karma and jobma
May 21, 2021 10:35 PM   Subscribe

When to quit?

After a year of COVID-related unemployment, I started a new job about a month ago. Two weeks later, my husband, also unemployed for COVID-related reasons for a year, received a job offer that he/we simply cannot refuse, that will require us to relocate about 2 hours away from where we are now. I was aware that this job offer might happen when I interviewed at my current job (he was deep into their recruiting process), but since I received a job offer first I took it, because there were no guarantees he would get the job (in fact as a long distance candidate we thought he'd be weeded out for someone local). We did have a mutual understanding that if he got the job offer I would have to leave my current/new job and find work in our new location but again, that was not looking likely at the time. This offer for him is a pleasant and welcome surprise.

Please take my word on this that the salary, benefits, and relo package are so generous that I am thrilled that he got the job (he outearns me by a considerable amount due to his industry compared to mine (think BigLaw vs small nonprofit) plus the salary they have offered him will reset our financial picture considerably which is a relief after much belt-tightening in the last year).

My husband's start date is in two weeks, and the company is setting him up in a temporary corporate apartment for six-eight weeks while we deal with selling our current house, figuring out relo logistics, and tying up various loose ends. I myself need to finish a major freelance project with my brother that is part of my side hustle before I join my husband in the new location. We also need to house-hunt. I will be handling a lot of the day to day logistics of selling our current house since I will be here till August 1. Also, I need to job hunt.

The question I am pondering is when I should give notice at this job. My boss at this job was concerned during the interview process that I might be a flight risk. I graduated into the recession and have several short contract gigs early in my resume before I got my career established. I had to reassure this guy that I am not a habitual job hopper. Now I am going to be leaving this job fairly quickly, which will confirm his fears. It's a small department and my work will fall disproportionately to a colleague who is already on the verge of burnout when I go. I also am going to need to take a lot of PTO to deal with all of the stuff that needs to get done before I join my husband in the new location, when I've only just joined the company. All of this will just reflect poorly on me if I keep the relo a secret. I hate burning bridges, and if I wait till July to give notice my boss will be very, very angry. (Please take my word on this.) I know at the end of the day I gotta look out for #1 and Iife changes happen and sometimes that's the cost of doing business, but I really don't want to leave here with them thinking I am a malingerer (taking gobs of time off early in my tenure here for personal reasons) or disingenuous (saying I would stay - which I INTENDED TO - and now reneging). I feel like giving them a generous notice period would allow me to leave on a professional note and give them time to find my replacement while I am still here so that my colleague doesn't end up burning out. (I am genuinely worried about her, honestly, she is exhausted and demoralized and grumpy - not that she takes it out on me, but she has a short tether at the moment and has told me it's because she was overworked before I joined the company. This makes me feel worse about the idea of waiting till mid July to give notice; I'm afraid she'll have a nervous breakdown or rage quit.)

I would like to give notice now - as in this Monday - and level with them that this was an unforseen circumstance but my family has to pursue this relocation. If they get mad and tell me to bugger off immediately, my husband's new salary is more than enough to cover us till I find a new job, and yay! More time to get all of this other shit done. If they tell me to stick around while they interview for my replacement, yay! I can be helpful, keep my colleague from burning out, and hopefully avoid burning a bridge.

My lawyer, who is like a father figure to me, says that in the interest of karma-building, if he were in my place, he would do what I suggest above, as opposed to being totally transactional about this situation, waiting till July, and risking leaving this place with a bad taste in everyone's mouth. I also have to admit that my boss here has a bit of an absentee issue due to a lot of recent family drama (though he's pretty chill and easygoing when he's here) and my colleague's near-burnout state of mind makes the office feel very tense and uncomfortable, especially when the boss is out, and it's sort of demoralizing me. When you add in all of the shit I have to get done before I relocate to be with my husband, I just can't imagine remaining motivated enough to do work well in this environment over the next two months. I honestly feel like I'd be wasting everyone's time, mine included.

I have mostly made up my mind but wanted to ask if there is anything I am not considering here that would be a downside?

Anon bc I am paranoid that other people who work here are MeFites.
posted by anonymous to Work & Money (21 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Give notice now and offer to be as helpful as possible. Your lawyer is right, your instincts are right. No real harn comes to you if you give notice now, and even if they get pissed, you'll know you did the right thing.
posted by vrakatar at 10:48 PM on May 21, 2021 [11 favorites]


Two months notice is quite a long notice period. It's so long it may be possible you are actually replaced during your notice period. If you indeed are able to handle your move with only your husband's income, then that's not a problem - just keep in mind termination could come for multiple reasons.

