Tell Us Your Best and Worst "Two Weeks Notice" Stories

I had worked for a company for 12 years. I was one of the more successful managers, and was a trainer for other managers. Then long term upper management all quit within a month. "Won't affect me," I thought, "I'll just keep working hard and producing like normal." "Wow, they are even having me train my new boss, what a great opportunity!" Yea, I was a bit naive back then. Soon, all of the numbers that I've attained- my numbers which previously set the high bar- were not good enough. Mediocre managers were getting praised for their terrific numbers, and you didn't have to look to hard to see that they were being fudged. The numbers were showing they were doing better while the business was getting worse. The new boss turned a blind eye and kept pushing me to be "more like them." Finally he threatened to remove me from my position if I didn't fall in line like everyone else. I gave my notice on the spot. I learned shortly after I left that they were selling off my whole division. They were inflating the numbers to drive up the sale price. 
 

I learned my lesson and gave myself 1 year at my next job. If I wasn't completely satisfied, I'd leave. I liked the job, but I was doing too good too fast. The company had some major issues, so it was easy to stand out, but I should not have been doing so much better than my other managers so quickly. And rather than let me use my sales growth  to build my business, they used it to cover for underperforming managers. So on my one year anniversary, I found another job and I put in my notice. They tried hard to keep me- offering raises, relocate wherever I wanted, etc., but my mind was made up. It wasn't a good fit for me. They kept calling and making offers to get me back over  the next couple months. A few months after I left, I got a final call to try to get me to come back. They said they had a check for me. I told them I shouldn't have a check, I left months ago. They said it was my final bonus check, I had contributed to the results so I deserved it, come get it. I think they were trying so hard to get me back, they never officially terminated me. Since I was still on the payroll, I got a bonus check for a quarter that I didn't even work in. 

slefain said:

Inside there was...nothing. The desk was cleared, the computer was wiped, and all the management paperwork was gone. Frank had spent DAYS grinning like a Cheshire cat feeding the shredder constantly.

I picture Frank in some significant legal (and subsequently finanacial) trouble... If he didn't, he should have.

Most of my transitions have been uneventful.  But my first job out of the military I was running a Service Desk for a dot com startup.  The software they wanted me to use in the role was, in my opinion at the time, crap and I said so.  They told me to expense any courses I needed to learn it and improve it, with the caveat that it would lock me into a 1 year contract or pay back the cost of the courses if I left before 1 year.  So I went for what we called the $20,000 t-shirt, because it was an expensive course that ended with a t-shirt and a very exclusive certification.  In fact I was in the first class of independent certification, it being previously only available to employees of the software company.    

Many companies were eager to have independently certified experts in the software and I guess my results from the course were noticed by a few consulting firms.  I was aggressively pursued by one company who was embarking on a very interesting application for the software in which I wanted to be involved.  It didnt hurt that they were offering to over double my salary.  Meanwhile our director was asking for some very odd metrics and each time we provided them he said it wasnt what he wanted.   In hindsight he was trying to skew the numbers to make a business case to outsource our whole department but without skewing the metrics he couldnt do that.  

It came to a head in a meeting wherein said director berated one of my employees publicly calling him an idiot for not understanding what he wanted, although the employee had done exactly as he asked the results just didnt meet his expectation.  Im sitting there realizing the only thing keeping me from this dream job is the 1 year promise on my certification payment and realizing that I was only obligated to pay it back if I quit....not if I was terminated.   Cutting this story short, I was terminated, with extreme prejudice, and started my new job the next week :)   Within a month the directors goals became appearent as they laid off most of the IT support department to outsource them and within a year the company closed its doors.  So, I think it worked out ok.   That certification kept me well employed up to and including my current role although I've long since stopped working with that software in my current company.

I once worked at a place where they decided to outsource my department. The way it went was: You can go and work for the company that we're contracting to do this. You'll make less money, and worse benefits OR you can choose not to. If you don't, you can't collect unemployment, etc. New contract company will keep everybody that transitions for at least a year. 

I went to work for the contracting company. I didn't have much choice at the time.  Eight months into it, and they've been interviewing *hard* for more people... overseas. I get a notice that my last day is about 4 months plus one day out. I get a bonus of 1/10 my salary if I stay and help train people. I start looking around and find another place to work. Some others get the same notice, and also start looking.

After about a month, they've been interviewing candidates hard, but none of them are a good fit. It's taking a while. This creates an issue, because they haven't been able to fill the positions *and* the client (my previous employer) starts throwing a fit because they get wind that the overseas people aren't going to be able to perform as well as we were. The lines of business are already unhappy with the outsourcing. It's been causing some issues and friction, and my team handles one of the key, customer facing systems and have to get and deliver requirements from the business all the time. 

