matter
would be handled. Seeing as it is not uncommon for workplaces to be structured
such that there is never "a good time" to quit because projects are endless or
there is always a backlog or deadlines fall one after the other.

For an employee, the clean break often considers management practice and is
done in some sense for their benefit even if it is not what they would
articulate as their interest. Disinterested short-timers are a drag on moral
and long notices can give management false hope that they have time to
negotiate to retain the employee (the course of least resistance) rather than
finding a replacement.

After my initial response I recognized another piece of management's
misassessment of the situation. After four years, the "promising young
developer" no longer saw him self as "promising" but as professional. It is
not an uncommon oversight to keep viewing an employee in terms of their level
at the time they were hired and thus not provide them with the level of
challenge appropriate to their aspirations - i.e. the leadership of
progressively more challenging projects or tasks.

Finally, the fact that pension was viewed as a tool to retain a young go
getter is probably a fundamental miscalculation for promising developers -
young people attracted by pensions wind up in large organizations or
government not in dynamic teams with a high beta.

~~~
molbioguy
_after four years with the company it is probable that he had seen other
people come and go and developed a sense of how the matter would be handled_

You'd have to know the company, but I can categorically say that this was not
the issue.

 _Finally, the fact that pension was viewed as a tool to retain a young go
getter is probably a fundamental miscalculation for promising developers -
young people attracted by pensions wind up in large organizations or
government not in dynamic teams with a high beta._

It wasn't the only benefit, but your point is well taken. People wanting to
join a startup (and younger people in general) are not interested in long-term
stability (unless of course it is their dream job) which this wasn't.

But the question is not about why this particular person left, it's about
whether good people leaving for startups should even consider the employer
when deciding how to leave.

------
kallus
> When encouraging people to follow their dreams, shouldn't there be a
> concomitant reminder that employers deserve some consideration, too?

No, there should be a clause in the contract specifying a mutual minimal time
of notice for ending the employment. Also see this great post
<http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/07/08/business-psychology/>

~~~
bottlerocket
Clause in the contract, but remember it cuts both ways.

I was recently creative director of a small software company that let their
design team go. When I started the owner changed my employee contract from 14
to 28 days with the assumption that since I was in a management position with
5 reports, were I to leave the transition would have been hard to squeeze in
to the standard 2 week period.

When he announced he was letting everyone go with 2 weeks severance, he was
not too happy when I reminded him my contracted stipulated 28 days (he did
honor it though).

------
noahc
Here's how I handled it. I went to my employeer and said, "I'm unhappy here
and I'd like to move back home anyway" and he asked how I was unhappy, and I
explained I didn't really like my job and I tried some different things inside
the company and none of them really fit what I wanted to do.

The results were in and so we started looking for someone and I stayed on for
a month after they were hired to train the person in. After that I left.

But, I would flip this around and say it had more to do with the employeer. I
felt like I could do this. Do you make it so the employeer felt like they
could do this? I'd avoid putting it in a contract in focus on creating a
culture where this type of thing can be norm.

~~~
molbioguy
That's cool. I felt I did, but that's subjective. But this is exactly the kind
of thing I would like to have seen. Absolutely leave jobs when you feel you
need to, but work with your employer if you can to make the transition easier.
Fulfilling your ambitions does not need to be damaging to anyone else. As you
state, good employers should make this environment the norm. But the
discussions I read here about quitting and joining startups don't deal with
this side of the equation. They seem to mostly emphasize quitting as a defiant
act or a personal milestone (which to me implies not caring about what state
you leave things in).

BTW, did your employer notice that you were unhappy and bring it up to you
before you told them?

~~~
noahc
No, they didn't.

I think they should have though. I went from working basically 6 to 6 to 8:30
to 5. It was pretty obvious.

Someone wrote on my employee review that they could tell I wasn't passionate
about my job and it shows sometime, but I think that was post discussion with
my boss and he would have probably been notified as he was in HR.

------
mcotton
I'm in a very strange situation with my boss. Things have been rough for some
time now and he is not going to change.

He has put incredible pressure on me to give him 6-12 months notice. Not 6-12
weeks, but he wants a full year.

