2 weeks notice + asked to go home?

Since we all work in a sensitive field such as IT in regards to security has anyone ever given their 2 weeks notice and been asked as you give it to just pack up and leave that day instead? For whatever reason whether it be they don't like you or because of security reasons.

I'm guessing you did not get paid for those 2 weeks either if they ask you to just leave.

Any stories of this?

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shodown

loxleynew wrote: »

Since we all work in a sensitive field such as IT in regards to security has anyone ever given their 2 weeks notice and been asked as you give it to just pack up and leave that day instead? For whatever reason whether it be they don't like you or because of security reasons.

I'm guessing you did not get paid for those 2 weeks either if they ask you to just leave.

Any stories of this?

I put in my 2 weeks one time and the next week I was called in the managers office and was told that it was my last day(still had a few days to go). I was still given all my pay and benefits till the end of the month.

Another time I put in my 2 weeks. Had to work all of them, and since it was 3rd shift there wasn't' even anybody there to let me out, get my badge or anything like that. I was locked out of the internal applications, but not the internal network where I did my work.

I think it all depends on the job. I personally would just have that person doing admin work for the last 2 weeks. Getting documents done, and helping out other guys, but I wouldn't want them on the production network.

Devilsbane

It wasn't in IT, but I have seen this done before with some managers.

I think it really depends on your trust level with the company. If you worked there for 2 or 3 months, they probably don't trust you. If you've been there for 10 years then you probably aren't going to start crap now.

thenjduke

I was at one job where gave my two weeks notice and the next day my badge did not work to get into the building. I had someone else let me in and my manager came in and called me into his office. He said I sent you a email not to come back to work and to turn in your badge. The funny part is that he told the other network admin to delete my account that night. How was I suppose to read my email or even log in. He gave me the two weeks pay and said enjoy your vacation. Two years later I come to find out that the IT Director and other Network Admin were arrested by the FBI. I know why they were but rather not put it here. Lets just say it was very serious offense they did.

tiersten

Its called "Garden leave" in the UK and common. Not all companies will do it though but generally financial institutions will do due to the regulations and risks involved. Every bank I've worked at has done it. The longest garden leave I've had was a month and I got paid to basically take a vacation abroad before starting my next job.

Once you quit, you're escorted back to your desk to pick up everything and your various accounts are locked immediately. You continue to get paid and "work" for your notice period at home by watching TV or whatever.

They do it for security reasons. They can't do much about you messing about before quitting but once you quit, they want you out as soon as possible with no chance of taking or altering data.

themagicone

Well once apon a time I worked for this one company. I didn't like the work conditions nor the pay nor some other things. I wrote a letter requesting a contract stating things would be fixed. In it I said that this letter may or may not become my 2 weeks notice. The next day they told me to pack and leave. Long story short I got unemployment because technically since they didn't let me finish my 2 weeks they fired me. Funny thing about that job was that I told the owner that if things don't change he was going to be bankrupt and loose the company within a year. Well, it only took 9 months.

Zaits

So what if I decide to be extra generous and give a 4 week notice think they'll pay me ? Or better yet I think I'm going to put in my 40 year notice now =D

Plantwiz

Zaits wrote: »

So what if I decide to be extra generous and give a 4 week notice think they'll pay me ? Or better yet I think I'm going to put in my 40 year notice now =D

There is no real benefit for giving more then 2 weeks.

If you are under a contract, you may be required to notify 'x' days before the renewal, but not always the case.

I'm a fan of once the employee gives two weeks, you take their keys, thank them for their service and have them enjoy their time off.

Once the decision has been made by the employee to leave, their heart typically isn't in their work, and they may distract the other workers (either with chit-chat, or just mere talk of the future). There is not much more for the employee ready to leave to do and rather then cause descent among the rest of the staff, send them off on a 'good' note.

As management, if you are not ready to replace an employee, then you have not cross-trained or developed enough overlap in job roles to prevent this sort of loss.

I take it as a good sign when the a company gives the two weeks back to the employee and says 'take care'. Now, it is typical for the company to pay that person...it's far less liability to pay their wages for two weeks then to find out months later files were damaged, or other tasks not completed correctly.

