Best time to tell my emplyer I'm quitting...and should I even quit?

In My Humble Opinion
1

OK, so I’ve got a complicated work scenario right now. Suffice to say, I hate where I am working. The location sucks, the place of employment sucks, and the job itself is not so hot. I’ve also become extremely lazy at it, due to my complete lack of love for it. My lease runs out in April, so naturaly I decided way back when that I would quit in the spring and try to get a new job somewhere far away from here, and failing that, either move back in with my parents (blech!) or move down with a friend in North Carolina and continue a job search.

Well, last December, a kink was put into my plan. I work for a third party company that provides biomedical services to hospitals. The supervisor of another hospital we service contacted me and told me he wanted me for a position they had over there. Now, this job is a little bit the same, but also a little different. It would still be biomedical services, but instead of doing general medical equipment, I would almost exclusively work on a couple of linear accelerators used to treat cancer. Now, normally, I would have said no thanks, and go with the original plan, however, this job would allow to to live in an area I LOVE (close enough to my hometown that I hung out there a lot growing up, but far enough away that I won’t have to see my family all the damn time.) In addition, I would get a significant raise. And finally, the kicker. One of the benefits of my job is that I get free tuition to a few colleges, but right now live too far away from any of them to make use of that. But, if I took this job, I would be right next to one of them. In addition, it just happens to offer a master’s program for my major (biomed. engineering.) So, I tentaively said yes back then, and early Jan I went over to the hospital to meet the staff I would be working with and look at the machines.

I also started applying to the college. I asked my three supervisors to write me letters of recomendation, saying that my act of applying was just a way to keep my options open. If I ended up taking the job (which actually has extremely flexible hours) I could go part time.

I know what you’re all saying. You’re saying,
“Bouv, this is the perfect opportunity. You’re a fool not to take it.” But, the thing is, I’m not sure that merely a change of location and a slight change in what I do would be enough to make me like what I would be doing. In addition, they want a three to five year commitment at least. Ack. Granted, grad school itself might take a few years, but I realistically wouldn’t want the job any longer than it took me to finish. And in five years I’ll almost be thirty ( :eek: ). OK, so I’d have my master’s, but by then, what if I bought a house, or got married? Suddenly, it’s not so easy to move to wherever in the country for a new job. Also, this isn’t really what I want to do. I have a degree in engineering, and that’s what I actually want to do. Not technician work. To further complicate things, our company just lost one of the hospitals it services, and two techs now have no palce to work. Our company isn’t going to let them go, they have guaranteed jobs. However, they have first pick out of all the open spots we have (we have three or four.) One of those spots is, you guessed it, the one I might have. I don’t know when they will decide if they want it or not. And even if they don’t want it, I don’t know when I would start. The initial date was mid-summer, but now they are saying maybe in the fall. Ack. If I can’t get there before fall, then I have to start grad school a year late (assuming I even get in.)

So now the problem is deciding if I really want this job or not, and if I do, is there a limit to how long I’m willing to wait before starting it? And how much time will I give them to officially offer it to me before I decide it’s too late? If I decide to quit, when is the best time to tell them? I suppose that also depends on when the offially offer me the new job. If it gets to April and they haven’t actually said yes, I am going over there, then OK, I’ll quit, but what if I get offered in mid-Feb? Should I say no thank you, oh, and by the way, I’m quitting? Or just delcine that and then a month later say I am quitting?

In addition, when is the best time to start a new job search? I assume it should be after I let my employer know I am quitting. And naturally this affects when I tell them. If I should start looking for a new job two months before I quit, then I need to tell them I’m quitting then. If it’s one month before, then tell them then, etc…Also, if I get into grad school, maybe I should quit, not get a new job, and go full time (of course, that assumes I get enough financial assistance…but then, I think I checked the box that said don’t consider me, since I figured I wouldn’t be paying…crud.)

Basically, this whole situation is just all buggered up and I don’t know what to do.

2

what happens if you take the new position, and leave in two years? what would the penalty be?

