A reader writes:
I’ve read your advice that two weeks’ notice before quitting is the professional standard, because it “provides time for you to wrap up projects and transition them to whoever will be covering them in the interim.” In general, I agree.
But what about in situations where you couldn’t possibly “wrap up” anything with two years’ notice, much less two weeks? And there is literally nobody who could possibly cover your job duties? Imagine your usual bad company, where they hire a lot of staff in the wrong positions and never enough in the critical ones. Where there ends up being one, solitary, guy who maintains all the critical infrastructure, despite years of begging for more help. Who’s been on-call at all hours of the day, 24/7/365, for a decade. (Vacations? Hah! What are those?!) Where the pay and benefits are mediocre at best. Where the boss never gives a damn about you or the miracles you perform every week to keep things working … unless something breaks and then it’s all your fault. The usual B.S. And of course, it’s not like they would try and do much to fix things in that two weeks, either. They’ve ignored you for a decade; they’re not gonna see the light now.
So why not just say “I quit!” and walk out the door at that point?
I mean, there’s always the delight of the schadenfreude as a balm for the abused soul. But there’s also just getting out before you go entirely mad, too. And why subject yourself to two weeks of passive-aggressive victim-blaming at that point, either?
What factors would you consider acceptable or unacceptable to help make that decision to go full Joanna over your flair?
You should give two weeks notice because it’s the professional convention and it’s generally considered a bridge-burning move not to.
There are some exceptions to this:
* If circumstances make it impossible — for example, you need to leave immediately because of a health issue, family crisis, etc.
* If your company has a track record of having resigning employees leave immediately and not paying them for their notice periods.
* If you’re very new to the job. Sometimes in that case it will still make sense to offer two weeks if they want it, but not always. (More here.)
* If you’re not being paid and it’s not a volunteer job.
* If you’ve been egregiously mistreated. The bar for this is pretty high, though; the stuff in your letter probably wouldn’t qualify. (In contrast, here’s an example of a situation that did.) The problems in your letter are a reason to leave, but not a reason to burn the bridge by not giving any notice.
If you leave without notice just because you’re annoyed and fed up … well, you’re still allowed to do that. But you should be aware that you’ll be burning the bridge. You might think you don’t care about that, but it’s something that’s highly likely to come up in future reference checks (formal as well as informal ones) and a lot of employers will get alarmed by that. It can also get you marked as ineligible for rehire, which also concerns reference-checkers. You might even find it affects how coworkers see you, not just your managers; even people you consider allies can be less likely to recommend for you for a job later on if they’re uneasy about how you left.
Typically, when you’ve stuck out a situation like the one you described for years already, it’s in your best interests to just deal with two more weeks of it so that you leave on decent terms. Two weeks is nothing, particularly when you know you’re on your way out and don’t need to care about any of it anymore.
Your point that your company won’t use those two weeks to transition your work doesn’t change any of this. Because again, it’s about professional convention. We can say that convention sucks and should change, but it’s still the convention for now and if you flout it, it can come with repercussions. It doesn’t matter if we think it should or not; for now, leaving with no notice without one of the reasons above still reads as an F-you.
You might decide that you want to deliver that F-you, and you’ve considered the risks and are willing to accept them. If so, so be it! That’s your call. But go into it with your eyes open about the potential consequences.
