I love how he thinks the company is owed 3 years of your service. I mean really?
Every employer, myself very much included, would be very happy to get personal, private, advance notice that you're thinking of leaving. If you want to do us a favor, do that. Give us a private heads-up. But you don't owe it to us.
Perhaps, but it's also a cowardly and unprofessional way to quit. Every job I have ever left I have had the decency to sit down in person and explain to my boss that I was leaving and the reasons for my departure.
My feeling is that if this person was respectful enough of my capabilities to give me a job that allowed me to provide for myself and my family, the very least I could do as a common courtesy and sign of respect would be to sit down with them and explain why I have decided to leave.
Put another way: would you consider your boss firing you via email a "chump way to fire an employee"? It's simply a matter of giving your superior the same courtesy that you would expect if the roles were reversed.
Call me old school, but the best to worst order of quitting (and on the flip side, firing) is this - face to face, telephone, e-mail only if it's impossible to arrange the first or second.
I've done it, and boy does it feel great to put a jackass in his or her place.
This arbitrary three-year mark seems a little one-sided. A lot can happen in three years. You can get married, have a kid. Your parents can get sick and ask you come home. You can stumble on a better opportunity. You can get bit by a travel bug. Your spouse may want to move for his/her career. None of these have anything to do with learning and enjoying your time at the company.
Of course that would require some sacrifice on the part of the employer. They wouldn't have the lopsided advantage of being able to fire the employee at will, yet expect to shame them into staying for years.
There's been a lot of discussion of "entitlement" surrounding this incident, but the only entitlement I'm seeing seems to be coming from the employer side.
"But wait" some will say. "What if the employee turns out to be a dud? The company needs to be able to cut their losses!!". True, but what if the employer turns out to be a dud? Shouldn't the employee also be able to cut their losses?
Priceless.
If a candidate had no problems revealing information about his/her previous employer, whether justified or not, I'd be wondering about what else that person would be willing to reveal. There's a permanence to publishing this kind of information on the Interwebs, and it's not always going to work in your favor unless you're at the rock-star level of talent.
As for what you find in those searches, if you're not a jerk what do you have to fear?
I think this is bad advice. Even if they don't want to keep you, employers are likely to match just to keep you around until your current project is complete.
Your best bet in this situation is to simply ask for a raise without mentioning your other offer, and leave if the answer is no.
Your alternative of simply asking for a raise sounds like the best approach ... but of course these situations are seldom about money....
The guy stayed 1 year, not Jason's 3-year minimum for a place you're learning at. The guy didn't do it face to face. And the guy didn't offer unlimited transition time.
He pretty much didn't do anything Jason wanted him to do.
0. upon receiving an email from someone resigning, disrespectfully tell them to fuck off, insult their new employer, delete their account, then instead of apologizing, make up a list of 6 rules telling other people how they should resign to post to TechCrunch and try to regain reputation.
Strange guy.
I want employees to ask themselves whether they are willing to have any contemplated act appear the next day on the front page of their local paper, to be read by their spouses, children, and friends, with the reporting done by an informed and critical reporter.
s/your boss/Sam Odio
The great people I have worked for, one of whom I still work for, would never react that way. I admire those people, but I could never admire someone who acts like Jason Calacanis and I go out of my way never to work for people like him.
At it's most cut and dried a job is an agreement between you and someone: you give them your work, they give you money. They don't own you and beyond your obligation to fullfil your side of the work/money bargain you don't owe them anything in my opinion.
That being said, however, I do think it's important to do work that fullfils and inspires you and benefits you in more ways than just getting money for work you do.