Not Sure What To Think Of This

[tropicsgoddess]

Long story short: On the 19th, I emailed my supervisor and cc'd HR my two weeks notice. In the middle of a call (I work from home btw)....I get a private IM from my supervisor asking me to get on aux after I finished up my call. So I called her line and spoke to her and her boss about my two weeks notice. She said that they discussed about me giving my two weeks notice and said that they thought it was best to have my last day then and there and to log off my tools and punch out after we finished talking. I was shocked because I never had that happen whenever I put in my two weeks notice. They told me it was standard protocol...from what they said they do that to prevent performance issues from affecting the team (since quite a bit of people tend to slack off since it's their last week(s) at the job). I was a bit shocked but happy because I hated the job and also because I didn't have to worry about having somebody cover for me or take time off for orientation with my new job. But either way I just want to know if anybody ever had anything like that happen after giving two weeks notice to their job?

[Seshat]

It's actually one of the quasi-standard protocols in IT work. Not everywhere does it, but enough places do for it not to be surprising.

IT Geeks are capable of having access to a lot of sensitive information. Now, the ethical geek doesn't look at the contents of files which are irrelevant to their work; but not all geeks are ethical - and not all bosses can assume their geeks are ethical.

Plus, of course, there's always the possibility of malicious geeks. Problem is, a properly malicious geek would have installed their malware (malicious software) six months before handing in their notice......

[csquared]

It has never happened to me, but I know a few people that have had that happen to them. Unfortunately, it was not for security and the parting was not civil. It was a pissy boss.

[Tama]

A quick threadjack, thanks! I never knew what "malware" meant.

[Teskeria]

I have had it happen to me. Planned my start at my new job just so I COULD give two weeks notice. Got told, well then tonight is your last day, we don't take notices. (They don't let you know that in advance)

[Pagan]

One place I worked, oh, they took your two week notice just fine, but....had a habit of banning some people at the end of their last day.

Never did figure out why. I'm just surprised they didn't do it to me. Wouldn't have mattered, I rarely go to that side of town anyway.

[CrazedClerkthe2nd]

I've had this happen to me too. Back during the economic crash in 2008, the company I was working at was...not in good shape. When I came on board they had 4 locations in the area and were doing ok. By November, they were down to 2. I didn't get along well with my boss either and I'd already been working a second job part time so I wasn't going to be in financial trouble if I left.

So, a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving, I let my manager know on a Wednesday I was putting in my two weeks. Jump forward to Friday, I'm at work for barely an hour when my manager tells me the District manager is on the line and wants to speak to me. I can't remember the exact wording of what she said but it was basically: "You're done as of now. Turn in your keys and go home."

Well gee, thanks a lot.

There is a bit of positive karma to this story though: The company went out of business not long after that.

As a general rule, I ALWAYS put in my notice before leaving a job. The ONE time I didn't do was when I left the call center. After surviving 14 months at that place (and hating damned near every minute of it), I was more than happy to leave my supervisor a politely worded letter along with my security card that basically said "Screw this, I'm done." To this day I remember how happy and relieved I was when I went to dinner with my fiance that night.

[Kiwi]

It has become fairly standard at any job to remove an employee who has given their intention to leave a job fairly quickly. It removes the temptation and ability for them to "mess" with the business.
Even in retail given the access most employees have to get at a register or in an office sensative business information that an immoral person could steal from.

You should be ready to leave the day you give your notice, all emails printed / personal articles removed from your desk or locker and be ready to go as soon as you tell them.

It's not usually personal but with the economy the way it is any reason is good enough.

[Geek King]

Just a note: I many areas, if you put in your notice, and the company decides to let you go before your last day, they have to pay you for the time you should have still been working. Check local laws to see what your state/local says about it. Some companies will do this no matter what the law is as a matter of good business.

[Gizmo]

I was going to say what Geek King did but I don't need to.

It happens here in the UK where they know you are going to a competitor or client or business contact to work. A friend had it when he went from a funding broker to a funding provider and they walked him out there and then as they couldn't risk the chance that someone would find out and claim bias. Got paid for sitting around at home.