New place backtracks. Oh, wait, we're not making you redundant, hah, hah, silly us. Just ignore that. Hah, hah, ha. Turns out we need y'all because what you do is really specialized. Yeah, nah, go berkeley yourselves sideways. You're obviously trying to shift operations overseas. You weren't able to right now, but y'all will, eventually. Or, you'll bring in some new hires, get us to train them and then tell us to walk. I get it. You're paid X to do the work now, and we're expensive resources that eat into the bottom line.

I get an interview at a decent place and am offered the job, the catch being I have to start in two weeks or sooner. I negotiate a signing bonus equal to what the last place offered as a retention bonus, plus a raise. I put in my two weeks notice. They do the song and dance for a while, and eventually the head of my division offers me x more to stay. It's less than the retention bonus if I keep working there. 

I point out that I'm already walking away from more money than they're offering me, that they've already tried to eliminate me once and I really don't see any point in continuing employment there.

Epilogue: 
A few months later, the place I left makes the news for a huge outage during their peak time of the year, which caused a cascade of problems that took them months to figure out. If they'd maybe kept the people that knew how everything worked in the first place, they could've avoided that and probably saved more money over a number of years than they during the outage. Their reputation takes a hit. It's hilarious to me. 

Eventually, that outsourcing firm is kicked the the curb. They go through a few more in the coming years. 

A few years later, I see that they're looking for people to bring that specific operational functionality back in house. I literally *cackle* and submit a resume. They call me up and ask me to do a 6 hour interview. I say "Nah, remember when y'all got rid of me the first time? Should've probably kept me, huh? Also, a six hour interview is ridiculous. Do better."



 

I've had some interesting exits, as a teenager I was bouncing from job to job, I tried a factory job once due to good hours and what seemed like crazy pay. It was awful, I made it through the first day but at break time on the second morning I went to the supervisor and turned in my tool and said, "I won't be back after break" and left. The place I worked 15 years ago was a small specialty contractor. I had worked there for about two or three years when the owner and the person I thought was his business partner have this huge blow up and the partner leaves the company. The owner totally blames other guy, he's a cheat, thief and a liar on and on. Fast forward six years and I get invited to lunch one Friday afternoon. Boss tells me business is down, they need to make some adjustments which include cutting some commissions and perks. Tells me he hopes it is temporary but tells me I should probably start looking for another job. I had been there almost ten years at that point and it was a nice job for the most part. I tell him at lunch that I will stay on and ride through the tough times with him. He thanks me and all seems good, I'm just losing a little money, not a big deal. That weekend I am at a cook out and run into a mutual friend Mike and he mentions he had seen my boss on Friday night at the bar. Seems the boss told my friend he was going to be laying me off soon. With that information, I got a new job and when I turned in my noticed he flipped out. How could you leave me like this? You said you would stay! I've taken such good care of you all these years, what happened? I replied, I ran into Mike over the weekend, and he face went white, it was priceless. Icing on the cake, I ran into the former"partner" shortly afterwards and now work for him, turns out the former boss was the real thief, liar and cheat.

At one point my dad and I worked for a bunch of different companies. There was a boom and concrete finishers were at a premium so we ended up working for like....14 companies over 5 years while being constantly headhunted by everyone else. Since we worked together it was literally a finishing crew all in one and we were great at it.

One guy hires us for this sub development and it's instantly very apparent that if we didn't work for him he would have never been able to pull it off. We knew it, the super knew it and most importantly he knew it too......and couldn't handle it 

So one day he calls me, tells me that his other finisher has been up for a week and literally just fell asleep on the knee boards and can't be woken up. He tells me that I need to drive an hour out of my way and bail him out. It's 2:15 and our day is done at 3.  He refuses to pay travel time and overtime, which is why I never work overtime or travel during a work day. He tells me that if I do it though, "....I can get you your paycheck because I ain't driving over there" and goes into a little tirade about how we work for him etc

I told him this verbatim " You seem to be mistaking our relationship here. You are a walking ATM to me and if you aren't here by 3 with our money, I will take this job from you ". The super  hated him and literally called him " That penguin looking berkeley" to his face and to anyone that would listen and/or was within earshot. He loved us because we did our job well and caused zero issues.

