People used to joke any time someone cleaned their desk and took home excess personal stuff that they were about to give notice.

Yeah my previous company got bought out, so I started to watch for "signs" of a downward spiral. Then we got bought again about a year later, and I started to watch job boards for new openings. Then they laid off 20 people (out of about 120), and that day I cleaned all my personal belongings out of my desk. I felt like that action was visually obvious, but I guess most bosses don't pay close attention to how many family photos are on an employee's desk.

Starting the next morning I completely stopped doing any work and spent 100% of my time looking for new work. I took phone interviews during work hours and started no new work. I edited my resume at work, kept copies on my computer desktop, and printed copies on the company printer. I openly spoke to the people in nearby cubicles about new jobs. They called me crazy, wasn't I afraid of being fired? Afraid!? No! If I got fired then I'd get unemployment!

Eventually I started getting job offers so I knew I was golden; I took a day off work to travel for an interview; quitting was eminent. I passed on some offers and eventually got a really great offer so I knew I could quit.

I waited one more day... because the next day was my birthday! I came in and my new pseudo-boss called me into his office to talk about new work items. I said, golly, yeah, all that new work sounds great and all, but I won't be here much longer. Later that day I quit to my real boss and he asked me how much time I was giving him. I replied "Up to two weeks, but I don't have any work going on right now" (remember, I'd stopped taking new work six weeks earlier). He was a chap: he said they'd pay me for the whole two weeks, and I could go any time I wanted. I coasted out of there a little less than two weeks later.

The question was, why did my boss treat me so nicely? I found out a month later when I heard he himself had quit. He was a planner, like me, so obviously he was planning his exit when I quit. He gave me a favor on the company dime because he felt similarly to how I felt. Man, the day I quit was one of my days of self actualization.

What does an employee do if they find a new job and want to start it before three months later?

Does that imply that employers are willing to wait three months between hire date and start date, or does it imply that people quit without having a new job lined up?

That's a "basic labo(u)r law"? In my opinion "basic labor laws" are workplace safety, honesty in hiring, and union rights. I don't think of notification periods as a good idea, much less "basic". I totally agree that workers need and deserve protection in harsh capitalist systems but in my opinion the way to do that is to provide for unemployment payments, which is what I would suggest when you say "or at least pay in lieu of notice".

That's really stellar, but you shouldn't pretend that you think your experience is typical.

Well... it actually does mean that. At-will employment doesn't mean that burning bridges is prudent, but it does mean you are free to do it.

What happens if an employee just quits and doesn't show up for his severance period? I mean, you don't have slavery right, so it's like the police are going to arrest the worker and escort him to work each morning for four months.

1. A republic is a state led by elected representatives. Elections=democracy. It's part of the definition, like I said.
2. Hitler was elected thus Germany was a democracy at least at that point. After that, I don't know the history well enough to say.
3. Okay, we will disagree about whether a country led by a king or queen is a democracy. In my opinion that is crazytalk but I don't feel like arguing about it.
4. Russia is a democracy, a totally fucked up democracy. I don't know anything about Belarus. Any country with a monarch isn't a democracy and many Euro states have monarchs, so again to me that means they are not democracies. If you don't elect your head of state then I can't imagine how you could call yourself a democracy.

As others have said, no, that's not true at all. Vaca time is a defined benefit and they have to cash you out for it.

Mods, please undo his +1 Informative, he doesn't deserve it.

I agree with most of what you said except that he got fucked. He got the minimum he was owed, sure, and most people get a little more than that, but it's not like they screwed him out of his vaca time.

"loyalty is 100% dead"

Yep. I came of age in the 1990s and I remember "downsizing". Nobody ever talked about "loyalty" except as a comically quaint myth. I've been in the workforce since 2002 and I have never, even for one moment, felt loyalty for an employer. Nor have I ever felt loyalty from an employer.

I've heard people talk about loyalty for straight-up center-square SHITTY jobs. Just today I heard a woman complaining about her job in a retain shop, about how crappy the job was, and then she immediately turned around and said how she has to keep working hard at it because "hey, it's my job". Ug, what a slave mentality. I know some people are dumb or whatever and have to keep working crap jobs because that's all they can get, but that doesn't describe this woman, nor most workers.

Know your worth. Be honest with yourself. Advocate in your own self interest. Never, ever fool yourself into thinking your boss is your friend.

"At will" is not fair by any meaning of the word. It's as lopsided as you can get.

Well, it's is fair for the meaning of the word that both parties have maximal operational freedom. The problem is the power disparity almost always present between employer and employee.

I myself don't think that "employee protection" should extend to stop a company from firing an employee for good cause, or for no cause (for bad cause, like racism, is different). I'd rather live in an at-will country than the alternative, but I'd mix in a social safety net to protect workers. One thing that is clear to me is that nobody should ever be forced to work when or where they don't want to -- I see that as slavery. I mean, let's say my contract says I "have to work" a two-week severance period. Uh... what if I don't? What are you going to do, arrest me for not working a job that I hate? That hardly seems like liberty. There are better ways to protect me than that.

Similarly, it works both ways with other organizations. Since graduating from college in 2002 I have told several high school kids that, no, I wouldn't actually recommend my alma mater. I tell them why in whatever level of detail they care to hear. It's a prestigious place so some kids are surprised.

It's not the money, it's all the other things that money buys -- the things of life. Some people are driven to dedicate their lives to work, which is awesome, but all the rest of us are exchanging our labor for the capacity to choose our lifestyle. To exercise lifestyle choice is the meaning of life.

Yep. I was once asked in an interview how late did I consider to be "late". I didn't know what to say, so I said "five minutes", but I told him hey if he needs me there at 7:59:59 then that's fine I'd be there at 7:59:59. And that was true, but if he wanted me there at 7:59:59 then he could expect to see me stand up and go home at 5:00:01 (I didn't say that part). In my opinion that would be very shortsighted management, but managers have the prerogative to be shortsighted if they want to be.