Older Workers Are Better At Adapting To New Technology, Study Finds

Exactly. Younger generations didn't live through the evolution and transition of modern technology. Knowing how technology workeD is just as important as how things work now. Some kid today is growing up being "forced" to accept technology how it is NOW and they have no experience using all the iterations that brought us here. Generations that came from a time where technology had just started to take off don't have much issue adapting because currently we are only seeing gradual advances and none of the dramatic changes of that past, like the transition from analog to digital.

We have also gone leaps and bounds towards making technology more user friendly, which is just a different way to say "dumbing it down" so that a non technical user can operate it efficiently enough as long as they don't poke underneath the surface. Things are so dumbed down now that a 4 year old can play stupid angry birds on a tablet.
 
44 and in the tech / IT industry. I don't code, I don't facebook, and no I will not be your "friend" online at anything.

But there's a reason they hire guys like me to manage the metal in the datacenter, so to speak. You don't want a 20 something know it all 10 seconds away from making a bad decision that costs the company millions.
 
I'm not 55 or 18, but I always find it frustrating when work computers are crap. A few years ago, we got new i7 computers and my manager special ordered them with smaller hard drives and as always there wasn't really enough ram. I think they got them with 4GB of ram (this was 2011, I think) and it was entirely too little ram. I ended up putting in 8GB and even that sometimes wasn't enough if you had enough things running (and it's almost always a dozen programs or more), but for the most part, it was good enough and I could get by.

At least one co worker wanted to shoot his computer because it was so slow. All because of too little ram and too little HD space (160gb!). Current manager fixed that and bought machines with 16GB. Young people expect more, because businesses should do better. It's absolutely ridiculous for people in IT to be running gimp hardware. And FWIW, 20 years ago, my work machines were generally about as good as my home computer and sometimes better.
 
44 and in the tech / IT industry. I don't code, I don't facebook, and no I will not be your "friend" online at anything.

But there's a reason they hire guys like me to manage the metal in the datacenter, so to speak. You don't want a 20 something know it all 10 seconds away from making a bad decision that costs the company millions.

I agree! On the other hand, we have a healthy mix of people with experience here, people that are academics, younger, and older and even though the personalities clash a bit sometimes, it's a pretty well rounded team that kind of keeps itself in check. Sometimes the fresh knowledge of the younger guys is helpful, sometimes they need to be smacked, (figuratively :D ) based on real-world experience that can really only be attained with time and practice.
 
I wonder if the younger folks are just too used to their shitty basic media consumption devices (read, smartphones/tablets) that they find real computers annoying?
 
I wonder if the younger folks are just too used to their shitty basic media consumption devices (read, smartphones/tablets) that they find real computers annoying?

Probably in many cases. However, I also feel like younger people in the field tend to specialize far too much now in one area, and completely neglect something else. So for example, a guy might be brilliant at windows systems on VMWare, but know next to nothing about networking beyond basic Windows networking. Or may only know Cisco switching and routing, but nothing about systems, or maybe a coder who writes amazing code, but doesn't even know how a computer works... I see this sort of thing all the time. It's not JUST younger people, but they do seem prevalent. I think a lot of the older guys may still specialize a bit, but have a broader overall knowledge that kind of ties everything together. Maybe it's just the extra time to gain experience, but when something breaks I personally want the guy who's kind of seen it all, and not just one corner of it. I fall more into that category. I don't learn a subject as far as work goes, I learn everything the business has. If it's IT related, I'll get up to speed. I do some systems, some networks, some specialized industrial hardware, and even help the helpdesk guy with that sort of stuff. My opinion of course, but I've been doing it a long time... :D
 