[Marmalady]

Sounds a bit like the 'garden leave' that Huge Insurance Company used to do. Anyone who had access to the mainframe or anything else confidential or sensitive, if they were made redundant, after the meeting with whichever manager had been given the job of telling them they weren't allowed back to their desk. Someone else would collect all their personal items, coat, bag etc and bring them down to the reception area. The redundant person would then have to hand in their ID card and leave straight away. For the whole period of their notice they would still get paid, but if they came into the office they were treated as any other visitor.

Of course, this didn't always work. One guy, who worked at a site on the outskirts of the city away from the main Head Office, was told he was being made redundant and had to give up his ID, get walked to the door etc. What did he do? He drove straight to the city centre, walked into one of the main buildings, where the security (who knew him well) barely even looked up as he came in. He headed to a dept where he was also well known - "Can I just borrow a VT for a few minutes?" "Sure, sure!"

He knew that his old dept wouldn't bother getting round to having his passwords changed for a day or two - after all, he'd gone, hadn't he? So he went into his systems and although he didn't instal malware or trojans or anything like that, he cleared out everything that was his - all his notes, all the macros and shortcut programs that he had written to help him work faster and more efficiently.... His reasoning was that if the company didn't want him, he wasn't going to leave anything behind of his that could help them.

[Seshat]

A quick threadjack, thanks! I never knew what "malware" meant.

You're welcome.

[Racket_Man]

I actually had the opposite happen. my boss actually wanted me to stay for my 2 weeks notice.

back in the mid 1990's I was in an "IT" position at a major mortgage company. several factors caused the company to start to tank (rapidly rising interest rates, a slight downturn in the housing market, a major fall in the number of loans we processed, etc.). add into that my direct supervisor (somewhat of a non-IT person) had started to seriously come down on me, my Father passing away and a few other things happened that I decided to volunary leave the company (I saw the writing on the wall that the company was going downhil FAST).

so on Monday morning I e-mailed my supervisor, (copying HER boss and HR) detailing my intentions of leaving the company. I did, however, tell them I was officially putting in my 2 weeks notice BUT that if it was possible I wanted to leave ASAP (knowing the systems as well as I did and having the access I did have I was taking no chances that I was going to be blamed for ANYTHING blowing up)

My supervisor tried real hard to get me to stay, but I was steady on leaving ASAP. She tried to tell me that the 2 weeks would be just "free money" and other nonsense. but then she was the major reason I wanted to leave other than the company tanking around us.

a meeting was set up with an HR person. I was given an exit interview and was out of the building by 1 or 2pm that afternoon.

I kept in contact with several people after I got a new job 4 weeks later. I did find out through the grapevine that several systems I had overseen did "mysterioiusly" fail/die several weeks after I left and my boss tried to blame the failures on me.

Just think what might have happened if I had stayed..

[TheCheerfulTreeRat]

I was made redundant some years ago (which was actually the start of me doing IT contracting for a while - they didn't have anyone who knew some of the systems) after we were taken over by another company and those made redundant had the option of leaving immediately or hanging about to use work facilities for writing CVs and snail mailing them out.

I wanted to have everything tidy and documented before I left and was working fairly hard at that. While stood in the rest area, having a smoke, one of the new Directors wandered in to the workshop. He came over and asked how things were going - I answered honestly, letting him know that people seemed to be coming to terms with things, but were understandably unsettled. Meanwhile my (ex-)colleagues were wandering past, doing a double take and grinning at me from behind the Director.

Anyway, he reassured me that things should be more settled now - we were leaner and fitter because of the changes and would be better off without the deadwood, and hoped I found this of some comfort. I smiled at him and told him it might be better if he told that to someone who wasn't deadwood...

[Pixilated]

CheerfulTreeRat, how'd the director take your comment? I would've loved to be a fly on the wall at that point!

Interesting to see this is becoming a trend. I know a quick walkout is the norm if you're made redundant, but hadn't heard of it in connection with a resignation before.

I had something similar to RacketMan's experience: a boss who tried to hijack one week after my two weeks' notice by calling my new boss and asking if OldCompany could keep me for one more week. He did this without asking me first. So when I was informed of this (by his second in command), I said sorry, but I'd given a departure date and was sticking to it. Who would do my work after that date was not my problem.