That is selfish and wrong. Since you are suggesting consideration for thr
employer, What is the 'right' to do?

He has every intention of using a non-compete agreement to limit my future
options, how does that show that the company values me?

~~~
molbioguy
Thanks for relating your situation. I hope I haven't come across as
unreasonable. I don't think (nor have I advocated) that employees bear the
full brunt of any transitional disruption. I just think that we often tell
people to follow their dreams and quit their jobs without asking them to leave
in an honorable way. And I define honorable as making reasonable efforts to
minimize the disruption of losing a valuable employee, for example by giving
more than two weeks notce. As @pasbesoin said, professionalism is to be
expected on both sides of the relationship. In your situation it seems to be a
worst case where your employer is using undue pressure and making the whole
affair pretty one-sided (which sucks badly). In my opinion, you owe him the
minimum your contract requires and no more. I'm not a lawyer, so the whole
non-compete agreement is beyond where I feel like I can comment upon.

I think you and several posters have pointed out to me that not all employers
are honorable nor care enough about their employees and thus it's not always
possible to give them the consideration they might want. Fair enough. And it
turns out to be harder to generalize than I thought it would be. Sorry, I can
be naive.

For what it is worth, in my case, I didn't complain to the employee about the
two weeks notice nor did I ask for anything beyond documenting procedures and
critical code. We wished him well and sent him off to join a startup with a
company-wide party. No strings attached.

~~~
mcotton
You have done a great job of stating your case and responding to comments from
the employee side. I have no doubt that your next programmer will benefit from
this.

Thank you for starting this discussion.

~~~
molbioguy
Thanks. I hope so, too. Good luck on your situation. I hope it turns out
better than you fear.

------
nhangen
I recently left a job I had just started, because a much better offer came
around and I simply couldn't pass it up. I offered to keep working from home
during the evenings and weekends (most of my work was done remotely) until a
replacement was found, but my boss chose to cut ties that day and we both
moved on, amicably, which is nice.

In this climate, I imagine that the only norms are those stipulated in a
contract.

~~~
molbioguy
Correct. But contracts stipulate the minimum. And I understand that if things
go bad, the minimum is all that's necessary. But the credo of "just quit"
seems to say that the minimum is al you ever need to worry about. I think
taking your employer's needs into consideration (as you did) by giving advance
warning or simply expressing desires to change can be enormously helpful for
both parties. Employers can see deficiencies in the way they structure their
jobs and their communication/observation skills. And employees can leave a
trail of good relationships that could help if they ever need contacts or
references. Plus, if they become employers themselves in the future, they will
be better able to approach the problem of retaining employees or dealing with
departures.

------
Mz
I've recently been talking a lot with a friend about how badly so many people
handle 'endings'. In this case, I've been talking about personal relationships
and some of the things I did that led to an amicable divorce when my lengthy,
troubled marriage finally ended. But in some sense, all relationships are
'personal'.

Some observations, not in any way intended as blaming or attacking:

You indicate they had flexible hours and freedom to work on open source but
also indicate that when they left, much was left uncompleted and that he left
to go work with a startup that used the open source he contributed to. It
sounds to me like the job was structured poorly from the perspective of
looking out for the employer's needs. On the one hand, yes, you should be
concerned that the work environment be a positive personal experience for the
employee. You should do this out of enlightened self interest as it promotes
loyalty. But this is not your child. You should not behave like their daddy,
helping to pay for hobbies. Was the open source project he contributed to
something your company uses? If not, why on earth was he doing it at work
instead of at home (or perhaps I misunderstood)? The time, energy, creativity,
interest and so on that he put into that project should have been something
the company was trying to capture for it's benefit. You allowed him to fritter
those valuable personal resources away. He didn't want to be frittering away
his time. He wanted it valued. So he went to a company that valued the work he
was willing to pour himself into.

Perhaps there needs to be better communication. Perhaps there need to be
better policies. Perhaps the corporate culture of trust has room for
improvement. I would examine what piece of this is in the hands of the company
and use it as a means to better protect the company's interests in the future.

