Not sure I made the right decision.
Tell me your stories, please. Still very much on the fence.
Remind yourself of all the reasons you gave notice in the first place.
Then walk out and don’t look back. I assure you, your employer won’t be looking back, either.
At a place I use to work I knew three people who were going to work elsewhere, but were offered a raise and promotion and decided to stay. All three wished they would have taken the other jobs instead.
I have and I stayed but it wasn’t because I was going to another job. It was about some issues with a co-worker and I was talked into staying. Eventually I dealt with the issues and everything was okay.
I worked for a company that would often make counter-offers, but only until they could find a replacement. Then they would find a reason to let go of the employee who had turned in their notice.
I haven’t and I can imagine it being a difficult situation even under the best of circumstances.
There’s a concept in Occupational Psychology referred to as the psychological contract - essentially its a variation on the more common idea of social contracts we all make with one another in order to be able to function in the world. The psych contract in employment terms refers to the more implicit agreements made between employer and employee, over and above the explicit terms of any work contract. It’s very situation- and culturally-specific. So, your expectation may be that your employer will support you in promotion opportunities, or allow you to leave early when it’s quiet. Theirs may be that you agree to do something that’s not technically your job, when things are busy, or that you generally don’t badmouth the organisation and at least appear to want to be there when you’re at work.
The contract only works at all when there is broad agreement between the parties about their expectations - and of course, since it’s implicit, this is relatively often a source of work stress. Employers and employees often have very different views of expected behaviours and the consequences if these expectations aren’t met. Giving in your notice seems to be a classic case of exposing the underlying assumptions and challenging them. As an employee, your commitment to the job and your intention to stay at it are exposed as a fiction - you’ve broken the psychological contract. This isn’t necessarily a hostile act, of course, and it doesn’t have to be accompanied by great angst. It does almost inevitably mean a renegotiation. Essentially, you’ve outed yourself as a flight risk - the people who run organisations are only human (usually) and it’d be very strange if this didn’t affect them, in however a trivial manner.
Short version - I’d think very hard about taking back notice. Yes, it’s important to remember the things which caused you to want to leave. But it’s also important to realise that things will change - I’m not sure how they could not - you just need to decide by how much, and if the changed version of your workplace is somewhere you want to be.
My old boss insulted the hell out of me. I said, fine, and walked in to HR and handed in my resignation.
The nice HR lady called the VP of Operations and said, “We’ve got a problem.” He talked me into staying.
My boss didn’t apologize, but I was willing to accept the diplomatic implication that I was important enough to her boss for him to ask me to stay. That, at least, sent an unspoken message to my boss, “This guy is important to us, so don’t shit on him again, okay?” Anyway, she never shit on me again, so, good enough.
I had almost this exact thing happen to me. Though all involved were men. Not a big difference. The next quarter my boss got “promoted” out of my department. Within a year, he got laid off. The lay off was probably not related to me and my issue with him. I still felt vindicated though.
I do not know if this qualifies but, I once quit and was very clear as to who was responsible for my decision. One year later I was out of work and an acquaintance told me the old company was hiring. I went to apply and ask about my old boss. If he was still there I would waste neither their time nor mine. The HR person told me that he was “no longer with us” and immediately offered me my old job back with a pay raise. I did not interview nor did I fill out an application. I did retain my seniority.
My former employer did just that to a bunch of us who had gotten offers from a competitor right after former employer’s parent company was sold. I stayed because the raise they gave me was over and above the salary I’d been offered at the competitor. I left a few years later when the parent company was sold again and the new competitor (now my current employer) offered me over and above what they other competitor had originally offered me.
3 times I can remember; 1 time a place I worked for tried to bring me back - offered a raise and full benefits but I turned it down because I had already accepted another offer and did not want to go back on my word. In hindsight, I made the wrong decision in every case.
When I was 17 I walked out during the dinner rush at McDonald’s with a bunch of other employees after the manager said “Fuck this place, who’s coming with me?”. (I don’t know if I mentioned this on the dope before, but in high school I was a wannabe communist revolutionary and was big into solidarity and sticking it to the man – I actually liked my job at McDonald’s.)
Anyway, of 6 or 7 people who walked out that day, including the manager, I was the only one they called back. I worked another year there after that. I think they might have given me a dime an hour raise, but that wasn’t the reason I came back. Like I said, I liked the job, and calling me back made me feel appreciated.
Never done it myself.
Remember being at a place back in the mid 90’s that had a very small number of employees and a very large number of contractors (which is what I was). They treated everyone like crap. They had a junior programmer who was severely overloaded and one of the few people who had been there any length of time (I’m thinking he had been there 2 years and not promoted?) and thus knew anything about anything. One of the consulting companies that got burned by the company poached him, offering $40k when he had been making a mere $25k, or something like that. It was a seriously big raise. Company offered double his original salary and a 2 or 3 level promotion to stay.