And, the departure is not always a bad thing, but I cannot think of a place I have worked that when someone gave noticed...there weren't several co-workers all 'wishing' they too could leave. So, by making that departure immediate, the shock hits, and they soon go back to work.

2cents

tiersten

Zaits wrote: »

So what if I decide to be extra generous and give a 4 week notice think they'll pay me ? Or better yet I think I'm going to put in my 40 year notice now =D

They'll just stop paying you after 2 weeks or whatever your notice period is.

Devilsbane

Plantwiz wrote: »

There is no real benefit for giving more then 2 weeks.

If you are under a contract, you may be required to notify 'x' days before the renewal, but not always the case.

I'm a fan of once the employee gives two weeks, you take their keys, thank them for their service and have them enjoy their time off.

Once the decision has been made by the employee to leave, their heart typically isn't in their work, and they may distract the other workers (either with chit-chat, or just mere talk of the future). There is not much more for the employee ready to leave to do and rather then cause descent among the rest of the staff, send them off on a 'good' note.

As management, if you are not ready to replace an employee, then you have not cross-trained or developed enough overlap in job roles to prevent this sort of loss.

I take it as a good sign when the a company gives the two weeks back to the employee and says 'take care'. Now, it is typical for the company to pay that person...it's far less liability to pay their wages for two weeks then to find out months later files were damaged, or other tasks not completed correctly.

And, the departure is not always a bad thing, but I cannot think of a place I have worked that when someone gave noticed...there weren't several co-workers all 'wishing' they too could leave. So, by making that departure immediate, the shock hits, and they soon go back to work.

2cents

I agree with you here. I'm torn though. On the one hand I would love some free time off. But on the other, I like to make sure things are tied up right before I leave a place. Chances are that if I gave my 2 weeks notice then I just found out myself and thus haven't had any time to straighten things out yet.

tiersten

Devilsbane wrote: »

I agree with you here. I'm torn though. On the one hand I would love some free time off. But on the other, I like to make sure things are tied up right before I leave a place. Chances are that if I gave my 2 weeks notice then I just found out myself and thus haven't had any time to straighten things out yet.

It is somebody elses problem at that point. Its not being mean or anything. Its just business and how things work. I mean sure, don't intentionally screw them over or anything but if you worried about tying up every single loose end then you'd never leave.

Devilsbane

tiersten wrote: »

It is somebody elses problem at that point. Its not being mean or anything. Its just business and how things work. I mean sure, don't intentionally screw them over or anything but if you worried about tying up every single loose end then you'd never leave.

Well I probably don't have to worry about it either way. A couple of my coworkers have left and were not asked to leave early.

NinjaBoy

tiersten wrote: »

Its called "Garden leave" in the UK and common. Not all companies will do it though but generally financial institutions will do due to the regulations and risks involved. Every bank I've worked at has done it. The longest garden leave I've had was a month and I got paid to basically take a vacation abroad before starting my next job.

Once you quit, you're escorted back to your desk to pick up everything and your various accounts are locked immediately. You continue to get paid and "work" for your notice period at home by watching TV or whatever.

They do it for security reasons. They can't do much about you messing about before quitting but once you quit, they want you out as soon as possible with no chance of taking or altering data.

That's true, it's happened to a couple of my friends/ex co-workers. hasn't happened to me though, mainly due to lack of IT Staff to replace those that have left

-Ken

Paul Boz

I've seen it happen in the past to others but its almost always due to the perception of a broken trust relationship. If you are clearly not going to be working at the company in two weeks your motivation may be gone but more importantly, your will to do your job to the best of your ability and as ethically as possible may be compromised as well. I know when I got towards the end of my time at my last employer I found myself just not caring any more. That's not the type of individual you want running your security environment or managing your infrastructure. Sure more people than not are hard workers and would put in their honest 8 a day until the last day but to many managers its just not worth the risk.

loxleynew

Thanks for the responses! It makes sense I was just trying to get feedback before I turned mine in. I got an offer for a job yesterday but I have yet to see the offer letter yet (it was an offer over the phone which I accepted). So I'm waiting until I sign something before turning in my 2 weeks.

Also do you turn it in over email is that respectable?

tiersten

loxleynew wrote: »

Also do you turn it in over email is that respectable?

No. Go talk to your boss in person.

