Which was obvious from your OP.
At the law firm I used to work for, if the management committee didn’t think you had what it took to be named partner, they let it be known that you should start looking for a new job. They never actually fired you, but it was understood that you needed to leave, usually after securing a new job, which sometimes took 6+ months in some cases.
Better that than the firms that keep dangling the carrot despite them already having decided you have no chance.
OK, for personal experience:
2010: Fired for confronting boss about the fact that he was breaking employment laws: escorted off the promises on the spot. No severance or anything.
2022: Fired for making too many clerical mistakes: Since I worked remotely, I was told that my employment was ending that very day and I should mail in my laptop as soon as possible. I was given 4 weeks of pay as severance.
2025: Laid off due to budget cuts: Put on paid leave for 2 weeks, during which I didn’t need to do any work.
I have pretty much never voluntarily quit a job; was always terminated in some way.
My SIL was recently laid off by Amazon. He got 90 days pay + all accrued vacation time and the right to cash any options that vested within that time. In addition he got an hour appointment with some kind of employment advisor. He was not a stock picker but a programmer.
I was never laid off, but my first job after grad school was a 2 year limited instructorship so in a sense I had two years notice. Next position, I told my chair in December that I would be moving on after the spring term.
I’ve never been fired.
I have been laid off three times, but twice I was picked up by another department before my two weeks notice was up. Of course, each time I had to forfeit severance pay, because I wasn’t severed. Third time I was walked out of the building by a rent-a-cop and rent-an-HR-Admin. There were 5000+ folks laid off on that one day. I had three days notice inadvertently, because I worked in the department that initiated the recovery of laptops, pagers and cell phones (this was long ago) from terminated employees. And on Monday I was on a list of people whose equipment was to be recovered on Friday.
I don’t know that there wax ANY notice required in the six jobs that I have voluntarily resigned from. Three times I was walked out of the building immediately, the other three I worked out my notice period, which was 2, 3 and 5 weeks. The times I was walked out, I was going to a competitor of a consultant/vendor that might be working for a competitor. The time I gave two weeks was when I was transitioning from a contractor to an employee at the same firm. The time I gave five weeks, I was relocating and both they and I needed time to sort out a few things.
It is not uncommon, especially in IT to have the day you give notice be your last day; they pay you out for the two weeks notice that they just gave you, but as was stated above, they don’t want someone unhappy with the place to have access to screw things up on their way out because they own whatever keys to the kingdom their IT position grants them.
Have you ever heard of a gruntled employee? There’s lots of disgruntled ones but are any just gruntled? 
For an example of what can go spectacularly wrong when an employer lets an employee keep working after told they will be fired or demoted, the EgyptAir 990 flight is believed to have been deliberately crashed by the copilot as murder-suicide revenge because he’d been told just before the flight that he was being demoted due to misconduct, and the supervisor who had demoted him was on that very flight.
Many years ago I asked the head of HR in my company about this (we were on good terms).
She said they asked for two weeks notice to ease the transition (hand-off projects, wrap stuff up and so on). Presumably the carrot and stick there was being able to get good references in the future or them just clamming-up and not saying anything (which is a message other employers understand as code…you did not say anything that could get you into legal trouble so that is probably bad).
When they fired an employee security was waiting outside the door to escort you out of the building. The rationale being that person was now disgruntled and may be prone to some sabotage or cause some damage. They’d arrange a time in the future when personal things (pictures on the desk and their plant) could be collected. (at the time it was part of my job to revoke all their computer access logins once they walked into the room where they were being told they were fired)
It may not be fair but kinda makes sense.
I’ve never been fired, but I’ve survived several layoffs, and as mentioned above the people laid off left immediately so as there was no danger of messing with the files or stirring up trouble.
When I left places, voluntarily, it was variable. I left AT&T as part of the trivestiture. I took the very generous package as did about a third of my center. While there was 2 weeks between the day I had to say I was leaving and my final date, there was personal days I had to use or lose, so I was not around for most of that time. Vacation days I got paid for.
I gave Intel 2 weeks. They had a policy that, if you were going to a competitor, you had to leave immediately though they paid you. Which was stupid, because if someone was going to steal information they’d do it before they announced they were leaving. The level of managament brilliance was why I left.
I gave my last job months of time before I retired, though they didn’t believe I was actually going to leave. When I said it was time, I wound up working a day a week on full pay, though I did check my email. That went on for four months.
In one case when they stopped a big project they had a hiring fair for the people who were getting laid off. Most found other good jobs but I hired a really good guy from the pool. That was an enlightened company.
Which is wise.
Years ago I did some security consulting work on the side.
We had a client who had an employee give 2 weeks notice to go work for a competitor. Instead of paying the employee out and walking them out the door they let them stay the 2 weeks.
I bet I don’t have to give details on what happened.
I worked for a Japanese import company and twice there were foreign suppliers who set up their own Japanese subsidiaries to import directly.
Both times they hired employees from us, and in both cases bad things happened.
During the 2 weeks that our clients soon departing employee was there he downloaded sensitive files and made copies of internal documents.
It’s one thing if an employee is retiring or leaving to do a different type of work. But if they’re leaving to go to a competitor they need to be gone immediately.
