Actually, when I was laid off from my last job, they told me a month ahead of time. Since we didn’t really have a lot of work to do, they basically paid me for the entire month and I never had to come in. And that doesn’t even count the 3+ months of severence I received.
But in general you are more or less correct. All you owe them is your 2 weeks notice. It’s not your problem to find and train your replacement. And I’ve found whatever goodwill the company extends you seems to evaporate once you give your notice. And most places won’t let you hang around for months after you give your notice.
I hate to say it but if they are forcing you to take your vacation time, just give your notice the day you get back. Chances are they may be so used to not having you around so they may just pay you for the 2 weeks and not have you come in.
I think that doing right by your employer, being assured of employment through your vesting date and leaving immediately after your vesting date are incompatible.
You can more or less pick any two, but all three just won’t work.
So which is most important to you? Departure date? Burning no bridges so that you can get good references during your job hunt? Getting that 401k vested?
I’m not sure that there is a right answer, but if your vesting date was some other time relative to your semester, I think that everything would work out more smoothly–there’d be less incentive to make you leave in the middle of a term, rather than let you work out a reasonable amount of notice and train your replacement.
The vacation time is really a red herring to this situation. Eliminate it completely.
So what happens if you came in around Dec 22nd, said “I’m quitting effective Jan. 5th. Here’s my two week notice” and they turn around and say “thank you for your services. We consider you officially resigned starting today.”?
Answer: you’re completely out the vestment or you’d better have been looking through whatever employee manuals you have at your disposal starting yesterday to see what rights have been granted to you.
Bottom line: if you tell them you’re quitting at any point prior to January 5th, there’s a possibility you walk away with nothing.
I’m just chiming in to agree with all of those who say do not tell your employer until the end of the day that you are vested. Absolutely do not imply that you are/might be leaving before then.
Consider that it is your employer that set this arbitrary point at which you become vested. Any problem that may arise is totally their making.
Here’s my personal anecdote. I was DBA for a large organization but I had been planning to leave for years. The December before I resigned I told my employer of my intentions. They begged me to stay till June of the following year to train my replacement. I agreed. By February, my employer was making unreasonable demands of me. The final straw happened mid-February. I thought, “screw this”, turned in a 2 week notice, and left. If you give an early notice, your employer WILL treat you differently.
I’m sure you know this. When the day comes, keep the resignation simple. You don’t owe them an explanation. If you feel the need to, you can give a verbal explanation to your boss. You didn’t make the rules. Offer only two weeks. I bet they’ll decline in favor of highering an adjunct. It would be only 2 days into the class after all.
Exactly.
You can offer them 2 weeks notice, but they don’t have to accept it, which means you could very easily be out the door before your anniversary date.
I say tell them on January 6, not a day before, and unless you’ve signed a contract that obligates you to work the full semester, don’t worry about that part of it.
I would caution you that in this area (DC 'burbs) hiring slows waaayyyyy down in the Dec-Jan timeframe. You may be well advised to work through mid-february and do your job-hunting here at that time.
Do not expect your employer to allow you to reach the vesting date if they can avoid it. Especially if they know they need another teacher for that semester, what reason could they use to justify keeping you on after the semester start? It would be irresponsible on their part.
To help your employer you can make your lesson plans more than usually compelte, and anything else which would make it easy fro someone else to step in. It’s not as if there’s a dearth of professors out there; they’ll find someone quickly.
I was going to say what Eureka said. You want 3 things and you can guarantee 2/3. Pick the one that’s least important to you and act based on that. Maybe you’ll get lucky and they’ll give you all 3. Personally, if I didn’t want to burn bridges, then I would just give up the vacation and give notice on 1/5. As mentioned they may just tell you to take off anyhow. But, I am not you.
I wouldn’t worry about them needing 6 weeks to train your replacement. Just make sure your course materials are in order so someone else can pick them up if need be.
I don’t know what the law says, but I’d think if a company suddenly decides they don’t need you two days before you are due to vest they would be on the hook for something.
If you quit, they don’t have to pay unemployment.
If they ‘get rid of you’ they do. So companies generally like people quitting.
If you quit, you get to decide the day you quit. They don’t get to say, “No! You are quitting today because we said so.” Just be sure to put a clear effective resignation date in your letter that is after the vesting date.
