As a follow on to the Employer Rescinds Job Offer thread and the Ever backed out of a job after verbal acceptance? thread I thought I would share an instance which appears to becoming more common place. I’ve seen this situation a couple of times over the past few years within different divisions of our Company.
Employee and supervisor are at odds over a situation and employee becomes frustrated and decides to quit, walking out. The next day, the employee calls back or shows back at the office realizing they made a rash decision and wants their job back. In both of the situations I know about, they didn’t have anything else lined up for employment; their spouses were extremely frustrated with their decision to up and quit; they thought the company would beg them to stay or come back. In both decisions, their boss told them, that their resignations were accepted and there was no longer a position available for them.
The detriment to the employee in these situations is that they are not entitled to unemployment insurance.
That’s what happens. If you quit you don’t get unemployment. If an employee quits it’s a red flag that there could be future problems so a company doesn’t have much incentive to take them back. Sometimes this happens and the employer just hires the person back, but it’s still smart not to say you quit, just walk off. For an at will employee there’s no real difference, but if you say “I quit” you are provoking your employer and he’s likely to respond by accepting your resignation instead of figuring you just need some time to cool off.
I cannot imagine doing the “I quit!” thing unless I had an airtight lawsuit against the company in the works, or unless I’d just won the lottery.
There was a fun incident at my workplace several years back, in which a worker given mutually exclusive directions by the same boss got scolded for not following one of the two sets of directions. The worker responded by saying, “You know what? I’ve got enough years here that I can retire. Guess what I’m doing!” She went straight to HR and retired on the spot. Then she demanded an exit interview, which got the ball rolling for the supervisor’s. . . .
did you think I was going to say “firing”? Nope. For the supervisor’s promotion to a position of less responsibility.
I have never seen that particular scenario play out. However, I have given 2 weeks notice fully expecting my company to make a counter proposal. They did and I accepted it. I did have something else lined up and had my employer called my bluff, I would have taken it and, I’m sure, very much regretted it.
I know of a case where it has worked so far. The person in question was new and had just been given new responsibilities, and quit for another job he had been offered from the job search. The company had major retention issues, and did want him back. So far he has gotten a big raise and a promotion to manager. And a charter to try to fix the retention problem.
Even if it doesn’t work in the long run he has his new higher salary and title as a base.
But this isn’t very common. I agree with the general gist of comments here.
We often do that here, especially if the person has enough vacation timete to cover it. If we have reason to think the person is going to work for a competitor, it always happens. If, say, the person is leaving because their spouse got transferred to Seattle or some other such silly place, we don’t.
If you are so hot-headed and immature to say “I quit!”:
You may be hot-headed and immature enough to do actual harm.
If you give notice, you become a liability. You may use the remaining time to the detriment of the company (copy sensitive materials, broadcast emails, etc.). You become a loose cannon.
I saw it happen once.
The chief Engineer was giving advice to a utility engineer about driving the company truck after having a beer. The utility took exception and started arguing with the Chief and forced his hand. The Chief felt that he had to issue a formal warning. He asked the utility engineer to step into his office. The utility came in and screamed at the Chief that he was tired of the BS and he was quitting. threw his keys on the desk and left the store. The next day he showed up at work and wanted to know if his job was still open. Need less to say the Chief told him he was sorry but his position was not open anymore.
Isn’t it amazing the number of people who think the reason they have a job is somehow because of their wonderful personal qualities?
The reason you have a job is because your employer thinks she/he/it/they can make more money with you then without you. Or someone/anyone else who can do what you do.
It seems that last part gets overlooked way too many times.
And what happened the next day, when no one got a turnover of all the work that the now departed employee had been doing?
People leave jobs. It’s a part of life. Any boss who treats that as an unforgivable act of disloyalty is doing a much greater disservice to the company than the person who is quitting.
Does the employer pay the employee for the two weeks? If not, is that legal? I definitely wouldn’t think it was smart. You’d give future people an incentive not to give notice.
The last place I worked would pay you out if you went to a competitor but keep you if you weren’t. When I gave notice because I was moving I stayed the two weeks and got as many of my claims closed as possible and prepped everything and my customers for transfers.
People who intend to quit in two weeks aren’t a protected class. You can’t move yourself from having no guarantee of a job tomorrow (or in five minutes) to having a lock on your job for two weeks just by intending to quit.