I wouldn't overthink this. You clearly think this will help out professional relationships that you want to maintain. That makes sense.

The only advice I have is to ensure you actually have two months of work to do. Honestly, I've never seen an employee need more than three or four weeks to finish up their affairs. Your employer will want you to finish up ASAP. You would be in a pretty awkward place if you were essentially "done" at work but still hanging around. You may consider giving a specific transition plan to your manager - for instance, you could suggest to the manager to start finding a replacement for you now, but not announce the departure for a month. That helps reduce awkwardness but also allows them to find a replacement sooner.
posted by saeculorum at 10:52 PM on May 21, 2021 [2 favorites]


Personally, I would hedge my bets and give notice only once your husband has actually started his new job. Everything can still go south up to that point in my experience.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:59 PM on May 21, 2021 [43 favorites]


The sooner the better - they may even still have contact info from their previous interviews at this point.
posted by itsflyable at 11:52 PM on May 21, 2021 [2 favorites]


Also, I need to job hunt.

You certainly don’t need to job hunt before you leave your current job, since you’re completely comfortable with leaving it tomorrow with no replacement. And since you have enough money, you can spend some of it offloading the work of moving and selling your house, if you want to be more useful at work. (A generous relocation package should mean that much of it is already taken care of).

It wouldn’t even be unreasonable to continue working at your job and spend weekends in the new city, if you wanted to.

But you don’t want to, so just give notice ASAP while there’s even a faint hope they can hire someone from the interview round they got you from.
posted by bashing rocks together at 11:53 PM on May 21, 2021 [5 favorites]


People leave jobs they just started all the time for various reasons, from not a good fit to findng better offers, this is incredibly common. Incredibly so.

Just quitting because your coworker is overworked and that's not the job enviroment you want to be in is okay!

Personally I'd choose the day you would prefer to leave in the best case scenario (it sounds you want to be gone, gone by Aug 1) I'm going to assume that your aren't going to want to be working till then with packing, house selling, moving, time away from spouse and all of that, that ideally you would be wrapped up by July 15th as an end date. I'd say June 15th is a decent lead time for that, and if it goes wrong you still worked until June 15 and of you get to stay then there you go . I think a month lead time is plenty, adjust for your actual preference.
posted by AlexiaSky at 12:30 AM on May 22, 2021 [5 favorites]


If you can afford to not get paid the most generous thing you can do for your employer/boss is give notice IMMEDIATELY and say that you're willing to leave now or stay up until your preferred departure date, whatever works best for them. I'm not saying that's necessarily what you *should* do, but who knows, their second choice from the job search when they hired you could still be looking and they could hire her right now with no additional search process. It is the best thing you can do for your boss, but he's still not going to be thrilled and you will be burning this bridge at least a little bit regardless.

It's not your fault that your coworker is overworked, that's your company's fault for being understaffed (which generally means "unwilling to hire enough people and or unwilling/unable to pay enough money"). If you can get up to speed to be actually helpful in a month, it sounds like at least some of that work could be done by a temp, if they were willing to shell out for one.

Regardless, since it's such a short tenure and you're likely going to leave on something of a bad note, leave this job off your resume and fold it into your year of COVID unemployment/move to new city, and of course don't expect to use anyone from this place as a reference.
posted by mskyle at 4:26 AM on May 22, 2021 [7 favorites]


You have been there such a short period, a smart boss would redeploy you to some very short term projects to complete and simply call up whoever were their second and third choices in the hiring process that brought them you. If they choose to be idiots and vent on you instead, then that's their choice.

Companies fire people on probation all the time - you gave them some warning and they've got a staff willing to make for a smooth transition, that's the maximum you owe them.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 4:45 AM on May 22, 2021 [4 favorites]


Yup - agree it's fine to give a longer leaving notice, but to schedule a set end date that give you a bit of breathing room to get stuff done. Here in the UK though it's quite common to have to give 2 or 3 months notice (I had to give 2 at my last job) so perhaps i'm biased. I'd just be straight up and say you can do your two weeks, or stay longer to help hire/train someone. Although in my experience, that never happened until right before I left and then it was too late. That was my employer's fault though!

The fact that your colleague is burnt out is not your fault, so you shouldn't feel guilty about it (although I know that's easier said than done). I wouldn't get into all the details but just say you've got to go, and what can you do to smooth the transition. In my experience, managers/the boss want solutions, not details of what is going on! It's normal to feel bad about it, and to feel stressed about the move too, but it'll all be over soon, and it's unlikely to wreck your career. If they burn bridges that's on them - these things happen all the time and it's a work transaction.

