Hacker News Reader

Comment by unwind | Hacker News Reader

Don't typical contracts for people like Twitter's staff in the US come with timing requirements on quitting? As in, you can't really quit "on the day", you have to leave proper notice and so on?

I understand that in practice once someone says "I quit!" there might be little interest from the employer to keep them around, but in a scenario like you outline I would be very afraid of legal ramifications.

Just a thought, I don't really have an opinion here, Twitter is pretty "meh" in my view. I of course hope it ends well for the employees!

Edit: spelling, and fix weird final double bang.

View on HN

No. Off the top of my head, my understanding is that the vast majority of full time jobs in the US are at-will employment which means there is no required notice period. It’s considered a best practice to give two weeks or more but that’s a social contract and not enforceable in any way. In the past, when employee reference checks were a real thing, that two weeks might buy you a better reference, but even that has been stripped away now with references handled by HR and only confirming dates of employment and conditions of termination (this is to avoid lawsuits I think).

According to this: https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/10/23451198/twitter-ftc-elo... a twitter lawyer has told employees that their contracts specify they are a remote first workplace, so it's unclear if Elon has the actual right to force anyone to return to the office.

In at-will states like California he doesn't really need the "right" to fire anyone (assuming he isn't firing them for any protected class reasons). I doubt the majority of Twitter employees (in the US anyway) have any sort of individual employment contract which specifies anything different than the typical at-will employment.

I suspect though that if he does fire people for refusing to return to the office that given the circumstances (twitter very openly being a 'remote first' workplace for years) that states would view that as a constructive dismissal and at the very least those fired would be eligible for unemployment benefits despite being fired "for cause".

Most states in the US are "At will employment".

You can quit on the day! It is just not considered "polite" / "professional".

Buying a company, firing all the executives and then half the employees is also not very polite or professional.

What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

Are there any restrictions on timing your quitting so that it damages your employer as much as possible? Like, I don't know, a senior sale person quitting 2 minutes into a meeting to sign a massive contract, the company lawyer quitting 5 minutes before representing the company in a trial, or somesuch.

California is an 'at-will' work state, which means you can both be fired at-will or you can leave a company at-will with zero notice (it goes both ways). I know, because I've done it (left, that is, with only notice given the day-of). Unless this has changed in the years since I've left CA/the US.

> Don't typical contracts for people like Twitter's staff in the US come with timing requirements on quitting? As in, you can't really quit "on the day", you have to leave proper notice and so on?

No. The vast majority of tech jobs are “at-will” on both sides: either party can terminate the relationship at any moment.

Giving two weeks’ notice is a cultural norm.

No, you can generally just quit instantly if you want to. Companies can also fire you instantly (but mass layoffs do have some rules).

There's a general convention of giving two weeks' notice, but it's not a legal requirement.

Even if you can't really quit, you can just pretend to work, or "silent quit"

Reply on news.ycombinator.com