I think the main thing that would determine the ethicality of taking the first job would be based on two things- if you expect to find a better job relatively soon, and if you deliberately deceive the first employer as to that fact.
To use a contrived example, if you need a job now to pay the bills, but you also know that in 9 months, you’ll likely get another, better job (graduating from college, getting certification, etc…). If you take a job for the interim 9 months and portray yourself as permanent to your employer, in order to get the job, that’s where it becomes unethical.
This really is just a variant on the idea that you’re being dishonest about your future status- it could just as easily be that you’re getting married in 9 months and plan to move abroad to live with your new spouse. The unethical part is the deception.
Now if you’re upfront about all of it, then there’s no harm or foul- they know what they’re getting into and can make choices appropriately.
When I got my first post-grad-school library job, I gave my boss (with whom I was on very good terms) something like 6 weeks notice in exchange for taking off every Wednesday of those 6 weeks to get stuff done (we were relocating). She regretfully accepted my notice, telling me, “I’m sure you know that standard procedure at this point is that I call security and have you escorted out of the building, but I can’t run the place without you, so I’m sorry to say, you’ll have to actually work out that notice.”
It wasn’t a problem, for me, because I hadn’t actually known at the time about standard procedure, and I’d made the offer in good faith.
I don’t accept the claim that an individual has an obligation to tell an employer about their future life plans. This is especially silly when businesses explicitly keep layoffs secret until they’re actually laying people off - the idea that it’s ‘unethical’ to exactly mirror what the other entity does makes no sense at all.
It’s even more absurd as it’s actually illegal in the US for a business to make a decision on what you’ll be doing in 9 months if what you’ll be doing is having a baby. The idea that it’s unethical to withhold information that it is illegal for said business to use to make a decision makes even less sense.
Why? They’re making a decision based on the assumption that you’ll be working indefinitely, and presumably investing some amount of time, effort and money into training you, as well as suffering whatever disruption slotting you into their organization entails.
If you know all this, and deliberately withhold the information that you expect to be leaving in some defined amount of time, then that’s pretty unethical. And a self-centered asshole move to boot. It’s the deceptive part that makes it unethical- just because it’s a company on the other end doesn’t make it somehow less unethical on your part. Would it somehow be different if you got into a relationship with someone for your own benefit, knowing outright that you are leaving in 9 months with no intention of retaining the relationship, and not being upfront about your plans to leave? It’s just as dishonest and deceptive.
Now if you are getting a job that isn’t ideal, and continuing to look for that dream job, that’s different. You’re not deliberately deceiving anyone- you may well be there 10 years if life gets in the way, or your dream job never comes around.
This sounds like you’re saying that a company is entitled to know your plans in the future. But you failed to address the direct and simple point - would the company refuse to hire someone who was trying to get pregnant and planned to have have a baby in the same 9 month timeframe you talked about? Because if so, that is actually explicitly illegal under US law, and I would say that avoiding sex-based discrimination is also ethical, so it’s unethical to. So, again, it appears that you’re saying that the company in question plans to commit both a legal and ethical breech with the information that they’re asking for. Are you asserting that it’s unethical to not provide a company with information that they legally and ethically are not allowed to use in a hiring decision?
Again, you haven’t offered anything to support your claim of ‘unethical’ other than just saying it. What is the basis for an ethical duty for an employee to inform a business of their future plans, and why doesn’t the company have the same ethical duty to provide the employee with the same information from its side?
The whole practice of referring to business associates as ‘family’ and trying to convince employees that they are supposed to treat a company like they would a completely different relationship is a manipulative scam. Personal relationships and business relationships are radically different, and trying to equivocate between the two is absurd. The phrasing ‘your own benefit’ is also weird - business relationships are two-way, if the company didn’t benefit from your work they wouldn’t hire you (and healthy personal relationships benefit both people).
AFAIK, you don’t get unemployment if you quit voluntarily.
I know of one company that won’t pay out PTO if the employee doesn’t give two weeks notice. I thought that was illegal, but either way it’s pretty shitty.
Worse than that. Some top managers let people keep recruiting even when they know a hiring freeze is imminent or worse, a layoff. People have gotten offers which got withdrawn. When I was doing college recruiting work once I had someone lined up with interviews with 3 different labs, all of whom backed out.
I understand the business reasons, but people have their own reasons.
Many companies have stopped doing training, and hire people with specific knowledge. Who they then get rid of when technology moves on. And no one hires out of the goodness of their heart. You make it sound like they are doing someone a favor, slotting them into the organization. They hire because they need someone.
The case in the OP is about not knowing you have another offer. Which presumably is better. You expect someone to give up money for this false sense of ethics? Saying “hah, hah. I’m leaving after a week because it’s fun” never happens. As for 9 months, no one knows that far ahead and if the job was really good someone might stay anyhow.
Mind explaining this? I’ve worked in places with quite advanced computers and that would be dumb. Some of the onboarding procedures were broken so it took forever to get a login, but that was not to protect our precious computers.
And this was specifically about taking a ‘bad job’ the kind of job were often you don’t even know if or how much you’ll be working the NEXT WEEK, much less nine months from now. The idea that you are only behaving ethically if you act like there’s a one-sided agreement for you to state any and all plans and possibilities in your future while the other side need not even tell you what days you’ll work a week in advance, much less if they plan to fire you in six months or nine months, is just silly. And, as I pointed out, explicitly illegal in some cases.