Good luck with the relocation!
posted by sedimentary_deer at 5:04 AM on May 22, 2021


Don't do this if you're actually not interested in continuing to work there, but another way to present this to them is to explain that you must relocate but that you're willing to work remotely. Is there any chance that's a possibility?
posted by misskaz at 5:35 AM on May 22, 2021 [9 favorites]


"If they get mad and tell me to bugger off immediately, my husband's new salary is more than enough to cover us till I find a new job, and yay! More time to get all of this other shit done."

This is the key part. If you couldn't afford to lose the job immediately, then clearly you would wait to give notice; paying rent beats out being classy about the situation. But since you can afford the risk, and there's some upside especially if it's a small-world kind of industry, I think your plan is right.
posted by february at 5:45 AM on May 22, 2021 [7 favorites]


Personally, I would hedge my bets and give notice only once your husband has actually started his new job. Everything can still go south up to that point in my experience.

This was my first thought. Don't say a word until he has actually onboarded and started work, just in case something goes haywire with the hiring process.

Once he has started, I like the idea of giving notice then and telling them that you are willing to stay up through whatever date is convenient for you. That said, they might just tell you to go home right away -- that happened to me once, where I gave a long notice intending to be helpful and they instead let me go immediately. It sounds like you would be ok financially if that happened, but just be aware it is a possibility. If it would be a problem financially to be let go, then you need to do the traditional thing of waiting until 2 weeks before your preferred date to give notice.

All of their issues of coworker burnout, absent managers, and inadequate staffing are not your problems to solve and should not be major factors in your decisions about when to give notice.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:07 AM on May 22, 2021 [8 favorites]


Current employer has made it emotional. It isn't. Your circumstances have changed, and you will be leaving. I'd wait and give 1 month's notice, which is generous. Remember that this or any employer will get all sorts of commitments from staff about not leaving, but proceed to do layoffs when that's their business need. Your family needs have changed, it happens. Do what's best for your family.
posted by theora55 at 8:58 AM on May 22, 2021 [7 favorites]


I agree with those who said they would not give notice until husband's first day -- not just out of an abundance of caution that something could go awry with his process, but also because if his dates/logistics change, so might yours. I would only offer a standard two weeks, though.

You will have a lot on your plate, will need to take significant time away from work, and you don't need this job. You've been there a month, and while I'm sure you've had an impact the fact that your manager is distracted makes me wonder whether that time will be used to hire and train someone else, as opposed to just keeping your coworker from drowning for just a bit longer. I might think otherwise if there's a project you can finish or make a decent amount of progress on but... are you sure you can actually commit to that?

I get that you are worried about burning bridges but it's not all up to you. Your employer is already sensitive to the idea of your leaving abruptly and dealing with personal issues, and your colleague is overextended and exhausted. Giving an extended notice period may not make a difference -- and given how much time away you may need to deal with this change, it may not be that productive and that may impact how much they appreciate this gesture.
posted by sm1tten at 10:03 AM on May 22, 2021 [2 favorites]


It sounds like you're in a good place to get a new job if you had to, such as your husband's job not working out which is a very real possibility.

Do you dread going to work everyday or can you just coast by? If it is the latter wait until you absolutely have to move to put in notice. It is not your responsibility for their resourcing issues.

I contract so my resume looked like I job hopped and I had a hard time finding a regular salaried job. If I have my own company and am paid corp to corp I would not consider it job hopping anymore than say a firm taking a 3 month project. Sometimes places would (legally) pay me non-corp to corp, with the understanding I was budgeted for one project. In any case I hired a resume writing service to make it look like what it was, I highly suggest that.

I've been in horrible 12-hour days, packed conference rooms working on something that has no value and with toxic people. I can assure you that unless you're in an incredibly niche industry no one cares if you quit or leave. Don't worry about burning bridges.

If you're looking for an excuse to quit, then I am giving it to you.
posted by geoff. at 10:46 AM on May 22, 2021 [1 favorite]


Only thing I'd add is that I'd wait until payday to quit. I had one firm refuse my invoice (90 days!) due to not fault of my own. They were small but if you work for a firm you believe is small and potentially petty keep that in mind. Legally you're fine but as my lawyer told me there's a huge gap between legally fine and going through the courts.
posted by geoff. at 10:52 AM on May 22, 2021


If you don’t need the money, meet with your manager ASAP and say you need to leave by X date, and are open to arranging a sooner departure date.