It sounds like a “go for it” situation, because you don’t really have anything else on the horizon right now. And isn’t it better to have a job you may not love but know how to do well, rather than have to look for one?

and, sorry, but 3 to 5 years isn’t that long. It may seem that way to you, being so young, but trust me, it flies by. Especially if you’ll be taking grad school classes the whole time.

If the new position is a lock, and they want you right away, there’s no time like the present to tell your current boss “buhbye”

3

Well, if I leave the new job after just a couple years, the penalty would be when my next prospective employer contacts them, they’ll say I’m unreliable and not good on my word.

And as far as teling my current boss “buh bye”, well, a) since it’s within the same company, he knows full well about it and knows that I will go if and when they actually say “we want you on X date.” And b) it’s not yet a lock.

The thing is is that this job right now is sucking the life out of me. I have lost not only all motivation at work, but also in my private life. My week days consist of getting up at 8, shower, bowl of cereal, go to work at 8:30. Sit around, do the bare min. or work I need to do to not get fired, browse the boards, go home for lunch at noon (I live a couple minute away.) Eat a sandwich while watching comedy central, go back to work at 1. Repeat what I did in the morning till quitting time (between 4:30 and 5:00.) Come home, sit around and watch TV and dick around on my computer until about 6, make some dinner, eat it while yet again watching TV. Clean up after dinner, then do more sitting until bedtime at midnight. Repeat the next day.

After living here over half a year I really don’t have any friends. My weekends are spent just sitting aruond my apartment. I joined the volunteer fire department, but that’s not a real social thing, and at most, takes up an hour a day if there’s a call I can go to. I know this is all a product of hating my job and this area so much that I just don’t care to go out and do things, meet people, etc…I can’t take it anymore, and even thinknig about the few months that would be left until I could move is crushing my spirit even more. If they want me there in, say, August, then that’s SIX more God damn months. Half a fucking year. I really can’t do that. I could try taking to my boss and the other supervisor to see if I can go earlier, but my boss was pretty clear that he does NOT want me to go over there until he can find someone to fill in my position. The problem is, no one in their right mind would want to move here. It’s desolate, boring, and has nothing to offer anyone. Finding someone to take my place could take months. It’s like a prison sentence. Seriously.

So what, deliver an ultimatum? Say “give me that new job come May or I’m out of here?” That seems pretty jerkish.

4

Go for the new job.

5

Go for the new job.

Despite the three year request, unless it’s in your contract then you’re fine. The thought that you’re going to quit before then is only in your head. Things could change. And similarly, you could take the job in good faith with a long-term view, and your life circumstances change, two years later, necessitating you to leave.

At the risk of sounding patronising: you’re young and so you’re making the mistake of putting personal feelings and company loyalty before pragmatism. It’s just business, and any company on earth would kick you out the door in an instant if they had to.

6

The best time to start a new external job search is when you are employed. Do NOT tell your employer you’re looking. If you do, and downsizing is required, you will be the first to go. And you’ll have to kiss goodbye any possible raises, good assignments, promotions, etc. It may take a while to find something and in the meantime you don’t want to cut yourself off from potential within your current job.

If it’s internal, there are probably company policies on this, and your new potential boss should also know what these are. The last company I worked for said you did not have to tell your current supervisor about initial contacts, but there was a defined point at which this information had to be shared.

If you’re quitting to go back to school, or some reason other than a new job, there should also be a standard policy or practice. Two weeks is fairly common. Otherwise you risk having quit and then having something prevent you from going with your original plan, and then you’re stuck having to beg for your job back. Not good.

7

OK, I’ve decided,

I’m quitting. This past week has confirmed jsut how much I hate this job, and why, and I know that even if I tough it out until summer and get that job transfer, I’ll still hate the parts of the job that are the same. It’s not what i want to do, and it won’t really help me in my long-term career goals.

So February is going to be my last month. I’ll tell my boss on Monday…maybe. I say maybe because I am the only one who actually works at the place I work, everyone else in the company works in a different facility. So either I tell him over the phone, or I call him/email him and tell him I really need to talk to him in person. I assume the latter is the better choice? In that case it will be Tuesday or Wednesday before I tell him Feb. is my last month.

