Hey all, well I resigned from my job over here in the UK (Head of Operations) and boy were the company I worked for not happy. My 3 manager colleagues refused to speak to me and my staff were kept away from me. You would have thought I'd said I was leaving to set up a rival company!!! Anyone else had bad experiences with leaving their jobs they want to share. I am on 'gardending leave' as they only wanted me to work one week out of my 4 weeks notice - getting paid to not work seems fair to me teehee

When I handed in my notice I was helped from the building by noon. I felt really sorry for the poor guy who had to pick up the slack in my projects, I never even had a chance to brief him!

Its just retarded, its not like we were not sitting on the fact we were waiting to leave for months, so why pretend like we are going to sabotage things or steal the family silver when we do hand in our notice.

Oh well, I enjoyed the extra couple of weeks paid holidays and did a grand tour of my UK friends before heading for the airport.

My husband keeps leaving me lists of things to do as he wasnt lucky enough to be put on gardening leave - not that we have a garden!

I loved it when a company did that to me, especially as I hadn't taken any of my Annual Leave by the time I left either!

I ended up being paid for not working for a month and at the end of it being paid all my salary and also a big wedge of holiday pay as well!!
Plus I could prepare for my new job in the time I had off.

Their loss if you ask me.

When my OH was made redundant, he and all the others before him, those at the same time and those since have all been given their notice and then escorted off the premises without even being able to return to their workstations to shut down/finish anything they were doing.

A security guard accompanied them to their desk for them to remove and personal effects and then they were taken to the door.
I can only assume the company were frightened of a disgruntled employee sabotaging something if they were given a chance.
That seems rather insulting to me, but I suppose some people would do that if they had the chance.

I met my husband in the pub nearby, along with all the others who had been similarly treated, all looking shell-shocked and wondering what to do with themselves for the rest of the day, never mind their careers.
Now that was a very different and sad state of affairs as they were not expecting it at all.

I have to say when it happened to me, I was absolutely over the moon, as I had been making plans to leave anyway, so I was well chuffed they didn't want me to work the notice.

Sad not to see your colleagues and have chance to say goodbye, but that is no big deal really, is it?
Enjoy!!!

I guess I wasnt just an employee, when you are head of operations I was kindof running the show so to speak. The saying 'cutting off your nose to spite your face' came to mind last week! Anyway like you say time off to get everything sorted is fab even though I have shopped, ate and been on the internet so far today (oops!).

Did you at least tell "your staff" what your intentions were? If you didn't, you can sort of see how they feel

Yes they knew and are totally supportive. I was a good boss to them!

Let's hope after the hostile departure some one there will be able to give you a decent reference.

Other than that enjoy your gardening leave as in North America most notice periods are way too short.

I was escorted from the building a couple of months back and put on gardening leave for a month- It was understandable as I was going to a company starting off as direct competition

I do not agree with this.

The higher up the tree you are, the more likely it is that you will be in trouble if people find out that you are leaving via an unofficial source.

The people who work for you are not entitled to prior knowledge of your resignation before your boss. They should be the first to hear of this and then the information should be disseminated on agreement with him/her.

Your boss might want to delay telling the staff until discussion with HR has taken place and arrangements agreed upon as to how and when to arrange your replacement.

This is not being underhand - uncertainty breeds gossip and speculation and can be very damaging. Rumours then begin about who might replace you and assumptions made.
None of this is good for a workplace.
This happens all the time in my business (teaching). Parents can be notoriously gossipy and nervous about teachers they like leaving and unknown ones arriving and so it is often better to present them with a fait accompli to avoid unnecessary negative talk. Same can be true elsewhere.

In my opinion it is entirely unprofessional to tell anyone that you are going to resign unless you are making a clean breast of your immigration plans to your boss and are totally sure that there will be no detriment to your working environment and no nasty repercussions in the meantime.

I would not advise this in most cases, as your managers may take the opinion that you are likely to not work so hard while you are waiting as your mind and thoughts are elsewhere, you may be looked over for pay rises or potentially they may in extreme cases create a case for dismissing you.

As RRhodes has found, the response to a resignation can be surprisingly harsh and it could be quite a lot worse if you leak the information to the wrong people before you are ready to actually resign.

Yeah so not that kind of company - there is no HR department and my boss was the first to know.

I resigned too today, but they have known for a while it was coming.

Unfortunately mine is a move within the UK, not sure if / when Canada will become real from my timeline. They are not happy for them, but most people happy for me & really gracious about it.

The surprise for me has been who has said congrats and who hasn't.

Just goes to show, not easy to predict people, even if worked with them 10 yrs +

Good luck though & enjoy your extra planning time

oh, & my manager told HR manager on the proviso they did not tell anyone else. They did & I had to apologise to my team 2 weeks ago for some of them hearing second hand. Always good to know that HR aren't discrete, really builds confidence.

A really bad idea!

Can't wait until it's my time to resign! At the moment I've no choice but to keep slogging away, not telling my plans to anyone.... can't wait until it's
a/. out in the open and
b/. I can leave!

Things aren't great where I am.

I am considering leaving and gardening leave would be fantastic: I'm on 3 month's notice!

I'm giving it until the new year and making my decision then.