Getting Rid of Staff With High Access?

HikingStick writes "I've been in the tech field for over 15 years. After more than nine years with the same company, I've been asked to step in and establish an IT department for a regional manufacturing firm. I approached my company early, providing four weeks notice (including a week of pre-scheduled [and pre-approved] vacation time). I have a number of projects to complete, and had planned to document some of the obscure bits of knowledge I've gleaned over the past nine years for the benefit of my peers, so I figured that would give me plenty of time. That was on a Friday. The following Monday, word came down from above that all of my privileged access was to be removed — immediately. So, here I sit, stripped of power with weeks ahead of me. From discussions with my peers in other companies, I know that cutting off high-privilege users is common, but usually in conjunction with a severance offer (to keep their hands off the network during those final weeks, especially if there is any ill-will). Should I argue for restored access, highlight the fact that I am currently a human paperweight, request a severance package, or simply become the most prolific Slashdot poster over the next few weeks? Does your company have a policy/process for dealing with high-privilege users who give notice? What is it, and do you make exceptions?"

It's really the company's decision

[xmas2003 (739875)]

Your situation kinda sucks as it sounds like you are a diligent worker who wants to help the company. But as long as they are paying you, it's really their choice how they want to use your services. All you can do is when your co-workers ask for your help in passing the torch, mention that you are hand-cuffed by the lack of access and have them request it for you.

P.S. Some activities to pass the time would include Watching Grass Grow [watching-grass-grow.com] and/or Watching Paint Dry. [watching-paint-dry.com]

Re:It's really the company's decision

[Jason Earl (1894)]

What the organization really needs is some time to find out what sorts of things break when you aren't around to poke at them. For the next month they have the benefit of your knowledge, should they need it, but you won't be able to do stuff. This will allow existing staff members to learn to cover gaps while you are still around in case of an emergency.

You are leaving. The company is far less interested in what you can do for them in your last few weeks than they are in learning how to live without you. That basically requires that they cut you out of the loop as soon as possible.

Re:It's really the company's decision

[Amouth (879122)]

very true.. where i work it is policy that when you give your notice your login is turned of completely - your are then paired with someone else in the office - your e-mail box is forwardedto them with an auto reply to mailers of the contact change.

that pairing allows you to cover and discuss what you where doing and what needs to be picked up.

instead of spending your last weeks finishing your job you spend the last weeks as a source of information as someone else is trained to cover your job.

so far it has worked really well for us

Re:It's really the company's decision

[ari_j (90255)]

I'd get way more creative than that. Misuse all the office supplies you can. For instance, write a lengthy daily report and print it in as many formats as you can (Babelfish it into every language, print it in landscape, use funny fonts, etc.), and then use at least 20 or 30 paperclips to hold it together.

Waste others' time the way they are wasting yours. Request frequent meetings with superiors to go over your daily reports. Hold very frequent meetings with random groups of underlings to discuss strange topics. For example, you could have an 8:15 meeting with the receptionist, an entry-level programmer, and a sock puppet regarding the situation in Myanmar, followed by a 9:00 meeting with the same entry-level programmer, a different sock puppet, and the janitor regarding your detailed synopsis of the new Indiana Jones movie.

Make loud phone calls about your internal organs. Bring cake every day and insist that it's someone's birthday. Mix cat food in with Chex Mix and leave a bowl of it in the break room - see how much is gone at the end of the day. Etc.

Just because you aren't allowed to do any work doesn't mean you have to be bored or watch grass grow to pass the time.

Re:It's really the company's decision

[ari_j (90255)]

I almost forgot one. Give seminars/lessons/tutorials on various, purely trivial topics. Teach the history of the ampersand or the origins of the Gin and Tonic.

Re:It's really the company's decision

[ColdWetDog (752185)]

The moderator must have fallen for the cat-food-in-Chex-trick. Too close to home to be a neutral.

Re:It's really the company's decision

[LearnToSpell (694184)]

That works really well when you need a reference for your next job.

Re:It's really the company's decision

[chill (34294)]

That's the beauty of it, he already has the next job and doesn't need a reference.

Re:It's really the company's decision

[by Anonymous Coward]

I remember when I was 18 and knew everything. Every seasoned interviewer knows that the reference it check is not the immediate past or current employer but 2 or more back. The current employer has an incentive to lie if they are getting rid of a bad employee. To the original poster - do your job as best you can and live with the decision. Try and pass along any undocumented knowledge to good employees that will use it correctly.

