Two weeks is indeed the business standard. One week is acceptable in very low level, casual, or part-time jobs that don’t require much of a handoff. If you are involved in, say, a research project in which your particular experience and knowledge is crucial, appropriate notice time might be as long as six months. But in your case, two weeks is perfectly appropriate.
Good luck with your new position. I sincerely hope they appreciate you more than your current employer does.
They would not give you two weeks to fire you. You don’t owe them more than the two week notice. Guilt is the wrong emotion to feel here.
Congratulations on the new gig!b
Look out for Number One, because no one else is going to.
Congratulations on the new job.
You owe them exactly as much notice as you promised them. If you didn’t promise them anything, you owe them as much notice as they would pay you for if you were fired.
I resigned from a job where four weeks was in the signing agreement, and they made me work all four weeks (plus more - that didn’t happen). Usually, it works where I hand in my notice, I meet with my manager who tries to talk me out of it, and when he can’t he escorts me to my desk, I clean it out, and walk out with two weeks’s salary and any accrued PTO.
It’s not like a divorce. It’s business.
Regards,
Shodan
A wise man once told me, “If your boss ever decides to get rid of you, HE sure isn’t going to give you two weeks notice.”
As it is, you’re doing everything you’re supposed to do. What more could your boss reasonably expect?
You are an at-will employee. I would imagine that if you can manage to piss the guy off when you give him notice that he will fire you immediately and you can tell the new company that he fired you upon hearing the news and you can start right away, helping out the new people earlier and making more money and not working for the shit bag that ripped you off over the MBA.
Two weeks is standard… I’ve been in IT for over 20 years and two weeks is the rule. In that time I’ve seen colleagues sent home fired / relieved / rift, etc etc before lunch.
As soon as you get the written offer send your resignation email.
Ditto.
So did you get the offer?
No. Two weeks is good.
I worked at one place which walked some people out the door and fired them when they gave their 2 weeks notice. People started giving a 2-hour notice on Friday afternoon. I gave a 2 week notice but my new company said that I could start the next day if I was fired.
Yeah! If you’re lucky, you drop the notice and either take two weeks of free time, or start the new job that much sooner!
Good luck!
Anyone in a position of responsibility probably hasn’t documented things quite well enough and probably does stuff that no one else understands. This is especially true in our current environment of understaffing. If the boss fires you right away, it is probably going to hurt the boss more than it hurts you.
The last place I worked walked you out the door if you were going to work for a competitor - which I can see, except that if you were going to steal secrets you’d have done it before you gave notice.
If they give you the last two weeks, enjoy them. When I quit that last place I went home at a normal time and didn’t stay for dinner like we had the opportunity to. It wasn’t mandatory - they did take names, just to track the meals ordered, you understand. It was the best two weeks I had with that company.
Black rabbit, be sure to let us know how it works out!
I only gave 2 weeks notice before my freaking retirement. I even had a retirement clock that said I was going to retire in July, 2012. Instead I filed my papers in mid June 2007 and took a 25 instead of 30 year retirement.
Except for my wife not one person knew I was going to do that. I left my pain in the ass Lieutenant with a stack of things I was working on. They would only buy back so much of the sick leave I had accrued, so I called in sick every scheduled working day of those last 2 weeks. Some Lt. I had never heard of called me up and said I was going to get an IA case for abusing sick leave. I never laughed so hard.
The slightly lower pension I receive as compared to if I stayed on the additional 5 years is barely noticeable. Because of the survivor clause in my pension deal I will have to live past 84 years old for the amount to overall make taking the early retirement mathematically a bad deal. I don’t really care either way.
To the OP, when it comes to work, do what is best for you and only you. Nobody else is watching your back.
Update: The offer is signed and delivered. I left the resignation letter on his desk (he’s traveling, back in town tonight) and texted him to call me tonight when he gets a chance.
It’s not the kind of place where you get marched right out the door, especially if there are balls in the air. Frankly, we don’t have people quit all that often. It is a good place to work - like I said, I wasn’t actively in the hunt.
Anyway, in the unlikely event that I do get bounced tomorrow, I’ll have a nice two week vacation to shit in place around the house, maybe take a trip with the wife, whatever. No tears here.
congrats!
Bravo - well done, and right decision. You are in IT - so I think that you already know that you should have backups of whatever you want to keep, in case of the escorted perp walk out.
Awesome! Where do I send my resume to?
Just kidding. Management is a bad fit for me.
Congrats!
I don’t know about you but screwing me out of sixty thousand dollars would be a “slow walk towards the camera while the building burns behind me” exit.
Quite interesting that people are saying that two weeks notice is the “business standard”. Is this normally stated in the contract in the US? UK staff employment contracts (for salaried staff) are commonly four weeks notice. I think every employment contract I’ve had for a salaried job has stipulated four weeks. My current contract also has an increase to this period for completed years service, which I think is quite common too. Once you have completed five years service, you’re entitled to (and compelled to give!) five weeks notice, six years is six weeks notice, and so on up to a maximum of 12 (twelve!) weeks notice.
It’s always seemed like a really long time for me, for a lot of the reasons discussed above. I think in practice the notice period would be “open to negotiation”. Every time I’ve left one of these jobs though it’s been on good terms, and I’ve worked the necessary notice time (sometimes more) .