Probably in many cases. However, I also feel like younger people in the field tend to specialize far too much now in one area, and completely neglect something else. So for example, a guy might be brilliant at windows systems on VMWare, but know next to nothing about networking beyond basic Windows networking. Or may only know Cisco switching and routing, but nothing about systems, or maybe a coder who writes amazing code, but doesn't even know how a computer works... I see this sort of thing all the time. It's not JUST younger people, but they do seem prevalent. I think a lot of the older guys may still specialize a bit, but have a broader overall knowledge that kind of ties everything together. Maybe it's just the extra time to gain experience, but when something breaks I personally want the guy who's kind of seen it all, and not just one corner of it. I fall more into that category. I don't learn a subject as far as work goes, I learn everything the business has. If it's IT related, I'll get up to speed. I do some systems, some networks, some specialized industrial hardware, and even help the helpdesk guy with that sort of stuff. My opinion of course, but I've been doing it a long time... :D

Interesting.

I wasn't even thinking of this link from a "IT Professional" perspective. I was thinking of it from the perspective of typical office workers, the users of the systems that IT departments implement.

My assumption was that the people working in IT know their shit. (at least at any level above basic desktop support, because have seen my fair share of ignorant idiots in the desktop support role)
 
Baby boomers have the TV raise their Millennial children and wonder why the generation is screwed up. Look on the bright side older workers, you will get your Social Security while the under 30 crowd will find out what a massive Ponzi scheme the entire thing was.
The 'Baby Boomer' generation is too long to have that applied broad brush. I mean Baby boomers are the parents of both Gen X'ers and millenials. Most children of baby boomers had 6 channels of content growing up and it all sucked.

And daycare is probably a bigger problem than TV. Daycare has no interest in challenging kids or having them grow in maturity. One giant placation fest for 8 of the child's 12 or 14 waking hours. These infant children get dumped on public schools who don't have the ability to correct this and it becomes one giant placation fest as well. Then have infant-adults dropped on universities.
 
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This is my initial thought too, if this is true. It's also something that I have witnessed first hand with the adult children of friends and family as well as new hires at work. Everyone is savvy enough to use smartphones, tablets and log into wifi networks, but beyond the basics they need just as much hand holding as non-IT folks needed 30 years ago.

Agreed.
 
I wonder if the younger folks are just too used to their shitty basic media consumption devices (read, smartphones/tablets) that they find real computers annoying?
In Computer Science and IT? I don't think so. Even if you specialized in mobile apps, you'd code on a PC or Mac. I do find that younger CS majors are not exposed to *nix as much as i was in college, but I really don't think it matters that much. Hell even in college, I tended to use a text editor instead of vi. Once I was at work and the choice was vi or emacs, the choice was easy. I knew how to exit vi, while all I could do in emacs was go to an xterm and type kill -9 <pid> :LOL:


Probably in many cases. However, I also feel like younger people in the field tend to specialize far too much now in one area, and completely neglect something else. So for example, a guy might be brilliant at windows systems on VMWare, but know next to nothing about networking beyond basic Windows networking. Or may only know Cisco switching and routing, but nothing about systems, or maybe a coder who writes amazing code, but doesn't even know how a computer works... I see this sort of thing all the time. It's not JUST younger people, but they do seem prevalent. I think a lot of the older guys may still specialize a bit, but have a broader overall knowledge that kind of ties everything together. Maybe it's just the extra time to gain experience, but when something breaks I personally want the guy who's kind of seen it all, and not just one corner of it. I fall more into that category. I don't learn a subject as far as work goes, I learn everything the business has. If it's IT related, I'll get up to speed. I do some systems, some networks, some specialized industrial hardware, and even help the helpdesk guy with that sort of stuff. My opinion of course, but I've been doing it a long time... :D

That sounds more like the networking side, and 20-25 years ago I don't recall much, if any, courses on that side. Some people picked it up on their own, but other than knowing how to get around *nix I knew nothing and I definitely knew nothing about windows beyond what i learned from using it at home, because the school was very anti-windows and had virtually no windows machine until I hit grad school.


Interesting.

I wasn't even thinking of this link from a "IT Professional" perspective. I was thinking of it from the perspective of typical office workers, the users of the systems that IT departments implement.