Re:It's really the company's decision

[egburr (141740)]

Don't do this. They aren't wasting your time. They are still paying you. Instead, consider talking to your boss about leaving sooner (if you are ready to move to the new job) since they have nothing for you to do.

Re:It's really the company's decision

[Lumpy (12016)]

Exactly. Screw em. If the higher up's think you are worthless and cut your access then give them what they want. A human paperweight. surf slashdot, do as little as possible, when challenged say, "I would love to, but you will not let me."

Your example is exactly why giving notice is not something you really do anymore. I got further screwed. I was nice like you and did all that, then HR came back with a letter, "All vacation is canceled" you cant take vacation after you give notice, you also forfeit all vacation and sick time accrued.

So I sat there and watched TV the last 2 weeks in my office. I was going to document all I knew, I decided that I was not going to as they wanted to be jerks about me being a good guy.

I still get calls from people there about systems that I was the only expert on. I reply with, "what is your PO number for this consulting call? I would love to help you but management and HR told me point blank that everything has to be done by the book."

So they hired another firm to help them, that firm contracts me out as the consultant. It pisses off the upper managers.

Re:It's really the company's decision

[Lijemo (740145)]

When I was laid off from a previous job-- they cut off my server access immediately. Though it wasn't necessary in my case, it certainly makes sense as a basic policy when letting someone go.

EXCEPT for the fact that they didn't bother to check for running processes first. Completely unaware of the fact that I was about to be laid off, I had kicked of an elaborate SQL script on the live server just before my boss called me into his office. They killed my account with this script still running-- oops. A friend of mine who was still at the company said that the resulting zombie crashed the main Oracle server, requiring a reboot, three days after I left.

So the "safe" choice of immediately removing access caused a major crash, while the "dangerous" choice of not removing access would have caused no problem whatsoever. (I'd say something about irony, but I don't want to kick off a debate on the word's meaning and whether it applies...)

Re:It's really the company's decision

[SatanicPuppy (611928)]

Dude, they perp-walked him; he didn't do it on purpose. He started a process, and then they killed his userid, so the process went zombie and just sat around doing its thing without any control, and no one who knew to stop it.

I had a similar story; I got canned, and the second I left the building they started reformatting my equipment to make sure I hadn't left any time bombs. Due to server problem, I'd been using my desktop for development, and I had a huge code package sitting there waiting to be deployed (They fired me because I'd completed it).

So they ended up wiping out the code. Woops. The icing on the cake was that they changed all my passwords, and revoked all my access, but they didn't check for running sessions, so I got home and I was still remotely rooted in a pair of live servers. I changed the MOTD on all the machines I was still logged into to: "When terminating an employee, make sure to abort active sessions before you change the passwords." Then logged off.

I'm sure that sent them into a frenzy of paranoia, but frankly, they were acting like idiots. They went out of business in 3 or 4 months, and the guy who fired me spent a year or so after that trying to get me to do contract work for him.

Re:It's really the company's decision

[Kelbear (870538)]

I recommend the parent's suggestion. Continue your remaining work days by assisting your replacements. Not just because you're still being paid, but because it's satisfying to give your best work with what you have. If this means that getting access back is necessary, then start that process as well. Idling is nice as a break here and then, but a whole day of it will be very unfulfilling.

Also, It's nice to leave without burning bridges. Who knows, maybe some of the people you leave behind may remember you in a positive light later in your career and provide an opportunity?

Back pain

[jolyonr (560227)]

I would imagine those sorts of working conditions might be enough to flare up your old back pain condition, making it difficult to attend work on a daily basis.

Nice to know

[nizo (81281)]

Wow, I will have to remember to give four weeks notice next time instead of two.

Thanks for the heads up!

Re:Nice to know

[houghi (78078)]

In Belgium the first 5 years is officialy 3 weeks notice and 6 weeks for the company. Then it becomes 6 and 12 and goes up even more after 10 years.

Re:Nice to know

[FritzTheCat1030 (758024)]

My family owns a couple of businesses, when an employee gives notice -- we say -- thanks, the good news is you can start your new job early. Security escorts them out, problem solved.

They give notice, you respond by firing them. In many instances, you're going to pay for their unemployment benefits now. Not to mention, if you have important employees who you would LIKE to get notice from if they decide to leave, they're much less likely to give you notice now since they know of your previous behavior.

Keeping someone who will leave is sometimes good

[AHumbleOpinion (546848)]

Notice is for sallies, real men just quit. After all -- do they give you notice when your going to be let go? No.

