Or is it just a movie trope? Even high level position people will go like “I quit” and not come to work the next day without any repercussions.
Are there no rules that you have to give notice in advance x weeks? Won’t high level positions have a clause in their contract saying that they need to give notice a few months in advance or something?
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Of course we can. What would the ex-employer do? Fire me?
We don’t exactly send the cops after someone for quitting without notice, it’s not illegal. The only material repercussions would be a bad reference from that employer to your next, and in that case you just don’t list them as a reference.
Most States are “At-Will” employment. This means that you can leave on a whim, and that they can fire you on a whim (outside a few protected reasons).
Yes. There’s often no negative consequences for doing this.
I don’t know if it’s uniform everywhere in the US, but yeah, you can typically just quit on the spot, at least if you’re working a “job” rather than being in a career. If you’re leaving on good terms, you’d typically give a 2 week notice. It’s more of a professional courtesy. As far as termination clauses, I’d imagine you’d have to read that when you signed it, but I’ve never worked a job like that.
What are they going to do? The two weeks notice is a courtesy given to if I’m going to ask for a recommendation letter from them.
Every State except Montana is an “at-will employment” State. This means that either you or your employer can terminate the employment at any time for no reason.
It’s considered good form for an employee to give two weeks notice and for an employer to give two months (*edit* for layoffs), but there is no legal requirement to do so (*edit*: apparently two month’s notice is legally mandated for mass layoffs).
Employment contracts do exist in America, but they’re the exception rather than the rule (except Montana). As opposed to Europe (as I’ve gathered) where employment is more typically under contract
Unless you have a legally binding contract where you could be sued for X, Y, Z which are not the majority….Yeah. It happens.
You can, but most will traditionally give notice.
Yes, you can and I actually witnessed it. Guy had been working there for about 2 years. Nice enough but kept to himself. One day he went to lunch and never came back. Left his computer and everything behind. I’m sure it caused a major ruckus with his group and HR.
The only thing they can do is claw back bonuses or withhold additional compensation if you quit “early”. But yeah, no one can force you to work anywhere you don’t want to.
You can but it’s not very professional.
You can and I have. Especially if the management sucks. One time I had this boss when I was delivering furniture and he always came on deliveries and didn’t lift a finger. Just sit on his phone and watch stupid politics videos all day. Real dick, always saying racist jokes and just overall not a great guy. One day I texted my girl at the time to pick me up at a certain address as I was pulling up for a delivery and I just told him I quit and left with my girl. He had to unload all that stuff by himself 😂
giving two weeks notice is a courtesy, not a rule.
i recently left a job without giving two weeks notice. when i had signed paperwork at the start of the job, there was stuff in there that said I would only be paid out my “paid time off” days if I gave them two weeks notice. so it’s not a rule, but rather something that is negotiated.
quitting a job like that risks ruining your professional relationships and may make it difficult to get a good reference for your next job. the consequences are social and professional but not legal
Sure. I’ve done it twice at pretty big jobs. Other times I’ve given 6 weeks notice to give them time to find someone to replace me. I’ve never had an employment contract, though. They aren’t that common.
Most jobs in the US do not have an employment contract.
I’ve never had one that does. Jobs with an employment contract might have a required notification period as part of their contract.
I’ve walked off of a job with an “I quit”. I’ve also given 2-4 weeks of notices to employers.
In some jobs, if you give notice you will be thanked for giving notice but be told not to return to work and immediately terminated. Employees on their way out can be a risk so some companies have policies to immediately terminate people in certain positions.
Yea. I quit mid shift during my first day on my first job coz the manager was a dick and the work was unethical lol
The consequences for quitting like this are:
* You’re far less likely to qualify for unemployment insurance as your employer will fight your claim.
* This employer will not give you a positive referral, so you either leave them off your resume and have an unexplained employment gap or hope prospective employers don’t call them.
* You probably sour a lot of possible networking contacts, which may have unforeseen consequences. Who knows if Bob, who had to pick up the slack after you left, will work for a company you apply to in a few years? Would you want Bob as an ally or enemy?
* If the field you work in is in a smaller market, you possible get a bad reputation throughout that market, and it becomes hard to find another position in your current field.
Pretty much all employment contracts are at-will, and there aren’t really any financial consequences for quitting like this. There may some exceptions like if you signed a contract where the employer paid moving expenses or helped pay for a graduate degree, and as part of that contract, you were expected to work for them for a certain time frame. If you violate that contract, then you may be expected to reimburse the company some of those expenses.
This type of quitting is far more common in entry level jobs or unskilled positions where it’s not hard to go off and find a job of similar pay.
High level positions _might_, but the question is if they are enforceable via labor laws. Companies put stuff in employment contracts they can’t actually enforce all the time.
Not that that matters, as most people don’t _have_ high level positions.
You 100% can if you really want to burn that bridge. It’s good practice to give 2 weeks’ notice, but if a job is being particularly horrible to you, you can treat it bad right back and ghost them. You’d just need to be absolutely sure that doesn’t bite you in the ass if a future employer calls them as references.
Youre not a slave. Of course you can decide to not work anymore. What would that even look like? You don’t want to be there so you are forced to come in and play on your phone all day?
You can quit a job. It’s a terrible idea if you have a real career. That could be a career suicide move.
Yep, perfectly possible to do that. The only repercussions are professional (bad reference, refusal to rehire in the future, etc.) and social (if you try to get hired somewhere else you may run into someone you worked with and knows your reputation).
I actually saw this play out around 2009. My team lead got a call during the work day, talked for a bit and then just got up and walked out. Didn’t say anything to anyone, no goodbyes, nothing. We figured he was just going outside to talk on the phone. He left all of the company’s property and was never seen again. We find out later that the call was offering him a new job and he obviously accepted it. A few years later he was out of a job and was trying to get hired at the company he walked out on again (I still worked there and was the lead at this point). He had absolutely no chance. He wasn’t even given an interview.
The only good thing about our “at will” system. Not only can we say “I quit,” walk out, and never come back, we can also just stop showing up one day out of the blue, no word, no notice, nothing.
I’ve walked out on 2 different General Manager jobs. Faxed/emailed my resignation to the appropriate people, handed my keys to the next senior employee, told them they were in charge until someone with some authority showed up, and off I went.
2 of the happiest days of my life.
In my role, I oversee teams in several countries. Our western European teams are not allowed to just “quit and walk out” due to employment contracts. They also have to give extremely lengthy notices — 4 to 6 months in some places. Teams in Japan, Singapore, Canada and US can and do just up and quit.
Yes and it’s thrilling to do!! I’ve been a stay at home mom for most of the last few years but I got a part time job at Home Depot just for something to do. Well, they simply would not stop harassing me about selling their credit card to literally every single person which I felt terrible doing. So I just quit one day. Fuck em.
As others have said, unless there’s an employment contract (very rare here) then the overwhelming majority of states have “at-will”employment, meaning either employer or employee can end it at any time for any reason (as long as it’s not clearly discrimination or retaliation or something).
That said, it’s usually good etiquette to give at least a couple weeks notice. Otherwise the employer you’re quitting you might not want to list as a reference on future job applications as they won’t have good things to say about you. But if you had a truly awful experience and aren’t concerned about burning bridges then yeah you can just walk out.
Let me ask you something as I gather employment contracts are more normal in other countries. What are the repercussions if you just walked out? They take you to court? Fine you? Arrest you?
My former coworker’s record is 1 hour. He spent 1 hour at our company, said it was too cold, and quit.
Bro what do you think they’ll do the next day? Fire you?