Timnit also shared a number of tweets, which you can easily access via the one you referenced, where she quotes from the email that Google sent her in response to her ultimatum.

They accepted her resignation and brought her finish date forward. They cited her message to the brain group as reason for doing so (without the resignation I suspect she may have faced some disciplinary action, though whether it would have gone as far as firing I don't know).

They clearly weren't happy with the content but, beyond that, if somebody is pissed off enough to write that the kind of message Timnit did then, by making them work their notice period, you only invite them to cause more trouble whilst they're still part of the organisation. You therefore bring forward their leaving date and make their resignation effective immediately.

When you do this it's about mitigating risk to the organisation. Commonly I've seen it done with salespeople in certain sectors, where when they resign they are escorted from the premises and access is revoked as part of minimising the risks that they'll take clients with them to their next role (particularly if they'll be working for a competitor). Still, any situation in which continuing to have an employee around represents a significant risk to the organisation is one in which you might ask them to leave immediately.

Google already had a mess to try to clean up with the brain group as a result of Timnit's message to that group. They probably didn't want any new messes to deal with, so they asked her to leave immediately to mitigate that risk.

Btw, I'm not advocating for Google here: I'm just looking at this in terms of, "What would I as a manager do in a circumstance where an employee has set out conditions of an ultimatum for their continued employment that I am unable or unwilling to meet?"

No-one knows fully without seeing her employment contract.

But having worked at many companies similar to Google in similar roles it is not normal for (a) contracts to not have notice periods and (b) for companies to not honour them.

And IP-flight risk is a concern for many roles but it's typically handled through legal channels as we've seen with Uber.

> it is not normal for (a) contracts to not have notice periods and (b) for companies to not honour them.

Nobody's talking about the contract not having a notice period, much less about not honouring the notice period. I'm talking about (metaphorically these days) getting you out of the building and stopping you from potentially causing damage.

I'm not sure about the US but here in the UK your notice period will still be honoured because you will receive the salary you would have received had you continued to work through that notice period even though you are no longer able to do any work for the company (i.e., "gardening leave" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_leave).

I don't know what Google's severance policies are, and particularly with regard to remuneration for severence period (they will certainly vary by country/region though), so this situation might be different. Nobody's explicitly said whether or not Timnit will be paid some standard notice period (though reference is made to her final paycheque in the email she quotes where her resignation is accepted). No doubt an organisation as large and complex as Google has some policy that covers these circumstances that they will follow.

As I say, here in the UK, if somebody's resigned it's perfectly OK to ask them to stop working before their notice period is up (which might include revoking access to email and other company systems), as long as you pay them for the whole notice period. Doing work on behalf of the company and getting paid are two separate issues under these circumstances.

The effective date of a resignation is when the employee is officially no longer employed. Not when they're put on gardening leave. Google doesn't pay people past the effective date normally.

Thank you. That's helpful to know and clearly illustrates the difference in practice across different countries (they wouldn't be able to do that in the UK unless it was a firing).

I think the difference is more phrasing than practice. Both countries require paying employees for the notice period when they resign. That's why people are saying she was fired.

>contracts to not have notice periods

All the employments contracts I've seen were along the lines of "you may give notice of x day which we may refuse" and "in case of termination we give notice according to laws (2 weeks)" or something iirc. If she resigned it's pretty usual for the employer to be able to waive the notice period.

Unilaterally changing the date would make it a termination.

And further down that thread:

> I need to be very careful what I say so let me be clear. They can come after me. No one told me that I was fired.