Also, it sounds to me like this post is motivated by feelings of hurt and a
vague sense that HN and "the world out there" is part of why this person hurt
you. Posts motivated by hurt are usually not very productive. But if you
recognize that the culture here on HN potentially has a negative impact on
your company by actively promoting the idea of "just quit", one thing you can
do is make a point of quietly promoting the view that "yes, quit, but do so
honorably". And then provide any evidence you can find that doing so honorably
is better for _their_ career, not just for their employer. Just be careful to
not be too pushy or come across as "the guy with the bone to pick". And also
be understanding that if the employer is an abusive jerk, doing so "honorably"
can amount to cutting your own throat. Then work at making damn sure your
company is not in the abusive jerk category.

Peace.

~~~
molbioguy
Excellent points and pretty damn insightful. Thanks.

 _Was the open source project he contributed to something your company uses?
If not, why on earth was he doing it at work instead of at home (or perhaps I
misunderstood)?_

Some was used directly and some was only peripherally important to the
projects in the lab.

 _The time, energy, creativity, interest and so on that he put into that
project should have been something the company was trying to capture for it's
benefit. You allowed him to fritter those valuable personal resources away. He
didn't want to be frittering away his time. He wanted it valued. So he went to
a company that valued the work he was willing to pour himself into._

I think his work was highly valued by the company and myself, but his work for
the company perhaps underutilized his skills or just didn't interest him. I
think your point is critical, though, that employees need to feel their
efforts are strongly valued.

As to the point of my post/question. Does the culture of "just quit" promote a
certain level of irresponsibility? I think it does. If you have to leave, of
course do so. But make efforts to minimize the disruption your departure will
inevitably create (if you were good at your job). Your employer gave you a
chance. Whether it worked out or not, the honorable path will leave behind
less ill will. Sometimes previous employers can serve as excellent contacts,
references, and even future partners.

------
Limes102
If you had put in the contract time that the notice should is a month (or
maybe more) you might have not have the same problem.

I only need to give one week for my current job, and when I leave, that's
probably all I will give.

~~~
molbioguy
Well, from my perspective I would want more time to prepare for the
transition. But putting that in a contract unnecessarily restricts people. Our
company doesn't even require the 2 weeks, so I can't complain. But not
everyone leaves under duress. My point was, I _never_ see posts about quitting
jobs to join startups mention any consideration to the employer. To me, unless
I hate my employer, I'd want to make efforts to help out. I was curious if
people usually give more than required/minimal warning. I guess not.

------
ChrisKdog
Two weeks is a common courtesy. People quit because they are either bored or
their boss sucks.

Best you can do is have an honest conversation with the guy about the real
reasons he's leaving and then learn from it.

~~~
molbioguy
Yeah, that seems to be the take home message. I understand it, but I still
feel that two weeks leaves most employers in the hole. I mean, you can't
realistically have a list of people to fill the spot ready to go at all times.
In my business (small molecular biology/bioinformatics lab) it will probably
take 3 months from submitting a hiring request to accepting an applicant.
Maybe more. I was curious if people give much thought to the disruption that
happens when they leave, especially when it's to join a startup (elective,
non-emergency move). But it sounds like two weeks is pretty much accepted as
fair regardless of the reasons for leaving. Like you said, you learn from it.
Thanks.

~~~
danpat
You'd like to be able to hire a new employee as quickly as possible, but you'd
like departing employees to hang around as long as possible.

That seems to me to be a fundamental conflict. New employees don't appear from
a vacuum and old employees don't disappear into one. Other than new entrants
to the market and retirees, almost everyone is moving from one place to
another, with the same pressures.

Given that companies usually only hire when they already need the staff,
there's likely a fairly strong incentive to encourage the new hire to move to
the new job as quickly as possible.

As someone one the receiving end of that, it sucks. But now, facing the other
end of the hiring game, I'll bet you're going to encourage your new hire to
start ASAP (in fact, giving preference to those that can start sooner rather
than later).

It's like the passing around of electron holes.

~~~
molbioguy
I like that! I never thought of it as electron flow. So to maximize employee
retention I need to minimize the potential difference between the current job
and the alluring startup. It all comes down to physics, as always.