Some of this will probably depend on how much time it took to train you and how fully integrated you are with the department right now. The longer it takes someone to get up to speed, the sooner they’ll want to transfer the money they’re paying you to someone that will be around longer term.

Keeping this a secret until 2 weeks before you leave is fine, ethically, but in your manager’s shoes, I’d be more upset at contributing to invest in/plan around a new employee who concealed an out-date than an employee who let me know as soon as Life happened.
posted by itesser at 6:49 PM on May 22, 2021 [1 favorite]


JFC. So your boss made this aggressively personal when you were interviewing, meanwhile your coworker was overworked before you started, now your boss is frequently out of the office? Look, none of this is your doing. This place was like this before you joined, and your sticking things out is no guarantee that they'll be able to unfuck themselves. The level of disorganization in a company is management's choice, and this makes it your boss's problem to solve, not yours. These people don't sound like they actually care about making things work right, and I wouldn't give them any additional consideration (failure to plan on their part is not an emergency on my part).

If you're in the USA, I think giving a month's notice is a kindness. If you have a contract, give the minimum notice required.
posted by disconnect at 6:43 AM on May 24, 2021 [1 favorite]


Follow-up from OP:

"Thank you all for your advice.

I have some updates and some follow up questions if you don't mind.

My husband and I found a house up in our new area this weekend that checked all our boxes and have put in an offer. Would it be better to wait to give notice until we know the offer is accepted? Or until we know we got the mortgage? Until closing? That could take a really long time, and then we'd be into July.

Also: I came into work this morning and the senior staff accountant has been acting like a fucking bitch, excuse my language, to me all morning thus far. I don't think it's personal, I get that she is burned out, she is actually taking Wed-Fri off this week and then she'll also have the holiday weekend so hopefully she'll come back feeling rested. At the same time, her level of rudeness is so extreme this morning that I've been biting my tongue and seriously wishing I could give notice today, with my last day being Friday. I can maybe put up with this for another week - next week will be a short one because of the holiday, and my husband's start date is next week. But if I should hold off longer because of the pending house purchase, I am worried that I won't be able to stomach being here any longer. Everyone who has pointed out that her burnout is not my problem and not something I should worry about: point taken, and I especially understand that this morning. It is not my fault that they were overworking her before I was hired, it is not my fault that our boss is absent from the office frequently so more work falls on her. I come in here every day with a positive attitude, I work hard, and I do my job well because I've been doing this kind of work for nearly a decade. I am bored AF because I have significantly less responsibility in this role than I have had in similar roles in the past, apparently because the last person who sat in my chair was terrible at the job and they seem to be scarred from that and are being very conservative with giving me more responsibility. So, I work hard, am bored senseless, and have to deal with a shitty attitude from one of my supervisors, and I just. don't. want. this. right. now. when I'm dealing with the stress of a move, selling a house, buying another one, job hunting, and finishing up a project for a side hustle that interests me way more than this job.

If anyone can please clarify for me whether I should be factoring in the new house purchase/closing process before I give notice that would be helpful. Otherwise I plan to give notice Tuesday next week, after my husband has started his job, with my last day being June 30. And I almost hope they chuck me out sooner."
posted by travelingthyme at 7:42 AM on May 24, 2021


If you are a co-applicant on the mortgage application, having a change in employment status can negatively impact your loan terms or approval. Based on the advice of our realtor and mortgage originator, I held off on giving notice until after the loan was funded because we were concerned that the final employment verification would not "pass" if I'd given notice, even if I was still formally employed. I think you might want to seek some professional advice on how to move forward there.
posted by sm1tten at 2:05 PM on May 24, 2021


The employment/mortgage question really depends on if you're a co-applicant as sm1tten points out. I'm not sure how it's working today but 1 year ago when I was refinancing my mortgage they were literally calling employers to confirm employment and that it was anticipated to continue. It was a pandemic-related precaution, trying to hedge against people getting a mortgage and immediately losing their jobs or being furloughed. My colleague said at the time she was fielding a ton of those calls but I have no idea if they are still doing that.

You could consider if your husband would qualify on just his income having him be the only person on the mortgage (you could still be on the deed). Or, you'd probably be safest to stay mum with current employer until after closing on the house.
posted by misskaz at 7:38 AM on May 25, 2021


« Older Book where kid gets magic magnetic muscles?   |   Help me identify this experimental film we watched... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.