I came across an article in the French press yesterday that outlined some of the means by which an employee can give notice to their employer. These (unsurprisingly) include giving notice orally, letter, email, e-lettre recommandé etc…It reminded me that I had a very different, ultra impersonal experience when handing in my notice (to retire in my case). After 37 years happily working for the same (Big Four accountancy) employer, I had to go online to the internal portal of the Human Capital (sic) team, then locate and click on a ‘resign from employment’ button on my screen.
I then received an automated acknowledgement that ‘[Name] has been terminated successfully’. And that was it… I just loved the human touch - presumably a US designed HR system…
I wonder how any of you handed in your notice, and what was your experience of the process?
My last full time employment was being 7 months pregnant so easy to hand in my notice. After that some part time stuff in France, one went bust and the last one was when I moved away. I was a stay at home mum with two children which when they were small in the UK it was not possible to work as no one to look after them and OH was SE so never home much before 9pm.
Very similar for me. I clicked the button to resign with pension and it went straight back to the HR system home screen, not even so much as an “are you sure?” or a “Confirm” button to click. I had to go back in to check that it had actually happened.
Not a peep so I’m going to make an appointment to visit just as soon as I have my letter from the MAE. The consular team assure me that they haven’t seen any problems with people in our position so fingers crossed. I’ll report back in due course
I didn’t resign as such but took early retirement for medical reasons. So quite an involved process which started with discussions with my permanent secretary, and then through HR and pension service. I didn’t have enough years and sadly they didn’t wave the magic wand to give me a full pension (I was only 55). However I qualified for a lump sum instead which was enough to make the decision to go rather than hang on and argue for the full pension. It took several months but was a very human process. And I got a lovely letter from the Perm Sec when the decision was made saying how sorry he was.
We all had a big laugh afterwards but my resignation was quite fraught at the time.
I wanted to retire early at the age of 60 on the 29th of December 2002, so I told the boss and his deputy (his son) and carried on working looking forward to the approaching day.
On the 27th I rang in empty and was told to pick up and deliver a load which might have taken me beyond the 29th, so I protested with my freteuse and she put me on another one which would free me by the 28th. Fair enough.
I did the one on the 28th and rang in and she gave me another load which I could not deliver 'till the 30th. There was an argy bargy on the phone but the result was I had to do the load. When I got back into the yard on the 30th I stormed into the office ready with all guns to go blazing (not for the first time, and one of my treasured experiences of the French, they never get mad and we always end up laughing) to be met by the Boss with a smile on his face and a job for me to do for the next 2 days. I couldn’t believe they could get it so wrong 'till they gently explained to me that in France you retire on the last day of the month in which your birthday falls, not the actual birthday.
I carried on working 'till the 31st and when I handed my keys in for the last time there was something of a party to celebrate.
I was made redundant, I knew it was coming about a year beforehand so had a bit of time to decide what we wanted to do.
When I was much younger, I handed in my notice from one job with a scribbled note on the back of an empty pay packet.
Only handed in my notice once when I was 20 and finished my apprenticeship. One weeks notice but was owed a weeks holiday so walked there and then.
From then on have been my own boss and fired or dismissed a good number.
Occasionally employees would say they had found a new job with better pay thinking I would give them a pay rise to stay but that never washed.
Always made sure that rubbish employees got the push before completing 3 months employment, gone that day.
‘Better get your tool box tidy, you’ll be down the road on Friday’
Verbally. I told my Boss that OH and I wanted to move permanently to France.
He went quite pale
Told me not to be daft, gave me 6 months leave (to come to my senses) and OH and I came to our ruin in France
6 months later I returned to my Office. We’d not changed our minds about France and my Boss gave in gracefully.
There followed 2 weeks of “goodbyes” fun and frolics to include all the various departments, shift workers et al.
Still no alcohol on site (fair enough) but the Boardroom table was full of delicious drinks and goodies courtesy of our Catering Department.
That was some party! Even had Customers and Suppliers drop by to say goodbye.
and it was only when I received my last Payslip that there was a form to sign, confirming I was actually “leaving”.
I’ve only resigned once - when I stopped working for my brother in Turks & Caicos and came back to the UK. So that was just a friendly chat, no formalities.
I was made redundant in 1991 but I don’t recall what happened as far as the mechanics of it were concerned, probably we all got an official letter from the firm’s Receivers.
The rest of the time I have been self-employed so can fire myself anytime!
Oh come on…we have some actual people in the US, not just cold heartless corporations.
However, I did work for one of those cold , heartless corporations in the US (Lockheed Martin) for 34 years. I told my boss at age 60 , then 3 months away, that I would be retiring. Eventually wrote a one line letter. to that effect. Took about 6 weeks of accumulated vacation, then popped in to turn in my badge and clean out my desk early the next year,
It’s a tougher thing in the US to retire early because your health insurance is usually tied to your employer. No job- no insurance (miserable as it is). Luckily by that point we had Obamacare (2015) so we went on that for 5 years. Had I not gone to Obamacare, our health insurance through my employer would have cost $17K per year, for a family of 3- and that is just the initial cost , if nothing goes wrong. This is one reason why many Americans have to keep working until they are almost dead.
After my boss pissed me off once too often I simply said "As of this moment I am working my 4 weeks notice. "He asked “What do you mean?”, a mechanism he used repeatedly to give himself thinking time. I responded as I had wanted to since i met him, “What do you mean, what do i mean?” Followed by, “It’s simple, in four weeks, I no longer work here.” A period of wooing ensued but I was for none of it.
My son in law has resigned twice since arriving in the US because he found better jobs in his actual line in other companies than the one he arrived and got his green card with. The last one he left, they asked him to continue to work privately from home for them designing new software and systems and now he has his dream job in a huge Silicon Valley company who moved to Chicago instead but he does talks at forums for them so must be doing something right as well as his working from home day to day work plus his dept boss works from Arizona and his top boss from Honolulu so they are all spread round the globe. He never went for any interviews, all done over the internet.
We knew we were heading for redundancy because the company I worked for was taken over by a bigger one, whose share price tumbled over a period of six months, so it was obvious they were in trouble.
Yes me too! But fortunately I had a Plan B in place - my girlfriend at the time was a software trainer and suggested I transfer the desktop publishing skills I had learned working for the fireplace company into a freelance software training career, which I did.
It took 12 months to get established, but fortunately those were the days when the UK Government would pay your mortgage interest if you were unemployed, so it was manageable and I could devote all my energies to getting freelance training jobs instead of having to go and stack shelves.
Sealed envelope containing my signed notice handed in person to both my direct supervisor and my dept manager. I had already discussed my leaving with my supervisor and had agreed to work my full 3 months notice and finish the test equipment project I was working on.
We’d made a few others redundant but my job was essential (steep learning curve, no-one is essential).
To save himself some money my boss of that era made me redundant just before I’d been there 2 years (so no Redundancy, just Goodbye) and he brought his wife in to do my work…
- presumably a US designed HR system…
