Handed Notice In and All Hell Broke Loose...

[MyNameDefinatelyIsntJanet]

I handed my notice in at work yesterday, it did not go the way I was expecting and I need to know where I stand legally.

For context, it's a fairly senior position, a big jump up the ladder for me and it took them 6 months to find someone to hire into my role before they got me. I've only been in the role 6 months. Over those 6 months, it's become abundantly clear that I'm not the right person for this particular role. They need someone with strategic skills and I'm a technician. I'm bloody good at my job and an industry expert, but they don't need that skill, they need someone who can do the big picture stuff with clients and that's not me. I've stopped enjoying the job and I do feel that it was mis-sold to me at the interview stage, but I'm not bitter about that. I tried it, it didn't work out.

I gave these reasons when I handed in my notice but my line manager was apoplectic with rage. She called me a liar and accused me of using her/ the company as a leg up and that this had been my intention all along (I'm going to an equally senior role in a much bigger specialist agency). This is completely untrue. The job I'm going to is a technical role and much more in line with my skill set but at the same level as now iyswim.

She walked out of the room and slammed the door behind her and told me to leave the office immediately. So I did and have had no contact since.

WTF do I do now? I haven't gone in to the office today but I've been responding to client emails as usual this morning as there's stuff I need to get done.

I've since realised I was never asked to return my signed contract when I was hired and found it in my collection of papers this morning. I have signed it, but they don't have a copy.

I REALLY don't want to go back to the office after yesterday, but I have a 6 month notice period so not having to serve this would be great. I'm not sure where I stand legally. I'm prepared to hitch up my big girl pants and go back in but I'm not sure if they're going to want that so my questions are:

Legally, do they have to pay me for my 6 month notice period even though they've asked me to leave the office (they haven't asked me to leave my position yet).

As they don't have evidence of my signed contract, do I have to serve out my 6 months?

I want to hand over things properly and make sure they've got a plan for my leaving, but should I even care about this after yesterday? I don't want to leave my team in the lurch

Also, the new company is not a competitor of any kind with my current one.

Help?

Gosh, daughter goals all here in the OP

The negotiation thing is really interesting.

I reckon you get 1 proper chance to negotiate your pay in a job and that’s when they first hire you. If you can get them excited about you in the first place when you interview, you can be sure they’re not going to let you walk away for the sake of a couple of grand more money. Also, if you go through a recruitment agent, ask what the salary range is, not the actual salary. Job codes are signed off with an upper and lower limit, if you know what the top end is you can negotiate up to that without them needing to get it signed off again internally. They spread at hiring is usually about £10k difference per year so it’s worth knowing.

DOE is bollocks in the private sector. It doesn’t depend on experience, it depends on whether you ask for more in the first place or not and whether they feel you’re the person they want.

It goes back to them being excited about you. If they’re not willing to budge on your starting salary within the salary range, the likelyhood is they’re just not that into you and you should probably walk away from the offer anyway.

My awesome mum taught me how to negotiate. She’s dead now but she was always adamant that if you make yourself valuable, you’ll dictate your own career. If you don’t, you’ll be told your value by others your whole life.

She was pretty awesome

OP you've learned in 5 years what it's taken me 20 to! So well done - deep technical knowledge and client capable is the way to go in many many fields. Too many 30/40 something males bamboozling clients with bullshit/overviews, clients LOVE it when we bring the technical people along (am in a different field but the same principles apply).

Just hold your nerve. My salary doubled between uni and age 27 from strategic resignations (and a couple of "i'm off" tantrums in small companies with no decent HR)

It's clear what you want so offer them these options only:

1. continue job as usual in the office until end of the year / or earlier if they find a replacement (unlikely but not your problem)
2. they release you now or at a mutually agreed date - and you start your new job (effectively reducing your notice period)
3. they give you gardening leave

OP I love your last post and your mum sounds amazing! You deserve to get to the top of your career.... you go girl!

My awesome mum taught me how to negotiate. She’s dead now but she was always adamant that if you make yourself valuable, you’ll dictate your own career. If you don’t, you’ll be told your value by others your whole life.

Your Mum was right.
Big girl pants fit strong girls

My mum was amazing, she started her career as a nurse then decided at 25 that the doctors she was working with were idiots, so she left nursing and trained to be a doctor she finished her career as a senior consultant.

Someone asked what’s the worst thing that could happen if OP just walked. Very worst thing is company could sue her for business cost to them whilst they find a replacement, which could potentially be a lot of money. However, likelihood of this happening (or succeeding) is IMO very small indeed, and no employment lawyer would advise the employers to follow this path, especially given the closeness to end of probation period. Could also be argued that in such a fast paced environment notice periods/garden leave of 6 months are effectively a restrictment to trade (long time since I had an HR hat one so can’t remember if that’s the strictly accurate term). So many mitigating factors.
Advice I’d give is if you want to be tip-tip professional that you ask CEO for a chat and suggest you do 2/3 days a week in office (and suggest MD works from home for those 2 days) and revisit after 3 months. But you can of course go in far more hardball than that (but do speaks to employment lawyer specialists such as bindman first).
As an aside, I run my own business and even though it’s not digital marketing I’d recruit you in an instant just from the way you’ve come across in your posts and how you’ve handled things so far. Good luck.

