Many years ago, a woman that worked at the same place, just didn’t turn up one day. I think they (the closest thing we had to HR at the time) let this slide for a week, then called her. She just said “Oh, I didn’t work to work there any more”.
I don’t think they pursued it any further and let it at that.
I just don’t understand that mentality. You burn a bridge, when you could just send an email or something saying you quit and keep the possibility of coming back sometime open. Or if your boss actually liked you, you could have gotten a recommendation, but instead decided to make their life suck.
Just send an email saying you quit, it’s really not that hard.
You burn a bridge
Yeah, that’s kind of the point
keep the possibility of coming back sometime open
If I wanted to work there I wouldn’t be quitting, especially not just dipping out
Or if your boss actually liked you, you could have gotten a recommendation
Usually people doing this aren’t in that situation, being on good terms with someone usually means you don’t just vanish on them
instead decided to make their life suck.
The vast majority of times this is, again, the point
You do you, but a little professionalism goes a long way. Maybe that manager moves to another org that you want to apply at, and they reject you because of how you acted the last time. Or maybe they just tell someone at the new org how you left.
Doing this has zero benefits to you, sending an email takes almost zero effort and might have some benefit for you. The rational thing is to send the email.
I thought it was weird at the time. The contracts had a notice period in, and it’s not like many US states where employment is at-will. The employer is definitely required to give notice (albeit they can send you home and just pay you the notice period, which many do). So I suspect they could have gone after her for that, if they wanted to.
Likely they considered it not worth pursuing, though.
But if you’re going to violate a contract anyway, might as well make dealing with that easier for your direct manager. Maybe you’re unwilling to work those three months, but sending an email saying you resign at least helps your boss out. My boss put one of my coworkers on disability leave, for example, instead of firing them (he fired them when they came back after a couple months and the issue wasn’t resolved).
But it all starts with actually making the most base level of effort. An email takes like 10 seconds and doesn’t need to be long:
Sorry for the short notice, but I can’t work here anymore and won’t be coming in anymore. Know I’m supposed to give more notice, but I just can’t. Sorry again.
As someone that manages people, I’d be annoyed with that, but less annoyed than if someone just stopped showing up. In fact, if they were a decent worker, I might respond with something like this:
Thanks for letting me know. Here’s the documentation for short-term disability, if that’s what you need. Let me know if you’d like to try that. I’ve started processing your resignation with the shortest possible term (X days), but I can cancel that if you let my know by <day>. I’ve told the team you’re out sick, so coming back won’t be an issue if you choose to.
I hope everything is well, please feel free to reach out, even if you just want to talk.
And if I really didn’t like the employee:
Sorry to hear that, thanks for letting me know, I’ve started processing your resignation. Our policy is 3 months notice, and the consequence for doing that is <X>. I’ve attached a copy of the company policy for you to review.
Let me know if you need anything further.
Both are better than sending no notice at all.
I worked with someone who did this. It was the HR person. She just didn’t show up one day, didn’t answer her phone or door. For a solid week. After a wellness check by the police, it was revealed that she was fine, just couldn’t go back in to work because she hated her job so much.
I was young, and it was a shitty grocery chain filled with shitty management and shitty customers. I 100% thought she had killed herself, or skipped town for some other awful reason. It was a relief to hear she was OK. Fuck that store.
what if we organized the workers but instead of striking we all just don’t show up and gaslight the regional management into thinking everything’s fine
Because the store management isn’t going to organize with us rabble. It’s also hard to mimic the hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars worth of sales that regional looks at in their accounts. Pulling the wool over their eyes on that level is getting into bank fraud territory, and would require the aid of, and not just also not showing up, of bank workers.
Are you ok yourself? Do you still work there?
You sound like a good person, wish you two were friends so she might not be as depressed.
That reminds me when I missed the first day of teaching because of a really bad flu causing me to lose track of the dates, I got a very concerned call from my advisor who thought I offed myself. Apparently not too uncommon for underpaid adjunct professors, unfortunately.
When I was in grad school I knew a guy who just simply didn’t teach for half the semester. No contact with students, no classes held, just didn’t show. He gave everyone a passing grade on the midterm and came back halfway through. No explanation. He was not fired. Of course, like the rest of us, he was grossly underpaid and didn’t have health insurance. I guess they get what they get if they’re gonna treat us like cogs, right?
Sometimes I wonder how people get away with stuff like this. I recall that story from Spain, I think, where a guy was getting a paycheck for like 20 years but not working at all. I guess they did a reorg and his new ‘boss’ didn’t know about him and he never got work assigned and he just stopped showing up…for years.
It has to be a pointless job to start with, right? If I just didn’t work at my job for a week it would probably get noticed. If I no-showed completely it certainly would.
I’d probably be given the benefit of the doubt for a few weeks if I just stopped producing work. I could maybe make it a month before someone said something about my performance but only because sometimes the things I work on take a while to come to fruition. And missing meetings isn’t uncommon because of conflicts/being super busy.
Id probably also get the benefit of the doubt if I no-showed too. But after a two days they’d call my wife or come by my house, or send the police department to my house to check on me.
people think I died
receives flowers
Checks note that came with them
“Get well soon.”
This is advanced ghosting.