After I hung up on the boss I walked over and had a talk with the super about what was happening. He literally pulled out his company checkbook, wrote us and a third guy helping us a check for our wages plus another couple dollars an hour. Said if we didn't get paid by our boss, just cash these and see you Monday. While this is happening my phone continuously rings. We cleaned up the tools and sat in the shade.

2:58 he comes roaring into the jobsite and runs over to us with our checks. The super comes over and curses him out about being such a sorry ass penguin looking piece of E36 M3 that he couldn't even wait til after 3 so it made everyone's life better. Tells him that if we don't get a raise, he doesn't keep the job.

After absorbing a serious amount of abuse, the super was a Navy guy and cursed like well....a sailor, our boss asks him for his check.

Super told him to stop by Monday at 2:45 and he'd see if he gets his check, waves at us and tells us to have a good weekend, walked to his truck, and left.

I didn't last at that job much longer, but he never even tried any bullE36 M3 ever again

Quitting UPS was the weirdest. At the time I was doing construction from 8-430, classes from 6-8, then went to UPS from 10-2. Long days, do not recommend.

In my second week I put my knee through the bottom of a trailer but had to cover it up to not screwup the injury free streak. Whole time I was there I was getting yelled at by people because I didn't load fast enough while also unjamming the belts on our row. I finally just said berkeley it and left during break after about a month.

Fast forward a week. Around 5 I get an exit interview sounding call. That night around 9 I'm heading out to go fishing and there's a car blocking my driveway. Dude sees me and walks up. It was the berkeleying shift supervisor trying to drag me back to work. I politely told him to leave.

Never had that before or since. Kinda freaked me out. 

One place I worked was so bad that one of doctors before I got hired picked up her purse, left for lunch, and never came back...on her first day. 
 

My first position out of vet school was mostly doing mixed animal practice, horses cats and dogs mostly. I was on call a lot and we covered a large portion of about five counties. The case load was impossible to manage. They would schedule me for back to back calls that were a 40 mile drive apart, keep adding more calls throughout the day and often tack on more at the end. I got almost no support, was literally on emergency call my first night in practice. 
 

One night I walked in the house at ten PM. Mrs FD warmed up my dinner, and when she set it in front of me I said that if I could just get home by ten every night it wouldn't be so bad. 
 

I ate, showered, settled into bed, and ten minutes later the pager went off. Filly with colic, an hour away. It was fifteen minutes from where I had been at my last call, and of course they said, "we waited as long as we could."

I'm six feet tall, I got down to 142 pounds and developed a heart arrhythmia in five months. I quit soon after. I'm too professional to go for a dramatic exit, but my mentors at the vet school knew how they were treating me, and word got around through the classes after mine.
 

It took a few years before they could entice another new graduate to come work for them. 
 

I'll save the next one for later. 
 

In 1996 I was a Sous Chef at a place called Sweetwaters in Burlington, VT. Kind of a higher end locally sourced restaurant (Ben and Jerry would swing in with their new flavors). 

I got a call from a couple of good friends who asked if I wanted to work in the Carribean, I told them I'd be there in two weeks. I gave my notice that night and started a 4 year adventure in paradise.

preach said:

In 1996 I was a Sous Chef at a place called Sweetwaters in Burlington, VT. Kind of a higher end locally sourced restaurant (Ben and Jerry would swing in with their new flavors). 

I got a call from a couple of good friends who asked if I wanted to work in the Carribean, I told them I'd be there in two weeks. I gave my notice that night and started a 4 year adventure in paradise.

Sweatwaters no longer exists. They closed and now there's an Italian restaurant in there, Pascolo. I'm looking at it right now.

Not a 2 weeks notice story but sort of related.

My first off the farm job was bag boy at the big grocery store.  We all got raises at the same time & my co-worker, Clayton,  & I got 5 cent raises vs.  dime raises for some of the other bag-boys.  We discussed this and decided I should ask the boss, Mr. Turner,  about it.  I went to the boss and told him what I'd heard about the difference in raises and asked him if there was anything I could improve to get the higher increase.  His was reply was that it was none of my berkeleying business what anyone else was making and fired me.

I walked up the sidewalk to the drug store & immediatel got a job as a soda jerk.  Within a few weeks, I'd started working on the sales floor, mainly stocking shelves, helping customers etc.   One day Mr. Turner's wife came in & dropped a bottle of vitamins & a package of norforms into her purse.  I told the store manage & he told me to just hang around the cash register & if when she came through & didn't pay for them, ask her to pay.  I told the manager that I really thought she should be charged with shoplifting & that if I needed to go to magistrate or to court on my own time, I would.  He told me to go ahead & call the police.  I did. They came & arrested her.

