Do You Need to Give a Full Two Week Notice When Quitting a Job?

I am quitting my job, hopefully today. But my boss hasn’t been here for the past couple of days. She might come in today, she might not. My job is pretty straightforward, so unless one of us needs something from the other, we can go days without seeing or talking to each other, and she isn’t always good about letting me know when she goes on vacation. My questions are as follows:

1) Do I print the letter today and date it, and if she doesn’t appear, put it in her office? Give it to her boss? Wait until I see her in person?

2) How important is the two weeks notice? I do like my boss and don’t want to make her life more complicated than strictly necessary, but I’m quitting to move to another state (I’m moving with my boyfriend for his new job, the details of which were just finalized today, so even though I’ve known for a while that I would be quitting, I didn’t want to put in notice before all the final details were set in stone), and would like to have more packing/getting things figured out time. However, I would like to use my boss as a reference in the future, so I don’t want the last impression to be a bad one. What about a week and a half notice? — L.

Every job I’ve ever left I notified my boss in-person. This isn’t something you want to do over email or by leaving a letter for her to find in her office. Set up a meeting as soon as you can and tell her that you’re quitting your job to move to another state, and then hand her your resignation letter in-person.

Giving two weeks notice is standard, and it’s pretty important to provide your boss with that timeframe given that your boss will need some time to find a replacement for you and have you wrap up whatever things you’re working on. There’s never a good time to quit a company, and leaving too suddenly after resigning could leave a bad impression, so try to give your boss the full two weeks if you can. Of course, this can be part of the conversation you have with your boss when you tell her you’re quitting. At one of my previous jobs, when I met with my boss to tell him I was leaving, we talked about what I needed to finish working on before leaving, and we agreed that one week would be sufficient for me to wrap things up and go. I also agreed to be available by phone for a week after I left in case the company needed my help for whatever reason.

Start the conversation as soon as you can, and good luck with the move!

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