My assumption was that the people working in IT know their shit. (at least at any level above basic desktop support, because have seen my fair share of ignorant idiots in the desktop support role)
I worked with a guy that was in theory a System Analyst and if he had a problem with his PC he always called support. He once asked to pay me to install a CD or DVD drive. I told i'd do it for free if he brought it to work, but I wasn't going to travel to him to do it. He never brought it, but I bet he went to Best Buy.

And how hard is it to install a fucking optical drive? :rolleyes:
 
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The 'Baby Boomer' generation is too long to have that applied broad brush. I mean Baby boomers are the parents of both Gen X'ers and millenials. Most children of baby boomers had 6 channels of content growing up and it all sucked.

And daycare is probably a bigger problem than TV. Daycare has no interest in challenging kids or having them grow in maturity. One giant placation fest for 8 of the child's 12 or 14 waking hours. These infant children get dumped on public schools who don't have the ability to correct this and it becomes one giant placation fest as well. Then have infant-adults dropped on universities.
Most millenials I know are the children of Gen X (and I know quite afew). Even those that have Boomer parents those parents are right on the edge of both generations (i.e. early 50s right now)

I do know a few who have boomer parents, but they're among the youngest kids in the family.
 
Most millenials I know are the children of Gen X (and I know quite afew). Even those that have Boomer parents those parents are right on the edge of both generations (i.e. early 50s right now)

I do know a few who have boomer parents, but they're among the youngest kids in the family.

I was born in 1980. Some people tell me this makes me a Millennial, but I flat out refuse that label. My parents are both boomers (mom's 60, dad is 72) I feel more closely related to Gen X:ers than I do Millennials, but even so, I feel slightly different from Gen X:ers as well.

To me Millennials are the generation who can not remember a time before home internet.

I feel like most people who talk about Generations an lump people together into them have it all wrong.

I feel like I belong to a mini-generation, old enough to have spent a good deal of their childhood in pre-internet times, but young enough to have had computers and the internet become commonplace in our teens, so we are still "digital natives" as some of the newspapers call it.


I'd argue it goes something like this:

Gen X: Ends in 1977
Gen Y: 1978 - 1988 (old enough to remember a time before computers, the internet, and cellphones, yet young enough to have been exposed to them as an early teen)
Millenials: 1989 and on. (Can not recall a time before the Internet.)

My age bracket is distinctly different from both Gen X and Millenials. Call us Gen Y, call us Tweeners, call us whatever you want, but we are not the same :p
 
Us old farts have been coming across new tech on a regular basis for 50 years. We're used to getting 'new stuff' from a boss who barely knows how to open the box, and the challenges of learning how to use it. And in the back of our minds, always thinking of what we'll have to do when it either breaks down, or doesn't live up to what it's supposed to do.
Way too many young people grew up in an environment where they were often shielded from failure, so they don't know how to deal with it when it happens catastrophically.

My assumption was that the people working in IT know their shit.
Like all other professions, the good ones do, the mediocre ones get by, and the lousy ones just mess up the works and act like roadblocks to getting things done. E.G.; rather than block selective sites, the morons at work essentially shut down the net on us so it's impossible to get vital information on off hours. If we need to know if one medication interacts in an I.V. line with another, they're not on the interactions chart (which is 10 years old), and it's 'after hours' and the pharmacists have gone home, unless one of the other staff knows about that particular combination we have to stick the patient again and start another I.V. line, usually unnecessarily.
 
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I'm 59 and been doing IT for 37 years. While I am a PC expert, in the workplace I'm a Mainframe Systems Guru. OS/390, MVS, JES2, TSO, ISPF, VTAM, NCP, ESCON, CA7, ESP, JCL, CICS, ACO, DFHSM, Storage Admin, and the list goes on and on. I worked 2 solid years on the Y2K Problem and had loads of fun. I actually saw reports dated January 1st, 1900 so for those boneheads who said it was all fabricated were clueless. And the Mainframe isn't going anywhere anytime soon regardless of all the stories that the Mainframe is dead. With Mainframe Architecture, you can have 20,000 people in a CICS from Alaska to Florida and everyone can all have sub second response.