The one time I was laid off I was told it was effective in six weeks. I spent much of that time documenting and training coworkers on projects that I had worked solo on. My network access and other privileges were not affected. I asked the VP of engineering if I could take some of the source code home for reference so that I could answer questions over the phone or by email after I left. He drafted a letter stating that I was allowed to keep the source for this purpose only and that it remained company IP and could not be disclosed to anyone else. We both signed it.

This was about a 150 person company owned by a large international conglomerate. The VP was originally from the conglomerate's corporate headquarters and joined us two years earlier when we were acquired. The rest of management was local. I had been there about four years. A year after my layoff the situation at the company had improved and I was asked to return.

The moral of the story:
I don't deny that it is common to be immediately cutoff when you resign, but it is not a given.
Don't burn bridges.

It's a waste of money to pay someone who doesn't even want to be working for you. Obviously their output is going to be nill so their pay should be nill.

Myself and at least one other poster have demonstrated diligence training those who will be taking over. I think it is far more of an individual judgement call based on past projects and the individual level of trust.

If you are going to be involved in managing those family businesses I would suggest a less black and white perspective. Sorry, but management is not easy and such a black and white perspective often indicate the less capable managers or someone in an unforgiving bureaucratic/politicized environment who needs to cover their ass with policy compliance. That said, I agree that it many cases the proper decision is immediate cutoff, immediately issuing a final check, and wishing them well as you walk them out in a friendly manner. My point is merely that in some cases keeping them around for a little while can be beneficial to the company.

Re:Nice to know

[slashname3 (739398)]

I guess to some employers, once you say you're leaving, you're persona non grata. If they don't want to use your time any more, it's their dime. Cheers

I was laid off from one large company once and they provided two months of paid time off. Once they notified me they cut off access. Their take was that my new job was to find another job. The kicker was that if you found another job during that time period then you did not get the payoff package at the end of the two months. Kind of funny, I found a new job just after the check cleared. They setup the rules, we just play by them.

I also had a situation a long time ago where a contractor that worked for me decided he was going to relocate for a new job. He gave two weeks notice. I checked his projects he had which were done and told him that he was no longer needed. I did not have any make work that justified me paying him for another two weeks. Such is the life of a contractor.

And don't forget the main rule here, no one is irreplaceable. No one! Not even you. (Yes, I even mean you there in the back with four digit /. id and the smug look on your face!) If you drop off the face of the Earth tomorrow the world is not going to end. Sure, there may be a few glitches here and there but someone will step in and keep things going. People that feel like they are irreplaceable are going to have a major ego correction at some point in their life. Some sooner than later.

Are you crazy

[CRCulver (715279)]

You're possibly getting paid to surf the Internet all day, the best job there every was, and you're wanting to go back to working hard for the Man?

Re:Are you crazy

[shawnmchorse (442605)]

Have you ever had nothing to do at work for that long? I can handle surfing the Internet at work for maybe a week. After that, the boredom is excruciating. Believe me, being completely ignored by your company can sometimes be almost as bad as other things.

Re:Are you crazy

[i.r.id10t (595143)]

Good time to pick up a new skill/programming language or refresh your knowledge, etc.

Re:Are you crazy

[CRCulver (715279)]

There's just so much to learn on the Internet. You could take foreign language courses, read geeky stuff from MIT OpenCourseware, or follow world affairs more deeply on Google News. If someone got bored with that, they might just some simple job they could do at a distance and draw two salaries at the same time.

Re:Are you crazy

[JimDaGeek (983925)]

I will second this. I had a nice job with a state department as the highest paid person (I was a consultant at the time). I was supposed to be converted to an employee with benefits, but they had a hard time getting the state to actually pay a _decent_ wage (I have 12 years as a programmer).

So, I spent 3 months or so picking my nose with little tiny things to do here or there. I was going nuts. I personally don't know how anyone can be at work for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week and just "browse the web". I set up a proxy server at home and use FoxyProxy so I could get to any site that was blocked (youtube, fark, but not /.). Still, it was not good enough.

I brought in a USB HD with GB's of stuff on it, like... games. I still wanted to slam my face on a fork. Daily.

As a programmer I actually want and need to ... Program! It engages my brain and makes me feel warm and cozy.

So, during my many, many of hours of downtime, I just started looking for a new job on monster, etc. Then I would just leave without even needing to tell anyone, and go on interviews.