The worst part will be his reaction. I know that he will try and talk me into staying, and due ot my complete lack of a spine, I’m going to have to try to not just go,
“Well, ok, I’ll tough it out for a few more months.” Nope, sorry, can’t do it.

I have just applied to one job online, so I hope that I can quit and let my bosses know before they start calling them as a reference. :stuck_out_tongue:

8

I still think you should wait until you actually have the new job before you announce your departure to your current employer. First, it’s a lot easier to find a job when you have a job. Your potential new employer will want to know why you left. It’s much better to be able to say, “Yes I am employed but am looking for further opportunities” than to say, “Oh, I quit because I hated the place.” See the difference?

A potential employer may not contact your current employer without your permission AFAIK. If you’ve already quit, they may do so, and your then former employer may well give you less than a stellar reference. “Yeah, he just up and resigned one day. I don’t know why. Kind of left us in the lurch.”

When you do resign, put it in writing. On paper. Ask to speak to your boss, give him the letter and explain that you’ve accepted a new job that provides [more opportunity/higher salary/a shorter commute/whatever]. It’s common to provide two weeks notice. Some employers will release you sooner, but then they generally pay you for the two weeks notice you’ve given even if they don’t want you around any more. Or they may use the 2 weeks for you to perform some “knowledge transfer” to another person.

9

Write down everything you hate about the job, and remind yourself of it when talking to your boss about leaving. One of my worst mistakes at a job was staying when a supervisor talked me into it after I had told her I was leaving. Don’t do this. Please.

As for the time frame, you are young, sure, but this is your life we’re talking about, not a practice run. Sometimes you have to shake things up to make the changes you need. Quit, move, find a new job, go back to school, do what feels right. Before you’re 30 is the time for these things. Afterwards, we tend to get bogged down with a lot more baggage.

10

I can’t stress this enough. I decided to leave my job in December of 2004 - I was just given notice an hour ago that I should be expecting a written offer for a new job next week. So that’s countless interviews and 14 months of searching that is finally coming to fruition. In that time, I had one other offer that would require me moving to Los Angeles, but I turned it down as I didn’t think it would be the best thing for me.

Now imagine if I had told my boss in December of 04 that I was looking for a new job. That would have been a LOT of torture (above and beyond the torture he already put me through) that would have been needless. I’m waiting for the written offer to be finalized and only then will my boss know a thing.

11

I know I should get a new job before quitting this one, but I just can’t do it. Words cannot express how much I hate it. I get blamed for shit I don’t do, and told to do shit I’m not suppossed to do, and have too much shit that I am suppossed to do that I can’t even get all of it done in time, let alone the stuff I’m not suppossed to do. My boss knows about these problems, yet does nothing to alliviate them. In addition, the quality of my work has been going down since I got the job. This is the kind of job where I should really do the best I can, yet I have no motivation, NONE, to do any better. Every morning I lay in bed for at least ten minutes jsut deciding whether or not I should just call in sick that day, but then realize all my problems from that day will still be there the next, plus all the problems from that day. I then drag myself out of bed, get to work 15-30 minutes late, and hate every god damn minute I am there. You’re telling me I jsut stay there for who knows how long just because of the money? Fuck that. I can get a job somwhere else. It won’t pay as great (not that I’m making big bucks, but more than min, wage) but I won’t hate it.

I will have enough money to keep living in my apartment for the two months before my lease runs out. If I get no job before then (and I don’t expect to) I have a few choices.

  1. Move back in with my parents (BLECH!)
  2. Move in with a friend in northern S. Carolina
  3. Move to the Albany, NY area (I have many friends in that area from school.)

Moving to Albany provides the best opportunity to get a job I might want without having to move again, but moving to S. Carolina would be the most fun, and moving back homw would be the most prudent.

12

If you want to do that, that’s fine too. I would just recommend not looking for a new job and telling your current boss that you’re doing it. He doesn’t need to know.

If you really want to leave, you can just tell prospective employers that you wanted to explore new opportunities but didn’t feel that you had the time or energy to fully devote yourself to a job search while working full time.

