[mgkimsal]

You can give notice, but in many positions, you'll be out the door within the hour. Nothin personal, but that's how it is. I've given 2 weeks notice and been escorted out the door within 30 minutes, and I've given 2 weeks noticed and asked to stay longer. Whatever you give, be prepared that that's your last day, and plan accordingly. They may see it as an act of betrayal or a loyalty issue, and will have you leave that moment. Or they may not.

Stop thinking in terms of this being a 'startup'. That term means almost nothing any more, given that companies with millions in funding that have been around for >2 years are still called 'startups' in some quarters. You work for a business, and may leave. Be prepared to leave. Give them a notice that you'll work out 2 weeks to wrap up and document stuff, train a replacement, etc. Don't give any more consideration to the long term health of this org - they've not given you any consideration. To that end, don't go out of your way to be a jerk, whether that's withholding info, trashing files, installing spyware, etc (I've seen it all happen). Just be professional and get out.

[sprout]

I find that "out the door within the hour" extraordinarily unprofessional. I wouldn't want to work in a situation where people think throwing someone out on their ass without collecting documentation, checking up on projects, and generally tying up loose ends is a good strategy.

It just sounds like an extraordinarily petty and ineffective way to deal with losing a team member.

[mgkimsal]

It's only happened to me once, but it did happen, and the person who did it was regarded by others as petty and power-hungry. FWIW, I was brought back to do a bit of work later, and the number 3 guy in the place heard my story and was basically shocked that HR had handled things this way.

How this happened was I'd handed in my notice already - 2 weeks. But... I wanted to know if I was going to get my remaining vacation time as pay or not. I'd started before there was an 'hr handbook', but there was one in place. I wrote to HR and asked, and was told "it's in the handbook". I wrote back and asked what page it was on, because I couldn't see it in mine.

I got an email back saying something to the effect of "here's your vacation that's owed you..." and that was it. 10 minutes later the guy in the same cube as me said email to me bounced. I watched him send and it bounced back saying 'mailbox invalid'. An HR rep from our building came to my desk another 10 minutes later with a box saying "I have to escort you out of the building now". She was nice about it, and didn't seem to want to do it, but did it. So... the project I was working on was left in a broken state, client emails to me bounced, and they had no clue what was going on. I left, set up my own shop, and what do you know - that client decided to jump ship and stay with me instead of being charged twice the hourly rate for the kind of service they were getting. Basically, they considered their business too important to be cut off by phone and email from the people doing the work solely on the whim of one HR person.

Yeah, that was my rant. Again, only happened to me once, but it happened, and I've seen it happen to others.