Found a new job. Now happy. ;-)

Though to be honest, with a state job, once you have about 1 year under you belt, it almost takes an amendment to the state constitution to get you fired. Which was nice from a security point-of-view. Though it also allowed a lot of under-skilled "programmers" to be permanent fixtures.

Re:Are you crazy

[smellsofbikes (890263)]

Wow. I've been sitting here for five minutes rereading this post -- while doing other things -- and I can't get it out of my head.
I can't imagine something better than being paid to read Wikipedia and learn stuff all day long for months at a time. That's basically a MacArthur grant.
I'd learn Icelandic, finish my PIC data acquisition unit, re-learn synthetic organic chemistry, design and build a couple power supplies, actually learn electrical engineering rather than just pretending to know it, build a suit of chainmail, learn enough aerodynamics to design a new set of wings for a homebuilt plane... I could spend three years of 8 hour days online with ease, and love every second of it.
(I know this because after a car crash I spent about six weeks bedridden and that's exactly what I did the whole time, and it was *glorious*. I learned enough Japanese to have semi-intelligent conversations and taught myself Perl during that painful vacation.)

Re:Are you crazy

[ColdWetDog (752185)]

2 words, internet porn.

He's a Unix, you insensitive clod!

It's even surprising you must stay.

[Corporate Troll (537873)]

In the early nineties, my dad was a high-privilege employee at a bank. Anyway, due to office politics, he pretty much got the boot because one of the higher ups didn't like him. (You know, how easy it is to fire someone if you really want). He had been working there for nearly 20 years, and according to local law he had 6 months notice. He was disallowed to go to the bank during those 6 months: from one day to another he sat at home.

I heard this is pretty much the rule with high-privilege employees. So, I'd suggest, sit back, enjoy yourself and troll on slashdot as if there were no tomorrow.

Re:It's even surprising you must stay.

[deniable (76198)]

If you're high enough in the company, it's called gardening leave. It's like a paid non-compete period. It prevents effective poaching of executives and allows the company time to deal with whatever the guy was working on.

nope

[stoolpigeon (454276)]

if you think that this will make you the only person taking a pay check to sit around all day and do nothing more than post to slashdot, you are sorely mistaken.

Request "Gardening Leave"

[Pope (17780)]

a delightful term I learned from my UK counterparts. Essentially you're still under employ by the current company so cannot do work for your new one or any competition, and you relax at home while getting paid. It's like paid vacation, except not, since you could theoretically be called in to work at any point.

AKA. request to work from home if your access is revoked, since you can't do anything at that location now anyway.

Let me put it this way...

[hyades1 (1149581)]

We look forward to hearing from you...frequently.

Access removal

[trippd6 (20793)]

I have worked for 3 hosting companies. My experiance has been: If you are not considered a risk, you are allowed to work your final weeks with full access. If you are REMOTELY considered a risk, you are imediately walked out, although you are paid for your final weeks.

Any good admin/manager knows if you have physical access, you might as well have root/admininistrator access.

Enjoy the break

[DataBroker (964208)]

It's in the company's interest for you to do nothing. They actually will prefer if you do absolutely nothing because of their own liability. As a regular employee, if you mess something up it's just negligence (oops). On the other hand if the company terminates you and still gives you access, and then you mess something up, they're criminally liable because they should have restricted your access.

For example, I worked on banking software and had god-rights. If I as a regular employee steal all of the customer data and sell it, then I am the criminal. If I have been terminated and do the same, then they are at fault. Now yes, I realize that it's a pedantic difference, but the banks which run the software see a world of difference and will sue the my employer accordingly.

Believe me, it's cheaper to pay me 6 months severance than it is to be sued for my actions.

Most are set out the door immediately

[haplo21112 (184264)]

It really depends on level of access and what they can access. In many cases however they have been escorted out the door with in minutes of giving notice. Typically they get the two weeks notice they gave as paid time (Two weeks is standard).

Re:Most are set out the door immediately

[CopaceticOpus (965603)]

This seems really silly. Since the employee is the one giving notice, he probably would not have motivation to cause damage before leaving. Furthermore, if he wanted to open a back door or steal code before leaving, he could simply do it before he gave notice.

On the other hand, those two weeks could be a really crucial time for the employee to document his knowledge and train others. Any company that won't take advantage of those two weeks is probably just being paranoid.

