In a perfect world, decency, kindness, and courtesy will always prevail. But let’s get real.
A lot of people are starting to argue that giving your two weeks is unnecessary. “They wouldn’t offer the same courtesy to me if they didn’t want to employ me anymore—they would simply fire me on the spot and I would be out within an hour.”
It’s an understandable response. Often, by the time you’ve finally decided to leave your job, you have compounded a lot of negative emotions towards your employer. Those emotions need a release, and what better way than to stick it to your shitty boss than to simply go and leave them in the lurch?
It’s tempting to leave with bad blood, but it’s not as self-serving as it might immediately feel at that moment.
You really should give two weeks notice when you quit, but don’t think of it as courtesy to your company. Think of it as a favor to yourself. It’s an opportunity to set yourself up for success in the long run. Put in your two weeks and then use those two weeks to do some of the best work you have ever done. Make it so that when you leave, they realize that it was a tragedy that they ever let you go in the first place.
And if there’s just too much bitterness? If it’s just too tempting and you give in to all of that resentment towards your soon-to-be-ex job and leave in a blaze of glory? Just remember this:
The world is small. People know other people, and those people talk. And the truth of it is, when they talk about you, anything positive that you did for that company will never be acknowledged.
And that new job that you really wanted but didn’t get? Did you ever think that maybe, just maybe, it’s because of how you left the last one?