13

Just tell them that you quit because your job was killing your soul. They’ll understand. :smiley:

(Actually, they will understand, because half of them are having their souls killed too, but they can’t admit that they understand.)

14

bouv, since this is IMHO, I’m going to give MHO. This is stupid, really stupid.

You have a job that you’ve managed to do for the past however many years that pays decently well plus an opportunity to go back to school for what you really want to do and get paid for it. You’re right, you are a fool to turn down this opportunity.

Seeing as you’ll have the chance to quickly move to a new position with a new immediate supervisor and a new location, suck it up until then.

Everything else that is going crappy in your life is not a side effect of your crappy job. If you get home at 5:30 and do nothing but sit until midnight when you go to sleep, then something’s missing from your life that doesn’t invovle your job.

Seriously, find something social to do in your location. Join a club, pick up a sport, blah, blah, blah.

Merely quitting won’t make you happy.

15

I got lost in all those details … BUT I do have an opinion anyway (how unusual!).

Here’s the thing – whatever you’re going to do, it’s going to take a lot of energy. If the thought of whichever change you’re considering makes you tired, don’t do it. Do something else. All those details made me tired, and you seemed to want more engineering and less technician in your life.

You need to find, devise, develop or discover an option that makes you WANT to get up in the morning. THAT will be the “right choice”.

It may be a sensible path, it may be cockamamie; you may have a clear picture for where you’ll be in five years, or you may only be able to see 12 months into the future. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’re excited about your life.

** one caveat, it can get ugly before it gets better. Twice now my Hubby has left jobs that made him unhappy w/out having another one lined up; each of those jobs required a relocation that we didn’t want to make. When it came time to move for the job, we just couldn’t do it. So instead we moved where we wanted to go, and he found better jobs, and our lives improved dramatically each time. But the waiting was awful. It took him six months to find a new job each time, and those six months were hell. It’s a lot of work either way, but I strongly believe that choices based on fear of risk just lock you into a fear-based life.

16

Well, it’s done…mostly. I emaield my supervisor (we’ll call him Dennis) on Modnay telling him we needed to talk this week, and then no more than five minute later I received a call from his supervisor (let’s call him Matt) saying he was coming over to discuss that potential job transfer and to meet with the mangement of this hospital for contract issues. Well, good, he wold have to be notified too, and he’s MUCH more approachable than my immediate supervisor. So I sent another email to my boss saying to schedule for Thursday or Friday.

Matt arrived today around one, and we just got done talking. It went a lot better than I expected, especially since I was told the job I was gunning for fell through for the exact reason I was afriad of, one of the guys who lost their position at a different hospital took it. He said they were still trying to make some kind of position for me at that hospital, since they knew I liked that area a lot more than this one, but it would take even longer, odds are no pay raise, and I woudn’t have been able to shift my schedule around to attend grad school. So most of the benefits of the new job would have been lost on this one. I should not that I didn’t go into the meeting dead set on quitting. If he had told me Iwas going over there in three months with the good job, I would have suffered through it. But going over there in six months? And nothing about it is all that much better than over here? Well, made my decision to leave much easier.

He was very understanding, and prefered me quitting now than if I took the new job and quit a year after that, sicne it meant they would have wasted money on training and moving me. He said if I ever needed a reference or recomendation, I can always call him. He is now meeting with hospital administration letting them know I will be leaving in mid-March, but a replacement will be here starting at the end of February for me to train (since he’s more techncially skilled than me, all that I have to do is train him in this hospital’s particular quirks.) When thast meeting is done, he’s gonig to call Dennis and let him nkow my decision before our meeting tomorrow, I assume. He said he was calling him to discuss the hospital meeting, and made mention that he will at least give him a heads up as to what I’m going to talk about (he might not say directly that I am quitting.)

So, now I just have to make it a month and a half without killing myself.

A question for those who might be able to answer:

My application to grad school is sent in (it was due today, everything was in as of last week.) How long do you think it will be before I get a reply? I also appleid to one job so far, again, how long might they take to contact me IF they want to do a follow up? And let’s say I hear from them before grad school…I assume I don’t tell them I applied?