Nothing new here

[sjvn (11568)]

It seems to be common now for companies' to strip users of all their privileges ASAP. If you think this was bad, be glad you're not be laid-off. I've often many people tell me that they learned they no longer had a job when their sessions were terminated in the middle of the work day.

Welcome to the work-world of the 21st century.

Steven
http://www.practical-tech.com/ [practical-tech.com]
http://blogs.computerworld.com/sjvn [computerworld.com]

Re:Nothing new here

[eln (21727)]

I've often many people tell me that they learned they no longer had a job when their sessions were terminated in the middle of the work day.

Yah, I had a similar thing happen to me. Middle of the day, suddenly my whole connection goes down and I can't re-establish it. I get really pissed off because I had just spent the last 3 months working 80 hour weeks getting my manager's stupid pet project out the door on time, just to have it cancelled at the last minute. I storm in to my manager's office and tear into him about "how dare you lay me off" and "this company will die without me" and "your mother sucks so-and-so in etc," and on and on.

He tries to interrupt me with some lame explanation, but I'm having none of it. I pick up his stupid little "certificate of excellence" award he got at the last quarterly meeting and throw it against the wall, shattering it to pieces. He tries to call security, but I rip the phone out of his hand and continue to hurl abuse that would make the paint peel if he didn't keep the office at 60 goddamn degrees all the time, rendering it permanently encased in ice.

Finally, some of my fellow co-workers come in and ask what's going on. I tell them I've been laid off, and so they start in on the boss too. How could you do this to our best employee, who do you think you are, etc. By this time, my boss is in a corner in the fetal position weeping softly. My two co-workers quit on the spot in solidarity, and throw their laptops at my boss, who is knocked unconcious by one of them, while the other smashes into his new 24" wide-screen HD monitor.

At last, my co-workers head off to the bar to continue the rant about the injustice of it all, while I go back to my desk to put my "wall o' tech books" in a box. While, I'm there, I happen to notice the back of my computer. Turns out I had knocked the Ethernet cable out with my foot.

Oops.

Re:Nothing new here

[An dochasac (591582)]

Welcome to the work-world of the 21st century.

No, welcome to the work-world of the U.S. (circa 1990-200?). Much of the world hasn't adopted these draconian and dehumanizing disemployment procedures. They rely on human decency during severance just as U.S. companies once did.

The common practice of frog walking terminated employees to the nearest exit results in far more long term damage than the hypothetical "disgruntled employee on his/her way out" ever could. I suspect some of the HR managers came up with this process in order to meld the Japanese "work to death" management theories with the U.S. "T minus 0 seconds of job security." It doesn't work but it gives the HR wonks something to justify their own jobs. Think of it this way, when Joe employee has zero job security, every minute of every day becomes a "I may be on my way out" minute. What makes that employee any less likely to do the damage 30 seconds before the termination decision is made? This is what we have across the U.S. right now and people wonder why you can't get a clerk at the *mart, why you can't get good service anywhere and why corporations are infested with incompetent, selfish, opportunists [slashdot.org] who steal from customers and sabotage companies and co-workers in order to gain "job security." The team player is dead, it's every man for himself in corporate America.

The odd thing is that these same American multinational companies often do have sane and humane exit policies for their outsourced contractors and their overseas employees.

Here's a plan:

[Ihlosi (895663)]

1. Do nothing. 2. Keep bits of obscure information for yourself unless they come asking for it. 3. Start new job. 4. ??? 5. PROFIT !

Rumor has it that step 4 has something to do with becoming a highly-paid consultant for the old company.

Take the high road

[8127972 (73495)]

If they want to keep you from doing your job, they're only going to be hurting themselves and their isn't really much that you can do about that. But what you can do is to do what you can to leave on the best of terms. Just because they decide to be dorks doesn't mean that you have to respond in kind. It's really important to not burn bridges as you might need them for a reference some day. Document whatever obscure bits that you need to and do knowledge transfer with those you can work with. Then you can move on with you conscience clear.

Go on gardening leave.

[Paul Johnson (33553)]

I'd ask for "gardening leave" (i.e. be allowed to go home rather than forced to sit twiddling your thumbs all day). You might also offer to sit down with a co-worker and tell them about all the stuff you were doing so they can take it over.

This is almost certainly not personal. Your senior management has obviously made a policy decision that the risks of leaving you with access to the systems are more important than the costs of locking you out. Obviously *you* know you are honest and safe, but they can't take that risk. If you think about the amount of damage you could have done if so inclined, you might see the point. There are quite a few horror stories about disaffected employees and computer systems.

