Pros and cons of giving notice when retiring?

[CardsFan]

Funny that this thread popped up on my feed just today - as this morning I had "the conversation" with my manager - and gave him 3 months' notice. I know that based on some comments above this is too much, but I strongly felt it was the right thing to do and he was very supportive and appreciative. He'll have to hire someone, which takes time, and then between the 2 of us we'll have to train the new person and hand over my projects.

He sent me the nicest email a few minutes after we talked. And during our conversation, he even said that he was "a bit jealous"! Telling him actually lifted a weight off my shoulders (as I've been planning this for almost a year) and I'm actually looking forward to the coming 3 months.

I hope I don't have to eat my words But I'll own up to it if I do!

All cases are different. Like you I gave 3 months. The tipping point was a new project that was about to be assigned to me. I felt it only fair to not take it, then bolt in 3 months. And, like you, my boss was appreciative. He also asked me to stay a little longer, part time, on my own schedule, to close some loose ends and pass off the projects I had.

While I was the employee of a 50k+ person megacorp, I worked in a small totally independent subsidiary of less than 150 people, doing work that no one out side our subsidiary knew anything about.

In my case, there WAS some succession planning, and the person who replaced me was someone I had recommended for the group I was in even before I had decided to retire.

My last six months (part-time) was easy-peasy and quite enjoyable. So not all extended notices are a horror story.

 

[Montecfo]

Not if you do it at night ...

People tend to notice. And add on stock option excercises and being on extended leave and people can do that math pretty easily.

 

[Calico]

Funny that this thread popped up on my feed just today - as this morning I had "the conversation" with my manager - and gave him 3 months' notice. I know that based on some comments above this is too much, but I strongly felt it was the right thing to do and he was very supportive and appreciative. He'll have to hire someone, which takes time, and then between the 2 of us we'll have to train the new person and hand over my projects.

He sent me the nicest email a few minutes after we talked. And during our conversation, he even said that he was "a bit jealous"! Telling him actually lifted a weight off my shoulders (as I've been planning this for almost a year) and I'm actually looking forward to the coming 3 months.

I hope I don't have to eat my words But I'll own up to it if I do!

In an ideal world, this is what would happen.

Just don't be surprised if you get down to your last two weeks and they haven't done anything about hiring someone, and they ask you to stay on "just for X number of weeks." Wash, rinse, repeat.

 

[SecondCor521]

Surely you do not think these steps went up unnoticed?

I actually did everything at night, as the other poster commented.

I had achieved FIRE status two years before I left the company, so I didn't particularly care if they noticed or not.

Coincidentally, my mom was on hospice at the time, a fact which my company also knew. So I think most people assumed that my personal leave of absence was to help her and spend more time with her. Which was also true.

I don't know if anyone noticed or not. Nobody ever said a word to me about it either during the leave or after I gave my notice. Most people thought I was going to work somewhere else when I gave notice (I was 46 at the time).

People tend to notice. And add on stock option excercises and being on extended leave and people can do that math pretty easily.

For anyone paying attention, sure. This was a large tech company with thousands of employees. The only person who I was fairly certain knew was the HR person of whom I asked a billion benefits questions.

Even with her, I did tend to say "I might come back". Which was also true. I was a valued employee (aren't we all), and so I think they would have wanted to take me back if I had chosen to return.

The rest of the company was too absorbed in day-to-day business of the company to pay attention to little old me. My manager may have cared a bit, but he was pretty self-absorbed and probably his only thought towards me was mild annoyance at having to deal with my leave. And it helped that he lived and worked in another state.

I exercised my stock options once during the leave - about five minutes before sending my two week notice.

Probably the most conspicuous thing I did was to cash out my vacation days every paycheck for the last six weeks or so.

Selecting the timing and terms of your departure is one of the great benefits of FIRE.

Agree 100%.

 

[KingOfTheCheapos]

I'm in California and never heard of "at Call".
When my company was preparing to close the office and dump us all without notice, they were sure to have us all sign the new employee handbook stating we were "at will" employees.
They did however give us a separation package for promising not to say bad things about them, not great but okay.
in retrospect it was the best day of my life. I now realize I could easily have retired before then but was always so scared and probably would still be working today if it had not happened.
Financially, I'm worth far more today than I was then.

At call usually applies to states which have the retaliation provision that protect the employee and at will for those states that don't.

So in CA (which does have the retaliation provision) you can't fire someone for reporting that the parts the company is creating are defective and a public hazard. But in several southern states you can (go figure).