Forsaken_GA

loxleynew wrote: »

Thanks for the responses! It makes sense I was just trying to get feedback before I turned mine in. I got an offer for a job yesterday but I have yet to see the offer letter yet (it was an offer over the phone which I accepted). So I'm waiting until I sign something before turning in my 2 weeks.

Also do you turn it in over email is that respectable?

It's a good idea to make sure you have the offer in hand before you turn in your notice. I'm surprised they didnt send you an offer letter via email to sign and hand in or fax back as soon as they talked to you on the phone.

And you could certainly send email or leave your boss a note or whatever method of communication you desire. Speaking for myself personally, no matter what my relationship with the company, they did me the courtesy of hiring me, so I can return the courtesy by looking them in the eye when telling them I'm quitting.

Forsaken_GA

Plantwiz wrote: »

Once the decision has been made by the employee to leave, their heart typically isn't in their work, and they may distract the other workers (either with chit-chat, or just mere talk of the future). There is not much more for the employee ready to leave to do and rather then cause descent among the rest of the staff, send them off on a 'good' note.

Yeah, when I quit my previous job, I didn't tell anybody about it except the people that needed to know, I wanted to cause as little disruption as possible. Of course, it being a small company, word got out pretty quick. Once I hit that point, I basically told my shift mate that he was on his own, consider me an emergency fallback, I didn't want to leave any loose ends to be cleaned up, so it made sense to hand off to the employee that was staying.

But there were the smoking or in the hall conversations where there was a little bit of envy.

I was actually quite surprised that they let me finish my two weeks out. The parting became adversarial and I had access to virtually every machine in the company and could have done some serious damage had I been so inclined. If they'd had any brains, they would have paid me out and showed me the door shortly after I turned in my notice. It's better to assume the employee will be vengeful than to roll the dice and find out whether or not that's the case.

erpadmin

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

I was actually quite surprised that they let me finish my two weeks out. The parting became adversarial and I had access to virtually every machine in the company and could have done some serious damage had I been so inclined. If they'd had any brains, they would have paid me out and showed me the door shortly after I turned in my notice. It's better to assume the employee will be vengeful than to roll the dice and find out whether or not that's the case.

This and the other posts are interesting...every job I've had, I not only finished out my two weeks (though every last day was an early day...

I was happy with that), but I also had a lunch/dinner thrown for me. My last job, I even went over my duties with my supervisor and gave him all the accounts I had and made sure he changed the passwords. I even had some calls afterwards about where stuff was or how to do what....but they didn't hit me too much with those after awhile. I had (and have) access to everything.....but I was going to have similar duties with the same level of trust. Since folks knew where I was going, it would have been very easy to warn my new bosses what's up. (Of course, since due process went out the window, that's also a potential lawsuit, but bottom line, no one ever has/had to worry about me...

).

I guess it depends on what kind of employer/employee relationship people have. I have never had a job where everyone sang kumbaya, but at the same time, when I needed something done, I could always ask without being rude about it.

At the end of the day it was always about work.

Plantwiz

tiersten wrote: »

It is somebody elses problem at that point. Its not being mean or anything. Its just business and how things work. I mean sure, don't intentionally screw them over or anything but if you worried about tying up every single loose end then you'd never leave.

Agreed.

I understand want to 'clean' up loose ends. But this is why it is good practice to have some job overlap and the employer generally pays for those two weeks with the contingency they may 'call' you if they have further questions.

I'd want to clean stuff up to, but business is business and once the party has decided to move forward...so must the business.

Plantwiz

erpadmin wrote: »

...

I guess it depends on what kind of employer/employee relationship people have. I have never had a job where everyone sang kumbaya, but at the same time, when I needed something done, I could always ask without being rude about it. At the end of the day it was always about work.

It does depend on the person, but from a security point-of-view (and since most here are in the IT world and not a clerk running a cash register/til) I don't see the harm in paying the employee for their time, thank them, and send them on their way.

Certainly, if the soon-former-employee was vengeful, the damage would likely have taken place much earlier (before the notice was issued) to possibly hide the damage.

As management, you hope you hire good people. Unfortunately, it's not as much about people and whether they are good or bad, but more of what is best for business. If we're all mere cogs in the system, then replace the part and keep the machine running.