I've had the pleasure of working with many brilliant people over the years. It's amazing, to get 25 people in a room to solve a problem and without absolute team work, you can't get the problem fixed. Each of those people have a particular expertise that has to be put together with everyone else. I worked with 18 year olds who could run circles around some 40 year olds, but I've also seen some 25 year olds that still put their shoes on the wrong feet.

And at 59 I still love to learn new shit, it's loads of fun to learn new stuff. Adapt or get forced out in the end...


At home, both my wife and I are Hardcore gamers, I have some 15 PC's here 8 or 9 are high end Desktops running SLI, some with Surround Gaming and 3 Monitors and some with new 34 Inch curved monitors.
Wife and I played in the Unreal Tournament World for several years, I can't wait for the new one. When I turned 55 I cashed in some stock and bought myself $15K worth of hardware. Gaming Rocks big time...
 
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Younger people are lazy, entitled, and whine about everything—oh wait, it might actually be true. Out of 4,000 surveyed IT workers, one quarter of respondents 55 or older are bothered by tech in the workplace, but 36 percent of respondents 18 to 34—the ones who supposedly grew up with technology—said they find tech in the workplace stressful.

"My hypothesis, which could be right or wrong, is when you look at a younger generation in the workforce, a lot of the folks in that category are used to using tech in their personal lives that's pretty darn good. And that raises the expectations of what tech can be in their professional lives," he says. "That said, when you look at the technologies broadly still in use in the workplace, they often don’t achieve that level of cleanliness and personability [of the technology] in our personal lives. So younger people will feel frustration at tools that are not up to snuff,” Baesman says. In contrast, older people who have been working longer “have seen a lot worse,” he adds, “so there may be more tolerance for tech that may not always be as good as it might be."

You only survey one bizarre demographic...you'll get whacked out results.

Of the general population however, the older you are-the more likely you are to be technologically incompetent. I see it at work every day. IT workers are a very different breed in that regard. The older you are, the more you had to learn the nuts-and-bolts of how stuff worked in both hardware and software...whereas the younger you are the more "magical" tech is and you never had to learn about IRQ values and so on.
 
I'm 59 and been doing IT for 37 years. While I am a PC expert, in the workplace I'm a Mainframe Systems Guru. OS/390, MVS, JES2, TSO, ISPF, VTAM, NCP, ESCON, CA7, ESP, JCL, CICS, ACO, DFHSM, Storage Admin, and the list goes on and on. I worked 2 solid years on the Y2K Problem and had loads of fun. I actually saw reports dated January 1st, 1900 so for those boneheads who said it was all fabricated were clueless. And the Mainframe isn't going anywhere anytime soon regardless of all the stories that the Mainframe is dead. With Mainframe Architecture, you can have 20,000 people in a CICS from Alaska to Florida and everyone can all have sub second response.

I've had the pleasure of working with many brilliant people over the years. It's amazing, to get 25 people in a room to solve a problem and without absolute team work, you can't get the problem fixed. Each of those people have a particular expertise that has to be put together with everyone else. I worked with 18 year olds who could run circles around some 40 year olds, but I've also seen some 25 year olds that still put their shoes on the wrong feet.

And at 59 I still love to learn new shit, it's loads of fun to learn new stuff. Adapt or get forced out in the end...


At home, both my wife and I are Hardcore gamers, I have some 15 PC's here 8 or 9 are high end Desktops running SLI, some with Surround Gaming and 3 Monitors and some with new 34 Inch curved monitors.
Wife and I played in the Unreal Tournament World for several years, I can't wait for the new one. When I turned 55 I cashed in some stock and bought myself $15K worth of hardware. Gaming Rocks big time...

I changed my mind. This is the kind of guy to be friends with. ;)
 
I changed my mind. This is the kind of guy to be friends with. ;)
You mean someone that refuses to pigeonhole or stereotype people based on age or years of experience, recognizes the value of teamwork, and still has passion for his profession?? Who knew!?!

