So, I’ve given several two week notices throughout my career. Unfortunately, I recently had to give one over the phone instead of in person. I only report to one guy and he was on vacation. I could have just given it to HR but that would have felt scummy. I called him and gave him my notice then sent him a letter of resignation. Feels bad man. Anyone else ever have to give a two week notice in an awkward/unfortunate way?
I used to work as a cheapo part-time-on-paper software developer to pay for university. All devs in the company were student workers and the quality of the work reflected that. That clown show of a job actually took so much of my energy and attention that it delayed my thesis by two years. Yikes.
My boss was straight up delusional. Among his many bizarre ideas was the assumption that I’d stay on for about nine months after my graduation, obviously for the absurdly low pay I was making as a student. That arrangement would’ve worked out very well for him so he assumed I’d be all for it.
Unfortunately for him, I was already working out the terms of my employment with another company. On the other side of the country. Who actually employed real full-time devs for real market-rate pay. There was no chance I’d stay on for longer than necessary.
So I hand-delivered my written resignation, effective in two months – that being the legal minimum notice period based on my employment duration at the time. Boy, was he upset. He thought we had an agreement (that I never agreed to) and that I’d take as much time as needed to finish up that major project we’d recently started (because clearly that’s a reason to work for pennies).
Hell no. I did tell him I’d reconsider… if he beat the other company’s offer. That would’ve meant a 200% pay rise. Suddenly he was much more amenable to my leaving.
What country are you in? I’m not aware of any with any legally mandated notice time (mine is explicitly opposite–employment is “at-will”)
Germany.
The minimum notice time scales with employment duration (if the company terminates the contact) or is four weeks (if the employee quits). However, the contact can state a longer period; this is often done to make the notice time symmetrical. The notice period for the employee can never exceed that for the company. Usually, contacts can only be terminated effective at the end of a month so that can extend things a bit further.
At-will employment is not a thing in Germany except for informal arrangement like paying the neighbor’s kid to mow the lawn. Even during the trial period (a period of typically six months at the start of an employment where firing the employee is much easier) two weeks are the absolute minimum.
Sorry but that sounds so American. Are you USAmerican?
Because nearly every other first world country in the world doesn’t have at will, but rather worker rights to have a certain notice period.
It’s a common thing in employment contracts, its where 2wk notice comes from, but more valued positions can have longer notices. It usually works both ways except in certain circumstances. It may or may not actually be legal but if legal could supersede “at will” depending on the specifics.
Damn, so you tripled your salary, very nice.
Mind me asking what you’re making now?
I’ve changed jobs since then; these days I still do software but in the financial sector (which is a highly annoying sector since the problem domain is complex and unintuitive).
Back then I did almost triple my salary (more like x 2.5 but it routine taken triple pay to get me to stay) but that’s more reflective of how terribly the old job paid.
Alright, it’s okay if you don’t want to divulge. 🙂👍 Glad you got out of that bad situation in the beginning!
No, I misread (“do” instead of “make”).
I went from something like 25k to something like 50k, which still wasn’t impressive but okay for a junior-level dev. And vastly better than what I made before.
These days I’m somewhere north of 80k but monthly bonuses tied to company performance make it hard to give an accurate number off the top of my head. Depending on who you ask that’s either above or below average for someone of my experience level.
That’s very, very good. How much are you able to save of that 80 or so K? To give an estimate of the living costs of where you live? (I swear I’m not trying to dox you 😅)