Respectfully I disagree that this being a good example - when I quit I give two weeks (which sometimes I'm asked to just stop working today and take two week pay) or when they dismiss you like this video, they give you several week pay too.

Everyone says this as if it's not also considered rude/bad behavior for a company to lay off people with no notice. It's rude either way. Both employer and employee can opt to do it without the usual graceful phase out, but they risk backlash from other employees. Either team members getting a bad impression of someone leaving suddenly, or getting a bad feeling about the company after unexpected layoffs.

Perhaps this is a subject where no good options exist, and chasing a win-win solution is unfruitful and unnecessary.

Even worse, some companies will terminate you at some point during the (customary two) weeks before you quit, throwing off your schedule and potentially pay.

This needs to change, no more notice

Meh, in my view, this is sort of a "two wrongs don't make a right" situation. I don't want to leave without notice. Not for the company, but for me. Those final weeks are nice, useful. I can tie up some loose ends that have been bugging me, say goodbye to people, all that good stuff. And I keep getting paid during that time, for honestly very easy (low stakes and low stress) work. It's win win for me.

Of course I know the company might escort me out when I give notice instead of letting me serve out the time, and of course that would hurt my feelings, but when I regained my composure I would see that it reflects poorly on them, not on me, if they do that lame nonsense.

So I think it's really sad for companies (and also employees) that for whatever reasons they don't feel they can give notice in this same way.

But I certainly don't want to give up something that I value for myself, out of spite. That makes no sense to me.

I mean, you can do that. There's literally nothing stopping you except the opinion of your team of you. I generally give notice, not because I give a single fuck about the company, but because I like my coworkers and want to make sure I tie off my work before leaving so I don't make their lives harder.

Worker solidarity doesn't mean you fuck over capital any time you can, even if it makes your fellow workers' lives harder. The company cares way less about you quitting suddenly than your coworkers do. That's exactly why they don't care about laying people off with no notice.

You may get faux revolutionary warm fuzzies by quitting to screw the man, but you're probably screwing your friends more than your foes.

I prefer giving a notice but then doing absolutely no work besides chitchatting with the people I liked and planning my goodbye party, while still collecting a paycheck.

You can totally do this (within the bounds of your contract) but from a career point of view, it's not wise to burn bridges.

There's a lot of talk about "networking" to find jobs or opportunities (like your own startup or freelancing) but one thing networking means is building relationships with people you have worked with in the past. That doesn't mean sucking up, but just being known to be reliable and dependable makes you a safer bet if that person is in a position to hire or recommend you.

That manager or coworker you did a project with a few years ago might have moved on to another company and is someone you can reach out to. If you dropped out of a project mid-way without cause leaving them in the lurch, that's something they are going to remember.

Sometimes of course a job or project can be a nightmare and you want to have nothing to do with those people ever again, which is understandable. But otherwise I would try to be professional as possible and leave options open, and if that means giving your notice and coasting a few weeks, then do so.

> It's extremely asymmetrical, too.

I’ve lived a very different culture than you in the U.S. - to the degree I’m surprised to see you express this sentiment.

In days of yore, people gave notice. But then a meme policy of “don’t poison the well” did the rounds. Roughly, the philosophy went: when someone is leaving they can only do harm; they are leaving, they have a convincing reason for leaving, and you don’t want that convincing reason to sour your other employees on you.

The result was that, when you gave notice, you were immediately dismissed on the spot.

In my career, I’ve seen a few people give very generous (months) notice. They were expecting to be _paid_ for the period of time they’d given notice for. But they found themselves terminated that day.

The result, in my circles, is that people often hide their intention to leave until the day they’re leaving. When they send their notice, they’ve already quit. Any time they get paid for is gravy, but they’re out the door.

That's horrible and very different from what I experienced in Switzerland.

It's a concept in Swiss law that obligations are symmetrical, and the periods are quite long (three months, and not only for employment, but for other contracts as well, like renting).

If you are dismissed on the spot, you'll get three months of pay. On the other hand, if you give or are given notice, you are sometimes expected to continue work. This happened to me ten years ago. My employer expected me to explain to my coworkers how some things work during that time.

Looking back even I found that a bit strange because I understand the thing with doing only harm when someone is leaving. For example by leaving backdoors?

> Looking back even I found that a bit strange because I understand the thing with doing only harm when someone is leaving. For example by leaving backdoors?

I think the harm meant is more about spreading negativity to other employees who might be inspired to jump ship too.

> This happened to me ten years ago. My employer expected me to explain to my coworkers how some things work during that time.

Once I was asked to continue interviewing candidates after I gave notice, which seemed a little odd at the time (also in Switzerland).

It really depends on the company and why you are going. I gave 6months notice when I worked at Apple (FIRE) and slowly offloaded all my responsibilities. I documented many things for whoever would come in to replace me. They gave me a going away dinner and I still connect with former colleagues.

I left a shitty job with no notice, and still got a going away dinner! The key is to be a good coworker, not be an asshole, and try not to leave a total mess for the next person. Oh and don't work for psychopaths.

Which model do you think stimulates economic growth more? Which model could be said to give individuals more liberty?

Socialism and authoritarianism are treacherous ideas because they can seem so enticing in many contexts.

I don't think a required severance period for long term employees would have a notable impact on economic growth. And making it easier to give notice is good for individual liberty and the ability to change jobs when desired.

And while we're looking at the intersection of socialism, employment, and freedom, moving health care away from employment and toward the government would be a big boost to individual liberty.

What do you mean immediately dismissed? Like you don't have to go to work but still get paid, right? Or do they get fired? After they quit?

I took it to mean "fired", as in "today is your last day of work and you're not getting paid anymore".

"Dismiss" is a fairly common euphemism for "fire", like "let go".

Meaning they said "i'll work another 3 months, but I found a new job" and their current employment said "nah, today's your last day". I've seen it happen first hand.

Yep. I made that rookie mistake early in my career.

I gave something like 6 weeks notice at my last job and by mutual agreement spent most of that time doing presentations and updating docs to sunset my bus factor. The mistake isn't on the part of the worker who has the courtesy to minimise the disruption of their departure, it's the employer who poisons that well.

Of course, power dynamics being what they are, it's the worker who pays the price.

> "sunset my bus factor"

Completely OT: I absolutely know what you mean, but ugh, corporate jargon.

Personally I find "bus factor" to be one of the less egregious pieces of corporate jargon. It's a problem that mainly hurts the rank and file and is utterly irrelevant/invisible to management until it becomes very visible and we inevitably take the blame and eat the consequences. Learning to speak their language to communicate a very real problem is a key deliverable.

I do feel a bit ashamed of unironically using "sunset", although in my case it was more in the sense of "ride off into the ~". It was my last corp job (hopefully) ever.

Returning to add: the benefit to employers of acting like their (ex-)employees are human is that we finished off with a very friendly "if you're interested in coming back, the door is always open", and indeed during my time there I had more than one ex-colleague who became a colleague again. Often at a much higher level and salary bracket, tech promo being equally broken everywhere.

Isn't severance basically said notice? If you still receive pay and benefits for a period of time, it's almost like you're still employed while the company minimizes potential damage from laid off employees. It's also considered rude for companies to not provide severance in these sorts of jobs.

When a large company fires you, you usually get at least two weeks severance. This is better than notice. You get the notice and don’t even have to work.

When an employee quits, it’s expected they give two weeks notice.

This is rather balanced. Of course there’s the issue that you are 1/N * 100 percent of their workforce and they are 100% of your income.