Devilsbane

loxleynew wrote: »

Also do you turn it in over email is that respectable?

Not unless you have no other choice. aka your boss is in another state/country. And even then a phone conversation would be nice prior to the official letter going.

Forsaken_GA

erpadmin wrote: »

This and the other posts are interesting...every job I've had, I not only finished out my two weeks (though every last day was an early day... I was happy with that), but I also had a lunch/dinner thrown for me. My last job, I even went over my duties with my supervisor and gave him all the accounts I had and made sure he changed the passwords.

Anyone with a decent security background will tell you that people are ALWAYS the weakest link in any security policy. It'd be nice to think that every outgoing employee will be kind, but employees with access to core infrastructure and sensitive information should have their access revoked as soon as possible. It's just not worth the risk that something will happen to piss off the outgoing employee, and they'll figure 'screw it, im going out the door anyway, let's see how they like this.....'

Obviously if you're flipping burgers, there's not much harm you can really do the infrastructure. When you have access to all the servers that host websites that bring in 7 figures of revenue a month as well as the network that supports them.... that's not a gamble I'd be willing to take, no matter how good the relationship with the employee is. I just wouldn't be that tempted to find out how good my business continuity planning really was.

I suspect they knew me well enough that I wouldn't do any harm If the roles had been reversed, as soon as the notice went in, I would have collected their access badge, sent them down to HR to finish out the paperwork, and then have security escort them off the premises.

Devilsbane

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

Obviously if you're flipping burgers, there's not much harm you can really do the infrastructure. When you have access to all the servers that host websites that bring in 7 figures of revenue a month as well as the network that supports them.... that's not a gamble I'd be willing to take, no matter how good the relationship with the employee is. I just wouldn't be that tempted to find out how good my business continuity planning really was.

A smart person still isn't going to cause trouble. (And I know that your first response is most people aren't smart.) Sure, I take down your 7 figure website for an hour. Go me. Except that now you bring me to court for those costs, not to mention the potential jail time.

Even for a company that I hated, it isn't worth the risk to intentionally bring it down. But as the others have said, you likely won't be working your best. More distractions, random discussions with people you barely know about where you are going, ect.

erpadmin

Plantwiz wrote: »

It does depend on the person, but from a security point-of-view (and since most here are in the IT world and not a clerk running a cash register/til) I don't see the harm in paying the employee for their time, thank them, and send them on their way.

Every job I've had in the past 13 years was in IT. IT is all I know how to do. The only jobs I've had that were clerk-like were PT summer jobs or my job I got my senior year of high school to pay for my prom (mom and dad were very adamant about not giving me so much a nickel for prom....and between limo, stuff for my gf/date [except her ticket], booze, dinner, etc., that was about $700.....fun times...

]). Also, out of the 4 jobs I've had, only one involved me not having any domain-level administrator access. [However, if I so wished, I could still get data from PCs from my desk because the local admin password was always the same...and in the chance it wasn't, well...I knew how to use l0phtcrack...] In short, I was always an ethical employee...just because I COULD do damage, didn't mean I did. That job btw was at a Online Brokerage firm...and as a Desktop Support Analyst, I tried to be the front line for data security.

Plantwiz wrote: »

Certainly, if the soon-former-employee was vengeful, the damage would likely have taken place much earlier (before the notice was issued) to possibly hide the damage.

As management, you hope you hire good people. Unfortunately, it's not as much about people and whether they are good or bad, but more of what is best for business. If we're all mere cogs in the system, then replace the part and keep the machine running.

Having said all of that though, I do understand the concept, but it's all about who you hire too and then having a feel for a person. If that person wasn't there long enough, then yeah, it would just be the two weeks and be done with it OR work for a couple of days just to tie up any loose ends. As you said, if this person was going to do anything malicious, it would have been done before notice was given. This person is still going to want no trouble with the last employer and just wants to have a nice clean break. At least, that was the case with me.

tiersten

Its just automatic at the places I work at. Its not whether they like you or not.

erpadmin

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

Obviously if you're flipping burgers, there's not much harm you can really do the infrastructure. When you have access to all the servers that host websites that bring in 7 figures of revenue a month as well as the network that supports them.... that's not a gamble I'd be willing to take, no matter how good the relationship with the employee is. I just wouldn't be that tempted to find out how good my business continuity planning really was.

