Community Chat

[KathyPet]

My daughter is the head paralegal at a firm of patent lawyers.  Recently they hired a new Jr. Paralegal.  Since it was a Jr. Position they did not require prior patent law experience.  The woman they hired was in her late 20's with no patent law experience.  My daughter had to train her.  Now all of you who have ever had to train a new employee know that when you are training someone you cannot get your work done nearly as quickly because you have to slow down and explain what you are doing in detail.  The first week goes by and the training will last another week.  Meanwhile my daughter is staying late so she can keep up with her work load.  The following Monday this new employee walks in and notifies my daughter that she is resigning because she received a offer from another law firm that she had also interviewed with when she was interviewing with my daughter's firm and the second offer is closer to her home.   Now here's the kicker.  She gave two weeks notice.  HEr new job start date was two weeks away so she actually thought she could stay at my daughter's firm for the two weeks so she would get paid until her new job started.  Now remember she is in training and has not done a lick of work on her own.  Her training would last another week so she expects to be able to stay and continue to be trained for a job she is never going to do there while my daughter takes her time from her work to do this.   Needless to say the hiring attorney told her she could simply leave immediately and no she was not getting paid for the two weeks notice time.  My daughter said she got quite huffy when she was told to hit the bricks.

[mstyrion 1]

I don't  think this this scenario is all that unusual.

The new employee got a better offer and took it. It is considered good form to give a two week notice.   Law firms traditionally don't let people serve out the two weeks and have the terminating employee go immediately.  The only thing I see that is worth criticism is the new employee being miffed she's not getting paid for the two weeks.  She was too new for that.

[missy1]

She probably wanted your daughter to still train her, for her "other" job. I bet she won't tell them she had this job.

[bri20]

People are bold - they want to see what they can get away with.

[Tinkrbl44]

People are strange .... and it's good the hiring attorney told her to leave.   I don't know if it's possible, but it seems like your daughter shouldn't be responsible for 100% of the training for the next person.   Aren't there other paralegals?  If she IS responsible for 100% of the training, she should be able to shift at least part of her workload to others.  JMO

[Kachina624]

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@missy1 wrote:

She probably wanted your daughter to still train her, for her "other" job. I bet she won't tell them she had this job.

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Word has a way of getting around.

[Plaid Pants2]

Maybe she'll be happy at her new job, and will fit in beautifully there.

I can't fault her for wanting to take a job that's closer to home. 

Who wants to spend more time in a car communting?

[Hayfield]

I guess I don't understand why your daughter, since she was the head paralegal, had to train this new person.  In all my work experience of over 40 years, they usually have one of the other workers train them, not the head person.  

[mstyrion 1]

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@Tinkrbl44 wrote:

People are strange .... and it's good the hiring attorney told her to leave.   I don't know if it's possible, but it seems like your daughter shouldn't be responsible for 100% of the training for the next person.   Aren't there other paralegals?  Is she IS responsible for 100% of the training, she should be able to shift at least part of her workload to others.  JMO

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I would thik that as "head" paralegal, part of the job duties would be the training of new hires.  If the title head paralegal comes with more salary than the other paralegals, training and getting your own work done would be the trade-off for the higher pay.

[Yardlie]

I've heard of this situation many times. The usual response is for the boss to tell the person that they can leave immediately...without pay. It only seems fair to me. Why should you invest anymore time in "training" a new employee who is leaving?