Can I just clean out my desk and disappear?

7 thoughts on “Can I just clean out my desk and disappear?”

1. Thanks so much for this. “You don’t get to choose your references” perfectly crystallizes so much in one little sentence.

   You have no idea who’s going to talk about you, whether for good or bad. Maybe the hiring manager will be at lunch and say “Hey, Dave, I’m about to call these three candidates for interviews; ever heard of any of them?” You can lose the job to a reference before you’ve ever had an interview.

   The flip side is true, as well. Dave might well say “I’ve heard of Heather’s work from Bob. He says she’s fantastic.” Or Dave might have heard only bad things from Dave.

   “You don’t get to choose your references” goes straight into my quiver of easily-stated wisdom.

   1. I don’t think I’ve ever been in someone’s quiver of easily stated wisdom before. I’m totally honored.

2. Love the quiver of easily stated wisdom.
   Can’t leave a comment over there without creating an account- but I have to toss in my 2 cents so I will leave it here.
   On the comment: “it’s actually illegal. Not on the part of the hiring company, but if the company they call gives them much more than start/end dates and if you are re-hirable, then odds are your old company is breaking the law (in the US).”
   So untrue. Where do people get this stuff? Unless they knowingly lie about you (negatively) they can say whatever they want. And someone checking references or verifying employment can call whoever and ask whatever they want. They might not get the answers to what they want, but nothing illegal here.
   Sheesh.

3. EHRL, can you expound on this? this has me concerned:
   “But when you apply for your next job, there is a high probability that the recruiter will call THIS company looking for a reference. Think they won’t find your manager? LinkedIn makes that super easy. And it doesn’t even matter if you have a page.”

   how can someone use LinkedIn against me if I’m not on LinkedIn?

   1. Admittedly, it is more difficult if you’re not on LinkedIn, but your boss probably is. And since you’ve listed the company you worked for on your resume, along with your title, it isn’t all that difficult to find someone that looks like he could have been your boss. And if you contact this person, and he wasn’t your boss, 99% of the time, he’ll be happy to refer me to the right person.

      Do not ever screw someone over, thinking you won’t ever need him again.

4. I’ve never seen that problem before. Usually the situation seems to be the employee tenders their resignation with notice, and the boss tells them not to bother to come in again. Happened to me. The owner who hired me had been in the hospital and sold part of the business to a former manager. Bottom line the manager and I didn’t get along. We had never had words or anything but he was trying to establish himself as boss. I was working another job at the time and didn’t need this one, but I tried to do the professional thing and give two weeks written notice. I tendered my resignation on Friday to the original owner. Tuesday the original owner was off and the new co-owner was on duty. At the end of the shift he told me never to come back. I wasn’t offended, but it really struck me as immature to effectively say “You can’t quit! You’re fired! So nyehh!”. The place is no longer in business (no surprise).

   1. Yeah, mean usually isn’t a good business strategy. My husband once turned in his two weeks notice and his boss asked where he was going. When he told her, she said, “Do you have your keys in your pocket?”

      He was rather confused. But since he did, she refused to let him back into his office, claiming that he’d take all this confidential stuff to the competitor. Oh well. No big loss. Funny as all get out.

      Because, honestly, if you’re going to steal stuff to give to a competitor, you’ll do it before you give notice, not after.

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