I suspect they knew me well enough that I wouldn't do any harm If the roles had been reversed, as soon as the notice went in, I would have collected their access badge, sent them down to HR to finish out the paperwork, and then have security escort them off the premises.

If this was a forum [strictly!] for McDonalds employees/"alumni", I wouldn't be here. This is obviously a tech forum, and I don't know the first thing about flippin' burgers at a fast food joint. But I can grill a nice steak on my souped-up gas grill!

I get your's and Plantwiz's point though. Truth be told, I guess if I were put in that situation, I'd do the same. But as I've said, personally, I am not trying to see jail time by stealing confidential data....and in a bad year, my payment gateway server brings in over 20-30 million yearly from students. Credit cards, eChecks go through my ERP and I make sure that data is encrypted and that only the people who need access to that info are the only ones that have it. (I don't have it, but I could give myself that access....but I obviously don't want or need it, in fact I have that page audited to see when anyone accesses that page....). Our external auditors are very happy.

But I am just saying I've never had the sweet vacation.

Forsaken_GA

Devilsbane wrote: »

A smart person still isn't going to cause trouble. (And I know that your first response is most people aren't smart.) Sure, I take down your 7 figure website for an hour. Go me. Except that now you bring me to court for those costs, not to mention the potential jail time.

Even for a company that I hated, it isn't worth the risk to intentionally bring it down. But as the others have said, you likely won't be working your best. More distractions, random discussions with people you barely know about where you are going, ect.

It's not that hard to cover your tracks.

Let me give an example -

Most of the servers ran linux. It would have been absolutely trivial to slip in a little php script for the web facing servers that, when called, just created a file. It would have also then been trivial to look at /etc/crontab and find a script that ran as root, and then edit that script to see if that file existed, and then modify the firewall rules so that no packets leave the machine (to prevent any further remote logging), followed by shredding all the data on the hard disk.

Unless every single system was rigorously audited, all it would take is visiting a URL from a public access point. There'd be very little way to prove that I was directly responsible.

I leave it to the readers imagination to dream up ways to destroy internally accessible resources like the configurations on the network infrastructure and the backup servers without leaving any tracks.

Forsaken_GA

erpadmin wrote: »

I get your's and Plantwiz's point though. Truth be told, I guess if I were put in that situation, I'd do the same. But as I've said, personally, I am not trying to see jail time by stealing confidential data....and in a bad year, my payment gateway server brings in over 20-30 million yearly from students. Credit cards, eChecks go through my ERP and I make sure that data is encrypted and that only the people who need access to that info are the only ones that have it. (I don't have it, but I could give myself that access....but I obviously don't want or need it, in fact I have that page audited to see when anyone accesses that page....). Our external auditors are very happy.

Yeah, my current job is a managed security services firm, and we're regulated like a bank (matter of fact, we have auditors on site this month!), so access checks and controls are *very* strict. There's no way I could destroy the infrastructure here like I could have at my last job, since internal security is taken to an extreme, and that's a good thing. But I've talked with other folks around here, and when you give your notice, it's pretty much automatic, you're gone that day. It's nothing personal, it's just business.

tiersten

You're paying them for their notice period anyway.

SWIFT here does millions of dollars of tranfers a day. The traders also do millions of dollars of transactions. Delay either of them are you're losing money in a big way.

Increased work load for remaining staff vs the possibility however remote of the person leaving going crazy and doing something. If you're talking about the potential to lose millions of dollars for downtime then its going to be that you're giving them garden leave and making them sit at home even if they're the worlds best employee.

RoadwarriorsLive

Plantwiz wrote: »

And, the departure is not always a bad thing, but I cannot think of a place I have worked that when someone gave noticed...there weren't several co-workers all 'wishing' they too could leave. So, by making that departure immediate, the shock hits, and they soon go back to work.

2cents

Thats why we always did it. Especially when layoffs were looming. Too many things can happen plus you could get everyone else worked up to leave too.

Most places I have worked escort you out the same day no matter how long you have been there. Except for one guy that was ready to start his new job the following Monday. Thought he would get the escort but they had him stay the 2 weeks.