Just going off what someone told me about WalMart down in Arkansas they have some basic systems but their most advanced, they dont let employees learn it until they have been there awhile. I’m assuming other companies do the same.
That part I certainly agree with. Any employer who makes it sound like they’re doing you a favor by hiring you is full of shit. And if lots of people quit in a week or a month, they shouldn’t blame the people but rather look at the environment.
Okay. I can imagine that some tools you don’t get to use until you’re promoted into a position where you get trained on them. The term “advanced computers” threw me.
However, I’ve got bills to pay & if I don’t take the interim job, that’s one (more) week of no income. Besides in the OP’s scenario, the second new job offer doesn’t exist yet. It may come, it may not. Not taking that first job can really screw you if the second one doesn’t materialize.
If the new person had only been there one week, & presumably isn’t fully trained (maybe a cashier doesn’t know how to do a return, or a multi-payment (gift card & ___) yet. Would you bother to keep them on or just say, you can go, you don’t have to give two weeks?
I agree, but how would the former employee know? I’ve only ever been told I didn’t get the job, not the reason(s) I didn’t get a job.
Horse-manorse. There is overhead in hiring someone, both the time/effort/cost of filling out their paperwork, pre-employment drug screen, etc, & the reduced proficiency of existing employees in training new person. I wouldn’t hire your for a ‘real’ job if I knew you weren’t going to be around long; therefore, you’re shooting yourself in the foot by over-disclosing what isn’t necessary.
Generally speaking, if you quit (and are not arguing that working conditions, etc forced you to quit) you are not eligible for UC. IME many people apply anyway, arguing, “but I’m unemployed!”. I’ve had maybe ten people quit and apply, I’ve fought and won each time.
For me, a warm body is worth minimum wage. If you give two weeks notice, we look at a calendar together and figure out your last two weeks salary.
ETA: just realized I have no minimum wage employees and haven’t for a while. My entry level position pays $2 over current minimum wage per hour.
From an employer’s perspective it’s a bit annoying when a new employee jumps ship so quickly but it wasn’t unethical of them to do so. It’s not even unethical for them to take the position knowing they’re going to jump ship as soon as something better comes along. If an employer finds this happens often it’s probably because they’re not paying their employees enough. You can’t reasonably expect to keep talented people around if you’re unwilling to pay them decently.
Hell, no! Do corporations have the slightest bit of loyalty to their workers? If they can move their operations to, say, India, and get much richer doing so, they will deep six hundreds or even thousands of workers without batting an eye. You only deserve loyalty if you practice it yourself.
(Unemployment insurance differs between all 50 states, so what I’m saying is a generalization that I’m sure is not true somewhere.)
Unemployment Insurance is generally there to cover people who become unemployed “through no fault of their own”. For example, if you get fired because you don’t meet performance standards and there isn’t evidence that you’re just slacking or because you can’t pass a certification test, you’re generally eligible even though those are firing you for a cause. Quitting is usually considered your decision and so disqualifies you from UI. The only time it’s not is if there’s a specific exception; for example some states allow you to claim UI if you quit to follow a spouse’s job (especially military) or to care for a disabled relative. Most states allow it if you can show ‘constructive dismissal’, where the employer did something like cut salary, grossly change the job description, or made the environment unpleasant in an attempt to get you to quit rather than fire you. “Resign or I’m going to fire you” almost always counts as constructive dismissal.
So in this case, ‘you’ would definitely not be able to claim UI benefits based on this job, as you clearly chose to quit for your own reasons. In some states one week at the job might not be enough for them to qualify as your last employer for UI purposes, so whether you could claim would then depend on your last job (and in that case the one week job wouldn’t be involved with UI at all).
Nobody’s talking about pregnancy- that’s a bit of a special animal. We’re talking about accepting a job knowing that you’re going to leave in a relatively short and defined time frame without letting your prospective employer know ahead of time.
So it’s now ethical to lie by omission or lie outright, just because you’re talking to a company? What if the company’s a small business? Single proprietorship?
The point is that if you withhold that information, they’re not making an informed decision about hiring you, and you’re deliberately deceiving them in that way to get that job temporarily.
Wouldn’t you feel more than a little bit betrayed if the shoe was on the other foot, and the employee you diligently searched for, trained, and brought into your corporate culture up and left after six months, and you found out they planned to do so all along?
I’d argue that the company DOES have the same duty, if they’re hiring someone for a “permanent” position, but they know that there is a layoff/downsizing coming up in the near future that’s liable to impact this new hire.
Beyond that, just because someone else is unethical doesn’t affect whether or not what you do is ethical.
That’s not at ALL what I was talking about. I was using the relationship description as an analogy. It’s shitty to start up a “long term” relationship with someone just to get laid, if you know you’re going to bail on it at some not-too-distant time in the future, IF you don’t let them know ahead of time. That was the analogy I was trying to convey.
That person may think you’re prime marriage material, etc… and you’re stringing them along. That is effectively what you do to the company if you’re not making them aware of your plans.
And finally, there’s what’s ethical, and there’s what’s smart. I acknowledge that sometimes the ethical decision isn’t the smartest one in terms of maximizing what’s good for you.