If someone says "if you don't fix this thing I will look for work elsewhere" that doesn't mean that you can say "I accept your resignation." If you want that person gone immediately, you have to fire them.
I think you'll find from a legal standpoint, it does.[1] At least I know that they teach in negotiations courses that any time you make a counteroffer, the original offer is legally null and void. So if I give you an employment offer that is good for 30 days, and you counter the following day with a higher salary, then I legally can say "No, and we will not hire you" (i.e. the 30 days clause became invalid once you gave me a counteroffer).
This isn't exactly the same, but we are at least taught to treat it similarly.
Also, she didn't merely say "I will look for work elsewhere". She said something to the effect of "Let's meet to decide my end date." There's a significant difference.
[1] Although being an at-will job, the legality is rather moot.
In fact, it specifically does not: https://cuiab.ca.gov/board/precedentdecisions/docs/pb39.pdf
A manager told it was effective immediately and mentioned her final paycheck.
What's the parallel between those facts and the dispute here? Just not seeing any applicable precedent.
> What's the parallel between those facts and the dispute here?
That it's, at best for Google, the exact same thing, except that Google gave Gebru, in writing, an explicit, non-resignation reason for the early separation, making it even less disputable that it was a firing and not merely accepting the (disputed) resignation? Paraphrased most favorably to the Google management narrative, Gebru said “do X or I will conduct discussions around setting a date on which I will resign” and Google management said “we accept your resignation and, further, based on an internal group e-mail you sent after this dispute started which we find unacceptable, we are ending your employment immediately.”
The only interesting implication is unemployment, but if it's a termination, Google might tell the unemployment office it was for insubordination.
Otherwise, this is an all-in bet, and you need to be fully committed to leaving before doing it.
If I tell Perl to
do_the_thing() || die();
- I will look for work elsewhere
- I will work on a last date
- My last date is <X>
- This job isn't working out
- I don't want to work here anymore
- I offer my resignation
- I quit
Edit: if you say "I don't want to work here anymore." And you get your "resignation date moved up" you still get your unemployment benefits because you were fired.
I can't speak for California, but in my state, if you are fired and not laid off[1], you don't get unemployment benefits. I've anecdotally heard this is also the case in California. However, I've also heard that many tech companies state they will not dispute unemployment claims when fired (my company certainly says that), so people in these "privileged" companies often do collect unemployment even when fired.
[1] I hope people know the difference.
There might be specific criteria that needs to be met for each, so details matter. My guess is the reason my employer does not dispute unemployment claims is they've calculated that the cost to dispute them exceeds the amount they expect their unemployment insurance contributions to go up.
I am assuming that was the red line, I am not a manager but it would have been for me.
I am not really even sure how meaningful an email telling your coworkers to stop working on their projects is. It really depends on the tone. When I was at Google, I used the internal social media extensively. I am sure at some point someone said something like "I'm really depressed about how my project is going" and I would reply with something like "You should join my team! I have a req!" That's technically telling someone to stop working on their project, but is a completely acceptable thing to do.
Ultimately the exact details matter, and we don't have them.
If you immediately fire someone for that, that may be illegal age discrimination.
Cheers.
What do you do?
If there’s no notice period (legal only in “at will” states, I believe) then it would seem reasonable to fire them immediately.