I ran down the sidewalk to the grocery store & shouted at the top of my lungs,  "Mr. Turner, Mr. Turner,  you need to come to the drugstore right now because the police are arresting your wife for shoplifting."

Watch this space. I got a doozy about to happen. Just need to get one of the three companies interested in me to get off their asses and write the offer.  

In reply to Fueled by Caffeine :

Can't wait! Good luck!

No Time said:

In reply to Datsun240ZGuy :

That's always been my approach, only say positive things, thank them for the opportunity, and shake hands on the way out.  

It's amazing how small the world is, and how common it is to see people you know when joining a new company. Additionally, the number of informal discussions that take place with applicants and hiring managers based on who you know or where you work(ed) is eye opening. 

You may never even know about it, but if you work in an industry long enough there is a good chance you've had one of those conversations or been the subject of one  

 

I had a service manager call the shop at close to midnight on Sunday saying he was quitting effective immediately because he got a job as the GM at a new dealership that was opening.

He utterly screwed himself by doing that... this is a small industry and everyone knows everyone else.

I've walked out of two jobs without notice; both were the first or second day I was there and both looked like I was going to end up by myself with no training. I'll do anything if I am trained to do it. 
 

First was a vending machine route; it looked pretty good but let me tell you that's a job that the good routes are well wrapped up. The second one was my first good management job; I'd been a department manager for sears for awhile and they offered me a job at the distribution warehouse running a shift; I was a 20 year old and the money was astoundingly good back in 99 or whatever it was...like 60k good. As I was walking in for the first day the manager on the shift before me was walking out and said "good luck". At first I thought that was nice of him; then I discovered the going thing was for the shift to call off anytime a new manager was hired to show him who was boss. Yeah, not playing that. I called the DM and said this is not what I signed up for. He said I'd have to do it all; really? I had filled in a few times but had zero idea what I was doing. If I didn't hold down the fort I wasn't going to be able to go back to my department head job yada yada yada. I shrugged, said ok and left. I felt bad for about a day til KMart called me to do the same job at their new warehouse in the same town. I realized that this was a known thing and money doesn't make the job. 
 

Oddly, I don't think I've quit any other jobs; I either outstay my welcome or the company gets devoured and downsized. All good, my last two jobs account for 25 years of my work history.

I got laid-off from a job, but was never told.

I was out the day they announced layoffs. Went in the next day and nobody said anything to me. Nobody from HR stopped by, no messages from my manager (who was traveling that day). Organizational announcement gets sent out company-wide around 11am and my name's not on it (but other folks from my former group were). Went to the HR Director and asked if I had been laid-off and his response was, "I guess we screwed-up that one."

Ya think?

Had a couple weeks after that to see if I could find something else in the company, but the whole experience made me just want to leave. Good severance package, though.

nlevine said:

I got laid-off from a job, but was never told.

I've been downsized twice out of jobs. Sadly, the one time was my favorite job. The company decided to leave our state with pretty much zero notice. Emailed the entire staff on a Friday around noon and told us in about two months we'd all be done. Even managers had no idea it was coming.

I had another job in about an hour. I thought myself brilliant for my incredible networking skills.

Except it was, by far, the worst job I ever held. And that's including the one where the manager threw an exhaust pipe at my head because I placed something on his counter space.

Twice I sat in my car at lunch, debating if I should just start up and drive away. But my moral conscience wouldn't let me. I still curse it. 

Okay, so not a great story. But it sure taught me to choose your employers carefully.

Meanwhile, I'm currently still hoping I get an offer from an interview I had a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, I'm old and expensive, so I am not feeling positive vibes. Leaving my current employ would mean shocking my manager, who is actually a friend.

I've got one from the other side.

I hired a tech, who came with a lot of stories.  Oil field adventures, ex wife drama, all sorts of just about believable stuff.  One day, I had him collect a part from the GM store just down the street.  He was gone quite a bit longer than I would have expected, but I'm used to that.  He went back to work, went for lunch, and didn't come back in the afternoon.

The next day, his toolbox is gone, the shop key is in the mail slot, and there is a note explaining how he went by his ex wife's place to see their kid, and her new guy was there, so he beat him up and had to leave town for a while.  Thanks for the opportunity.

By 10:00 that morning, Larry from the GM store down the street called, and asked why they had one of my guys working for them.

Lies, when the truth would be easier.  Weird.

I could only wish to pull off something as showy and dramatic as this--

In reply to preach :

Yeah, they fixed the glitch. I took the stapler, though...