Warcraft FTW

[civik (244978)]

You could level a character to 70 no problem in 4 weeks. Enjoy!

fuck it up for everyone else

[larry bagina (561269)]

get your work ip address banned by slashdot and wikipedia.

You're not supposed to finish your projects

[notthepainter (759494)]

Really, you aren't.

You should spend the next 3 weeks documenting your projects. That is what the company needs from you. So few companies get this, want you coding until the last minute.

What happens when your stuff breaks? The next folks start at your documentation and go from there. Internal wiki's are great for this.

Sit back and relax...

[Penguinisto (415985)]

My last position (in Utah) required a DoD IT-1 clearance, and I'd gotten the offer to work in Oregon at my current position. Funny thing is, when I gave two weeks' notice, they immediately removed my access to the production environment servers and from the datacenter that held 'em (as required). But, they didn't remove them from all the non-DoD-related servers and services.

I spent those two weeks typing documentation on everything I did, and in training one of the junior admins to wrangle SMTP until they found a replacement. The only real benefit I got out of the deal was that I didn't have to carry a pager anymore.

The other benefit? The folks there were okay with me burning off paid sick days to arrange for the U-Haul and to tie up loose ends before the move.

Most companies that I've worked with in the past were similar - you only really lose access to the vital stuff, but there's usually plenty of non-vital stuff that still needs done until you bail.

/P

Consult your replacement.

[jellomizer (103300)]

That would be the ethical thing to do. At this stage you don't need the high access as your replacement has the access. I would work closely with your replacement explaining things to them that may not be nessarly documented, even if they are documented people most likely don't want to read it. So use the time to give your replacement the upper hand. There is a lot you can do without having root/administrator access.

It is unusual

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve (949321)]

I have a friend who is an accountant. When he turned in his notice to a Fortune 500 company (2 weeks I believe), they gave him 1 month's pay and told him (fairly politely) that he could leve immediately and good luck on his next job. However, note I said that he's an accountant.

It does seem to me that there's little point in removing access and keeping an IT guy on. If they need to remove access they should just pay you for a month and let you go. The fact that they want you to stay and took away your access says a lot of negative things about them. They don't trust you, but they want to keep you to the bitter end anyway.

Knowledge transfer as much as you wish during this time. If I was being treated this way, it sure wouldn't make me want to seek people out to give knowledge to, but I would probably help anyone who came to me with questions. I do suggest to you that you not ask for your access back. If your company wants to be a jerk about this, let it be a complete inconvenience for them and play by those rules. A company that has already shown that they don't trust you is not going to look favorably on any requests you make for restored access. In fact, they might find it suspicious that you need the access and they might suspect you of planting trojans, etc. Just live with it. In fact, you probably should fight to not get the access back and here's why. If something goes wrong after you leave, your company has shown you that they don't trust you. They might blame you for whatever happens if you get your access restored.

Most companies do not act this way. I've worked in IT for almost 22 years now (since college) and we've either just sent people packing the same day (never for IT staff, but it has happened for sales people and such) or they got to keep their access until they left.

see if you can work from home...

[SCHecklerX (229973)]

Seriously. Just be 'on call' if they have problems. Since you can't do much by physically being there, what difference does it make?

if they won't do that, ask for severence and be on your merry way enjoying the time off.

I wasn't so lucky. I was 'fired' (new management didnt' understand my role as lead network security analyst, and even worse, feared my knowledge). But because of that fear, I got a severence package and most of the bonus I was promised for helping an outsourcing initiative (no, it wasn't me who was replaced through that). I was also able to collect unemployment. The downside is that I had to explain why I was fired in all of my interviews.

Re:They are protecting their assets

[Ihlosi (895663)]

How does the company know that you are giving 4 weeks notice so you can train other employees or finish projects? How do they NOT know that you aren't going to spend the next four weeks setting up timebomb scripts or sabotaging equipment?

Anyone who is malicious and has half a working brain would, of course, do all of that evil stuff before giving any notice. Do they really think that all of their employees are malicious, incompetent, backstabbing morons ?

You could be trying to steal information or recruit your coworkers to your new job.

Yes, the free market is a cool thing, as long as it doesn't impact the bottom line. Then you should fight it tooth and claw. And you should hang on to moronic employees who can't look for better jobs themselves, but need to be recruited by a coworker. Geez. Some people in charge must really, really think that all of their employees are a bunch of dimwitted morons. Maybe they're right, too.