I strive to meet these kinds of standards, it's the making of a great worker and leader. I only wish some of my more senior coworkers could realize the same thing and not dismiss ideas because they come from people with fewer years on the job.
 
I was born in 1980. Some people tell me this makes me a Millennial, but I flat out refuse that label. My parents are both boomers (mom's 60, dad is 72) I feel more closely related to Gen X:ers than I do Millennials, but even so, I feel slightly different from Gen X:ers as well.

To me Millennials are the generation who can not remember a time before home internet.

I feel like most people who talk about Generations an lump people together into them have it all wrong.

I feel like I belong to a mini-generation, old enough to have spent a good deal of their childhood in pre-internet times, but young enough to have had computers and the internet become commonplace in our teens, so we are still "digital natives" as some of the newspapers call it.


I'd argue it goes something like this:

Gen X: Ends in 1977
Gen Y: 1978 - 1988 (old enough to remember a time before computers, the internet, and cellphones, yet young enough to have been exposed to them as an early teen)
Millenials: 1989 and on. (Can not recall a time before the Internet.)

My age bracket is distinctly different from both Gen X and Millenials. Call us Gen Y, call us Tweeners, call us whatever you want, but we are not the same :p

To me 1980 is Gen-X and 82 is the cutoff for Gen X, but as I said in another thread, if you're on the edge you may identify with either generation. AFAIK, the first Gen Z will graduate in 2018 (give or take a year). My take is that each generation is roughly 18 years (though I dind't realize that until I first heard millennials defined as those who graduated on or after 2000 and were born no later than 2000).
 
Because we're smarter than this stupid millennial generation. {runs and hides}

But it's true! Ever since social media exploded the youngsters seems to lack a lot in logical reasoning which is why I guess older workers are better at adapting to things they aren't familiar with as their reasoning better allows them to grasp how it should work.

As a daily YouTube and Facebook visitor, I keep facepalming daily at the lack of common sense (should be called uncommon sense these days). These kinda sites seems to breed stupid.
 
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To me 1980 is Gen-X and 82 is the cutoff for Gen X, but as I said in another thread, if you're on the edge you may identify with either generation. AFAIK, the first Gen Z will graduate in 2018 (give or take a year). My take is that each generation is roughly 18 years (though I dind't realize that until I first heard millennials defined as those who graduated on or after 2000 and were born no later than 2000).

I don't think there has to be any strict time based pattern, like number of years for a generation, as long as a group dof people have some fundamental things in common, that differ from the groups before and after them.
 
Click through to survey, read survey's questions, and then lose interest in all of this. Its a dumb survey.

Eg they say older people use more forms of technology... their forms of technology list land line, projector, fax machine.. wtf? I almost count it as a negative if you're still using some of this stuff, you've not yet move on to better solutions. Fax? But also if your a NCG you won't be giving many presentations with a projector or leading any meetings, you won't be traveling much to be needing a mobile phone for work, or even a laptop... but more sensor employees will be doing more of that stuff, and they'll tend to be older having been at company for longer. As for the finding technology stressful.. well shit when I was new I found lots of stuff stressful, but over time I know how more stuff works in great detail, not quite as stressful. Not really a result of age but experience. Its all just dumb.
 
I find this to be true, but the headline is misleading. In my experience as a 35 year old IT Admin (almost 20 years experience), younger people ARE more stressed about the shitty business systems and software (because, they're used to consumer technology, which is FAR better in every way, usually, as far as stability and usability go) - but are willing and able to learn them a whole lot better. The older employees (50+) I work with flat out DO NOT WANT to learn new things, period, and even being asked to do so pisses them off. I mean all of them, out of about 100 people total!

What is really telling about this is the extremely sorry state of most "business-class" hardware and software. It's almost always a rip-off value-wise, and always a huge pain in the ass. It's like voting for President - you're always deciding between the lesser of two or a few evils!
 