Working in the UK, I’ve always had contractual parity in terms of notice. The typical employment contract has:
- A probation period, usually 6 months IME, where either party can give one week’s notice and part ways.
- Following that, a longer reciprocal notice period of between one and three months which applies to both resignation and termination of employment.
- A clause about gross negligence, misconduct etc. which allows the swift removal of employees who cross a line.
- An option for PILON - payment in lieu of notice, which allows the employer to get someone out the door quickly if needed, but with recompense.
If anyone’s been following the minutiae of Britain’s Lord Mandelson/Epstein scandal, you will have seen that Britain’s Ambassador to the US received a £75K payoff when he lost his job, a large part of which was a PILON, applied to get him out the door right the fuck now.
The power disparity comes into play in the length of the notice period in 2) above, which is set by the employer on a take it or leave it basis. When the job market is tight, jobs are hard to come by and the employer feels they might need the option to cut staff to save costs, the notice period is short. In times of growth and expansion, when rival companies are hiring and staff can easily find alternative employment, the notice period is long.
I once gave a company two month’s notice. It was at a game studio, and I was the only vfx artist on the project. I was growing increasingly dissatisfied- the head of the studio had hired his friend to “make the game look next-gen”. The guy was completely unqualified- to this day, I have no idea what he actually contributed to the project. He became very much a micromanager- I remember one day he literally sat behind me to dictate while I was building an effect. I was so angry I was shaking.
At that I’d been working on the project for about two years, so I started looking around for a new job. I then got an offer for my dream job- which entailed moving all the way across the country. I told my current employer that I’d accepted another offer, but I told them I’d stay to help them wrap up the game (also, this would give me time to pack and prepare for the move).
Two months later, I finished up my final work and moved.
The game came out about a month later, after I’d moved. I bought a copy (because they didn’t even give me a free copy of it). I discovered that they not only hadn’t given me any credit for my work on the game, they’d actually given all of the credit for the VFX work to the guy who had inspired me to quit the job. I know for a fact that he didn’t even know how to use the tools I’d used- so at best he’d tweaked the colors of some of the effects I’d built. I’m not sure he even did that, though.
That was the last time I was ever nice to a company I was leaving. I’ll give two weeks’ notice, but honestly- at that point I’m just phoning it in.
Never been fired, laid off once. Christmas eve was to be my last day. That pissed me off. Chistmas doesn’t mean that much to me but come on
I managed to leave before that and still get unemployment.
I worked for 33 years at my next place of employment. I gave them 3-4 months notice. The writing was on the wall. Projects can take years to develop, and I was gonna retire. They restructured when I left, my position went to a different department where it was better suited for database developement.
My old boss, who was the CFO of my business unit, made an awful mistake that almost cost the company big money. After a week or two of trying to contain the fallout, he tendered his resignation, dated a good month or so out, so that he could transition the duties of CFO to others. They handed him his cardboard box the next day, and the unit had basically no CFO for 6 months.
** He, and others, fell for a fraudulent change of bank details from one of our key suppliers. Personally, I think it was due to him being overworked and overpressured from head office, being responsible for too many things and projects at once, but it was undeniably a mistake that he shouldn’t have made. It was caught early enough that the payment could be stopped and (eventually) returned.
In my experience, when I’ve been at a company with layoffs, or have been laid off myself, it’s usually one week per year of service for normal layoffs, longer if there’s going to be a plant closing. I volunteered for one layoff and I think I got ten weeks pay, with around 5 or 6 years of seniority. At another firm, they decided to close our division and I got six months pay having been there less than a year.
Two weeks to one month notice would be normal at my current company, although for some roles, if you resign, you have to leave immediately even though you’ll still get your notice period in pay.
Firing for cause would be different, although for senior people, they will likely get some kind of package in return for signing various non-compete and non-disclosure agreements, in order for the company to avoid getting sued. I imagine a very junior person who was fired for cause would get nothing.
I’ve been laid off 3 times in my career. The first time ISTR they kinda sorta wanted me to keep working the final 2 weeks, but everyone told me as long as I showed up for a few hours each day nobody was going to report me. I do remember my final day I had to go to every department where you could sign out tools, documentation, books, etc. to get them to sign off that I didn’t still have anything actually signed out. This was a large aerospace facility, so this took a few hours, and I wound up visiting departments I didn’t even know existed.
Second layoff they said I was done at the end of that day, I said my goodbyes, packed up and left. I think my severance was 4 weeks pay. Definitely more than 2 weeks pay.
Third layoff they shut down my entire department. Again we left that day. Severance was based on length of service. I had been there over 10 years, so mine was pretty substantial, far more than 2 weeks pay.
I recently took early retirement (in the UK). Same rules applied if I had left for other reasons:
I needed to give 12 weeks notice (I actually gave more and worked with my manager for the best time to leave which ended up being about 6 months). The actual rule is 1 week per year of service with minimum of 4 maximum of 12. The same notice applies if my employer made me redundent (or payment in lieu).
For redundency I would also get a redundency payment the calculation for this is based on salary. There is a legal minimum based on age and length of service I would have been due £21570 if they made me redundent (though employers sometimes offer more to get voluntry redundencies), this is on top of any payment in lieu of serving notice.
Rules for being fired are different but it rarely happened in my company.