I was delivering pizzas for Dominoes one summer in the greater Burlignton Vermont area on Friday and Saturday nights. I got hired by one of the customers whose car we serviced at the shop I worked at so thought it would be a good gig. Unfortunately this was the 90s and Dominoes was getting hit hard for the 30 minute or less thing that led to an apparent death by a late driver in the Chicago area. And I had a mildly hot rodded VW Rabbit. I would occasionally pull away from the curb with tire chirp. I got written up once by the manager that had hired me. One Friday night I head out on a delivery and chirp the tires. I come back and Roger (the cool assistant mgr) is standing on the steps waiting for me shaking his head. He was told by the manager to write me up. Sure. whatever.

Saturday night. I'm making okay tips, never a complaint or problem from the customers. The manager walks in on their day off. Starts rifling through the operations manual. I ask what's going on. They're looking for the driver contract. Wants to show me where it says drivers can't have radar detectors. I tell them to stop. It's not in there. I know this cause I wouldn't have signed it. They ask why I need it? I ask whats the difference if I don't have it? It's just a piece of equipment to me. Like better tires or a steering wheel. They ask what it would take to not use it. I tell them I guess it would take me not working here, give me what you owe me and I'm done. Not a single complaint from the public about my service.

Best two week notice story was what got me the job I currently have and have had for 11 years now. I just received my educator's license with DE endorsement. I was working as a para educator filling in the for the DE instructor at the local high school as needed. But there was no room for an additional full or part time instructor. Another high school had a job opening for the next year. I went and talked to my principal about it. He says hold on and picks up the phone and calls the principal at the other school. Tells him to hire me and they'd be crazy not to. After he hangs up he says of course if I have an opening and I call you'll come back right? I owe much gratitude to Pat Burke at South Burlington High School in Vermont. He not only pushed my professional development to get licensed and endorsed but put me on the path I'm happily on on now.

OK here goes......

Helped a friend get a role at our organization (stupid act #1).  He was suppsoed to be in another group but due to lots of weirdness he became my manager.  I disclosed this as a conflict of interests to leadership.. They dangled a promo in front of me so I stayed..  (stupid act #2).  They did offer an out.. Should have taken it, but saw short put to pormo.  Anyways.. TLDR: no promo got layered in, dude who was a friend turns out to be douchecanoe of immense proportions.  For nearly a year this whole situation has been total E36 M3.  I've gained weight, lost a E36 M3 ton of confidence in my career and generally been a crabby ass monkey bitch..

douchecanoe writes me up on a pip.. new leader tries to save me by making pip "unoffical"..  I exit pip "successfully" because I'm a berkeleying stud.  My wife gets a job, becasue we're worried I'm gonna get E36 M3 canned soon.  She had been taking a year off from teaching before doing something else.  But have been looking for roles for 6 months.  Anyways. They create a new role for me to move into and want to build a new team under me.  When I talk to my skip, "the friend", he dosen't seem so enthusand.  This difference in perception between the levels of leadership is a red flag..  Monday morning I have a phone with my leader and I'm just lay out all the problems with the differences, how I had exited the pip, built this team from nothing and was the longest standing member in this whole startup.  I ran ops through a 6x growth period.  Leader goes on defesive.. wants to keep me etc..  See.. The new leader is in a rough spot because douchecanoe has been running people off.  They ran off all the people who I hired and the new leader is scrambling to hire because they are doing the job of 3 people annnnnddd douchecanoe is pushing for more of the team to be on a pip..  So after an hour talk with the new leader I go.. "I appreciate you trying to save me, but I got an offer and I'm out in two weeks".. New leader is silent for two minutes on the phone... then goes.. " I guess my biggest mistake was listening to douchecanoe about talent"..  Yeah you think.. Anyways.. these back stabbing e-commcere types got what they wanted.. I'm out.  

I have been with a great company doing something I love for a month now, leading an international organization with over 250 people.  Director level role the money is OK, it's not e-commerce money, but company car, good benefits and a people oriented company.

TLDR: TLDR:  Don't work for people from Amazon or tesla.. Their leadership skilset is thin to be nice.  I'm done with it and the RSU's ain't worth it. 

Now off to hire a E36 M3 ton of field service techs, all over the US and grow myself.  As an aside, My wife does love her new job and she makes double her past teaching role as a special ed teacher.  It was a role she was moving towards and loves it.

Three jobs ago:

Me: You're fired, here's my letter.

Boss: huh? What?

Me, louder and slower: "You're fired, I won't be needing your services any longer."

Boss: puzzled, confused look, picking up my resignation letter as I walked out of his office.