Probably in many cases. However, I also feel like younger people in the field tend to specialize far too much now in one area, and completely neglect something else. So for example, a guy might be brilliant at windows systems on VMWare, but know next to nothing about networking beyond basic Windows networking. Or may only know Cisco switching and routing, but nothing about systems, or maybe a coder who writes amazing code, but doesn't even know how a computer works... I see this sort of thing all the time. It's not JUST younger people, but they do seem prevalent. I think a lot of the older guys may still specialize a bit, but have a broader overall knowledge that kind of ties everything together. Maybe it's just the extra time to gain experience, but when something breaks I personally want the guy who's kind of seen it all, and not just one corner of it. I fall more into that category. I don't learn a subject as far as work goes, I learn everything the business has. If it's IT related, I'll get up to speed. I do some systems, some networks, some specialized industrial hardware, and even help the helpdesk guy with that sort of stuff. My opinion of course, but I've been doing it a long time... :D

From what I have seen, this move towards specialization is being driven by the industry, not the new comers to it. Yes, older guys learned it all, but it was just simpler before and the complexity is driving specialization even down to the point that hiring managers are looking for vendor specific specialization. Now that doesn't mean they don't want someone that knows multi-vendor platforms, but it does mean if you don't actually have experience in what they are looking for then you might have trouble. A SAN guy with ten years of experience managing 3PAR and Hitachi is likely to get looked over if they are specifically looking for NetApp and EMC.

Then again, flying right in the face of what I just said, I have seen the other side of the coin where it seems they are looking for someone who knows so many specific things that frankly I have no idea how they think they will ever find that particular puzzle piece.

You ever seen a job req like that? You read it and said to yourself "How are they ever going to find a guy that knows all this?"

Only thing is, occasionally I have to remind myself, sometimes they right the job requirements to fit the guy they already have tagged for the position, and all that stuff is just so they have an excuse to turn away the others and hire "the right guy for the job".
 
I wonder if the younger folks are just too used to their shitty basic media consumption devices (read, smartphones/tablets) that they find real computers annoying?

The general population for sure.

I don't read this as "older people are better at adapting" but rather "younger people are less accepting of shit software." I'm definitely in that latter group.

"younger people" seem to have no problem with lots of shit "software". Have you seen the app store? Or how companies are actually selling "apps" on non-mobile devices with all the same regressive lack of features and horrid UI's?
 
"younger people" seem to have no problem with lots of shit "software". Have you seen the app store? Or how companies are actually selling "apps" on non-mobile devices with all the same regressive lack of features and horrid UI's?


Younger people seem to have embraced instagram, Snapchat and Tinder, so I'd say they are perfectly OK with shit software :p
 
Where I work most old people (while we had old people before the new management fired almost everyone over 50) would work with anything they were given. Younger people on the other hand would throw a hissy fit about even the slightest change or inconsistency to their daily routine.
 
But it's true! Ever since social media exploded the youngsters seems to lack a lot in logical reasoning which is why I guess older workers are better at adapting to things they aren't familiar with as their reasoning better allows them to grasp how it should work.

Another explanation could be that it is just a combination of:

1.) Older workers have been around longer, so they have experienced more variety and because of this it is easier to adapt.

2.) Memories tend to be fonder than reality. Maybe many older workers are trying to remember back when they were first starting out their careers and thinking: "I definitely knew more when I was younger than kids these days do" but it isn't actually true? Remember. You have a human brain. The hum,an brain is biased. Don't trust it.
 
Where I work most old people (while we had old people before the new management fired almost everyone over 50) would work with anything they were given. Younger people on the other hand would throw a hissy fit about even the slightest change or inconsistency to their daily routine.
IMO, younger people are all about saying Fuck you to management that they don't like. From what I've read over the last 10 or 15 years, they feel they saw their parents work hard and put in insane hours only to have management shove them out the door.