Sounds like you're getting this all covered, NotJanet - what a horrible situation though!

Hope you get your chat with the CEO in - the MD sounds like someone to be very wary of, going forward.

Good luck!

All of this for £35k? Definitely not enough money. I wouldn't get lawyers involved as they will be expensive. If I were you I wouldn't want to WFH for six months and, if your contract doesn't say you have to, I think you can refuse.

Ask them if you can do a handover with someone (anyone) and leave early. If not, you want to work your notice in the office. Then work 9 to 5 and focus on winding down before your new role.

I reckon you get 1 proper chance to negotiate your pay in a job and that’s when they first hire you.

Definitely not true. You can negotiate substantial salary increases once you've demonstrated your worth, without moving to a different company.

Yeah, but knowing your value, confidently negotiating it & having respect from the off is invaluable.

I work as a freelance contractor for a range of companies (unrelated to OPs field), and this thread is one of the things that has given me courage to tell a company to get lost when I'm supposed to be starting with them Monday week and all they've done is prevaricate, not answer emails, send the contract to a misspelled email addr, and fail to honour something that was promised during negotiations. So hooray for the OP!!

I still think you should have six months of stepping back/chilling out at home OP and look forward to starting your fab new job but fair play to you - you’re going to go far.

I work in newspapers, media, PR, marketing etc and the pay can be notoriously crap. Good to see you’ve found a decent place OP.

Oops meant to put a there but finger must have slipped

definitely! Fredathetortoise

OP you are awesome!

I'm confident and assertive, but in my most recent job, sadly it is the white feminist managers who have made life hell for me. Perhaps it is because I am brown and from an ethnic minority group not always very well liked, or perhaps they just don't like vocal women. Either way, I am inspired by your confidence and your understanding of your self-worth. I need to work a bit more on listing my self-worth and not feel uncomfortable pointing out my unique skill set and contributions to my managers.

FedOut I'm not white either. It's not a white feminist thing, it's a shit human being thing usually. For me it's been other asians, particularly men that have caused me problems. I'm brown, female, successful and an atheist so I'm kind of a nightmare for people who see stereotypes instead of people.

Fuck them, it's their problem not yours!

OP your mum sounds fabulous and you sound rather brilliant too. It sounds like you have acted with both confidence and dignity. I’m much older than you but aspire to behave as maturely as you have in difficult situations.

You are fabulous, OP! You've given me a confidence boost to ask for more in my job search - I worked for a shitty company and took legal action against them and after having time out, I'm ready to get back into it. This thread has reignited my fire!

Nah, I'm white & have always encountered issues with women, as much as men, some very engrained attitudes out there.

I’m sad to read that your mum is no longer with you at your age OP. I’m 47 I don’t know what I’d do without mine.

The shit human being, let's be negative thing fucks me right off.

OP was happy to be very flexible, that bit wasn't even acknowledged. Could have had a really positive discussion.

Another thought, how many hours a week would just the techy bit for the one client take?

If you do get to have a 1-1 with the CEO would early release, but servicing the one client from home on a consultancy basis work for everyone? They get to keep the income, but save £££s on your wage. You get to start the new job early and extra ££'s until they replace you?

I think you need to go back to the CEO today and ask him to spell out exactly what 'consulting' is/means. They are effectively changing your job description so that needs to be clarified before you can respond.

I'd also be careful about catastrophising (sp?) working from home. Again, you're basing this belief on a period of unemployment vs the job you had at the beginning of the week. That job has gone, no matter what you decide now. So you need to think about WFH vs being completely sidelined in the office, being kept out of discussions about your projects and working for an MD who actively dislikes you and now has no incentive to hide that fact.

I suspect WFH would be considerably better for your mental health than that...

It’s been a very productive morning

Went to see the HR person at 10 and he was lovely and really helpful.

I went into work unannounced at 11:30 and managed to catch my CEO as he was heading out for lunch. He invited me to join him so I did and we’ve had a really good talk.

I asked what he meant by consultant and he said he didn’t think he meant consultant, and they had t had a lot of time yesterday to really think things through.

I agreed, we talked a lot about my reservations working from home and he agreed that MD was being a bit over cautious given the company I’m going to etc. He also agreed with me that the indeterminate notice period thing (up to 6 months) was unfair too as it left my new company unable to plan etc.

So...

I’ve got a 3 month notice period at which point I’m free to leave by mutual agreement and I can continue to work from the office as planned, and if the MD makes it difficult for me I’m to tell him straight away

Only thing I’m not allowed to do is sit on board meetings in that time, but that’s no problem!

Result!