I also wonder if you could sue them for wrongful termination or something if they tried to screw you out of your vesting. It certainly would be easier for you to bide your time, but you could really make a stink for them if they tried firing you because you quit. From my limited understanding, companies will often kick out a quitter immediately upon quitting, but still pay the two weeks salary.
I think if you want to be sure you vest, you have to teach the full six week semester. I’d be very surprised if they let you work at all into the new semester if you give notice in advance that you’re not planning to teach the whole thing. And leaving partway through a semester, especially one that’s only six weeks long, would be kind of a dick move, IMO.
So, if it was me, I’d notify them the day after I vest that you’re not planning to teach any more after the current semester. If they can find someone to replace you mid-way, great, if not, you’ll be leaving at the end of it.
IANAL but I’d say that telling them you won’t be teaching a winter quarter that starts on 1/4 is a pretty solid reason to make 12/31 your last paycheck.
No, you don’t. Not beyond picking a day to TELL them you’re quitting.
Yes, they do.
That’s not how it works. The day you tell them you quit, you quit. You can offer notice, but they’re not obliged to accept it. If there’s some reason you staying on is convenient for THEM, they’ll generally work with you to establish a mutually satisfactory date of departure. In this particular case, there’s absolutely no benefit to the company for the OP to leave on the date he wants to leave.
Don’t be an idiot or a prick. Idiot- giving notice before you are vested. That gives them a legitimate reason to fire you, and you may lose your unvested money. Prick- Leaving in the middle of the semester. That will cause harm to your students and massive headaches for the administration.
The only intelligent and non-dickish option is to tell them after you are vested that you are leaving at the end of the semester.
Thanks to everyone for the input. I don’t like all the answers, but I think that’s just reality biting …
I should add one more bit of info – my lease is up in December, and my roommate is moving out. If I were to stay on for 6 weeks after Christmas, I’d have to pay for my full rent/utils for 2 more months … the extra $ in my 401(k) would barely be worth it.
But even if I give up on the vesting, I still want to make sure I get the two weeks paid vacation for Christmas. The one co-worker I’ve talked to (a close freind) said that’s accrued vacation time and they have to pay it … but I don’t know if that’s true or not.
I guess what it comes down to are some legal questions. Sachertorte says
But DianaG says he’s wrong. Anybody know for sure?
Actually, getting fired for quitting wouldn’t neccessarily be a bad thing, if it meant I could draw unemployment while looking for work in Virginia.
Again, thanks to all.
Option 2 is not only “Screw them”, it’s “Screw them and a bunch of other people who had nothing to do with the problem”.
Quitting in midsemester would be a seriously dickish move, and it would follow you for longer and farther afield than you might think. Suck it up and spend the six weeks acting like a professional. If your GF is worth waiting for, then she’ll think you’re worth waiting for too, right?
I don’t know about Florida, but at least in Virginia, you can be fired at any time for any reason (unless, of course, discrimination). I have seen cases here where people put in two weeks and work them, and also cases where people put in two weeks and were told they could go ahead and pack up their things that day (IIRC, it still counts as quitting, so you can’t get unemployment).
Either way, I have to agree with what most of the other people said. I don’t know how much money you’re talking about with vesting, but if you mention anything about quitting before the vesting date, you may very well lose all of it. And moreso, having a good record and not burning bridges is definitely worth a few weeks on inconvenience. So, I’d say wait until the 6th, let them know your intentions, and be prepared to suck it up for a few extra weeks. Hell, knowing that you’ll essentially be checked out for 6 weeks, I think it’s more likely than not that,they may not have a problem with you leaving that day or at least more quickly than you might expect.
Be prepared to be marched out the door the instant you announce you’re quitting. Some places like to have you stay a bit. Other places want your ass gone right then. They can usually get rid of you right then without consequences.
Yeah but this is not your only option if you want to stay the 6 weeks. You could ship your stuff to DC and find a buddy who’ll rent you his sofa. Or split the time among a few different buddies. Or visit the ‘sublets/temporary’ section on craigslist. Or stay for 1 month and spend the last 2 weeks at Motel 6.
Not saying this is the right choice, I’m just saying that it’s not necessarily a financial wash to stay the 6 weeks. I can tell you that your boss and coworkers won’t be any more understanding when they hear about your sticky rental situation.
I don’t know the law in your state, but I can almost guarantee that Diana is correct. If you say you’re quitting at X date in the future, the company has every right to say “thank you, but here’s the door. Right now.” It’s not a firing and you will not get unemployment.