So they've decided to lay down some of the rules and if they don't get what they want, they'll walk out the door. I worked with a guy who hated the city we were in. He told management he wanted to move to Austin and work remotely. He waited a few weeks and didn't get an answer so one day he sent an email from another state that essentially said, "I'm off to Austin. It was nice working with you. Bye."

He gave no notice. And we all, young and old, quietly applauded his action. I'm sure management was pissed.
 
IMO, younger people are all about saying Fuck you to management that they don't like. From what I've read over the last 10 or 15 years, they feel they saw their parents work hard and put in insane hours only to have management shove them out the door.

So they've decided to lay down some of the rules and if they don't get what they want, they'll walk out the door. I worked with a guy who hated the city we were in. He told management he wanted to move to Austin and work remotely. He waited a few weeks and didn't get an answer so one day he sent an email from another state that essentially said, "I'm off to Austin. It was nice working with you. Bye."

He gave no notice. And we all, young and old, quietly applauded his action. I'm sure management was pissed.

I don't know about US labour laws but where I work you can't just up and leave your work. Or you get all kinds of legal trouble.
 
I don't know about US labour laws but where I work you can't just up and leave your work. Or you get all kinds of legal trouble.

Unless you have a contract otherwise, in the US, you can just walk out the door. But like everything, you have to live with the consequences which means you may have a former employer telling potential employers about your glamorous exit. If a guy works in an environment like I do and you want to keep working in that environment, then walking out is not going to work out well for you. All these companies here work together and their HR departments are tightly linked. So many times I have applied for a job with one company and had them pass my resume to others as well. They talk, there is a good-ol boy network alive and well here.

Working where I do, your skills are important, but your reputation is just as important and if you get a bad one, you won't work here long.
 
I don't know about US labour laws but where I work you can't just up and leave your work. Or you get all kinds of legal trouble.


What clipper said above.

Most states in the U.S. are so called at will employment states meaning that either the employee or the employer may terminate the employment relationship without any notice without facing any legal consequences.

This means you can get up and walk out that door and never return at any second and you will face no legal trouble. It also means the employer can ask you to leave at any moment without notice without having to give you any reason what so ever if they so choose.

As lcpiper states - however - as an employee, if you do this it has a good chance of ruining your reputation, and you may find it more difficult to find someone else to hire you if you do. Checking references before hiring someone is standard practice, and no one wants to hire someone who is likely to just walk out the door.

Same for businesses though. Some have bad reputation for mistreating their workers, and they often have a more difficult time than others finding new talent.

It's not that bad though. If you really want to leave a job, acceptable practice is to give two weeks notice. If you do, your reputation will more or less stay intact.

That is, also as long as you don't have a resume full of short employment stints. Employers don't want to hire someone who is only going to be there a short time and then leave. Having stayed two years with past employers unless you have a really good reason not to is an absolute minimum. Most interviewers will start asking questions about why you left, if your previous stints are short.

Once you are a few years into your career, longer stints start becoming expected. Too many 2-3 years stints in a row and prospective employers start to wonder why. They start wanting to see much longer stays in your past. 5-10 years or so.
 
I don't know about US labour laws but where I work you can't just up and leave your work. Or you get all kinds of legal trouble.
U.S. and you absolutely can up and quit without notice, but if you might get a bad referral. Normally, employers don't like to say much more than John worked here from startDate to endDate. They might include whether you gave 2 weeks notice. They might not.
 
Many employers won't say anything either good or bad for fear of getting sued. And I have seen many people walked out the door within hours of giving notice. They get the final 2 weeks pay, but management doesn't want them around as a Security Risk. If you resign, you are no team player and they want you off the team ASAP...
 
Many employers won't say anything either good or bad for fear of getting sued. And I have seen many people walked out the door within hours of giving notice. They get the final 2 weeks pay, but management doesn't want them around as a Security Risk. If you resign, you are no team player and they want you off the team ASAP...
That can happen, but unless you're a horrible worker, we keep you till your 10 days are up ;) If possible they'll try to work you to death too, though I think most of the time, people kinda just go, "what evs"
 
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