He stayed. For about 2 months. They still treated him like shit and piled a ton of resentment on top of it for being forced to double his salary to keep him, so he left for a consulting company who offered to match his pay.
Over the years I have heard similar stories of resentment and mistreatment from other people who took counter-offers to stay. It has always come across as a Bad Idea.
My husband has once. He ended up quitting again 10 weeks later.
Once, when I was still in high school. I turned in my 2 weeks notice at a retailer where I had worked for 2-3 years in order to accept an offer from another retailer. The wiser-than-I HR person talked to me about why I was leaving and suggested I take a one week vacation instead. That way I could try the other company and decide then. If I chose to leave they would not require an additional 2 weeks notice, if I chose to return it would be as if I had never left. Amazing offer, actually.
Good thing, too. I hated the other place (rent to own, required going into peoples’ homes to repo merchandise, people get seriously pissed off and violent when you come into their home to repo “their” stuff). Returned to the original employer and stayed another 7 years. I suspect the HR person knew how it would play out.
I left my last job for several reasons, including that I was not allowed to transfer into a department which would be a better fit for me (and which wanted me.) When I turned in my resignation they said that the transfer was now okay. I didn’t quite laugh in their faces, but I came close. Changing my mind would have been a big mistake.
I see that successful changes of mind are usually involved with a specific situation, not the entire environment being bad. I can see management correcting a very specific problem, but the company environment is not going to change no matter what they say.
My wife was working for an eye doctor. The doctor’s wife was what you might call the office manager. She liked to pick on her employees and embarrass them in front of patients and other co-workers.
One day my wife had enough and quit. She was kind of the lynchpin for the office and Dr’s wife pleaded with her to stay. She had already had decided to start looking for a new job, but to prevent any employment gaps on her resume, she agreed to continue working there 1 day a week.
It worked out well for her. She was technically still employed and she had plenty of time to look for another job. When she found another job and quit for good, the doctor’s wife was shocked. Apparently she actually expected my wife to come back to full time eventually.
She’s now much happier. She got a job working with an eye doctor who was just starting his business. She is his only employee and gets to run the office her way. Basically the polar opposite of the doctor’s wife at the old office.
Never a good idea. Even if they gave you a few carrots to bribe you into staying, they know you’ve been looking for other opportunities and will probably consider you disloyal. You’re at high risk of being “downsized” as soon as they can manage it.
So, keep looking. Use the increased salary they gave you as leverage to get an even higher salary out of your prospective future employers. Which you got, right? Because if they didn’t even increase your salary, then dear god why did you stay??
Loads of times.
Twice, in hindsight, I should have stayed. Three other times I took my resignation back, and in hindsight, I should have left.
Like Voyager said, if they fix the specific situation, stay. If it’s the whole environment, leave no matter what carrot they dangle in front of you. Just make sure you aren’t going into a worse situation for quick relief.
I’ve never done it and can’t imagine a situation where I would. If it is a minor, fixable problem, then address it before turning in your resignation. If it takes you quitting before any problem is resolved, then it’s not a place you want to work. Plus, as others have mentioned, you are forever on the radar as someone with one foot out the door. The company may now be looking to replace you only to keep you around so that there are no interruptions in your job duties. Also, it makes you look indecisive and weak; not promotion material.
Ok, well, I am a year from full retirement. They know my age of course, but I remain productive and have almost 25 years of institutional knowledge. I have not given them any timeline for leaving, nor do I see it in my immediate future, not even in the year. To my understanding I can take Social Security at that point with no reduction for working. That may not be correct, and I would welcome a clarification on that.
In essence, I created the job. They knew they needed someone for some things, but I have expanded the job’s parameters, and am truly, the only one there who can do many of the things they count on day to day. Just a fact, small family owned company.
There was no other job, I was in a position to be able to quit, and when it became an untenable situation, and when I could see no solution, I gave a 2 week notice. This after I attempted to discuss with my direct manager the new situation he had put me in, and he was unwilling to discuss, and honestly, quite insulting.
But I remain uncomfortable. And I suspect it’s for the reasons Charley speaks to.
I make a good salary, and love what I do. I do have the industry connections to probably find something to carry me into retirement. I did not ask for any kind of increase, and won’t.
Essentially, and briefly, they brought in a person out of nowhere, who was calling himself my “manager” without any notice to me, or discussion. This is what I tried to talk to my manager about. And was shut down. And basically, I rebelled. So we (the new person, my manager and I) are trying to “work it out” as they say.
So we have an uneasy peace.