So Mark Hasty wants people to Lay Off Ricky and he makes a lot of very good points. I’m a Dolphins fan if I’m anything (and I’m barely that), and I think the right way to look at it is this:
If you’re a professional, the implied contract between you and your employer (and in Texas, especially, it’s just implied) is that you’ll each give each other a minimum of two weeks notice before changing your employment arrangement.
IE: Your obligation to your employer is to give two weeks notice, and your employers’ obligation to you is to pay you for two weeks if and when you are either announcing your departure or getting fired/laid off.
My previous employer does not qualify, by the way; most of the last few people to give any notice were immediately fired! I myself gave a full two weeks’ notice and was retained by my boss (VP), and I continued to work, for a week, until the CEO got back into town, and then was told on Monday that the preceding Friday had been my last day. At IBM, when I quit, I was paid for two weeks but was escorted out (true for something like 50-90% of people there). IBM satisfied their implied obligation to me, while my last employer did not.
So I think an analogy could be made to Ricky. Had he given two weeks’ notice (from today, let’s say), the Dolphins would have had some time to go try to get another running back. I don’t think he’s wrong for quitting – I think he’s wrong for leaving his coworkers in the lurch, just as I would have been wrong for quitting on 0 days notice. (However, the people who quit after me who wised up and gave no notice were correct to do so given the precedent set against myself and others who did give notice after me).
I doubt the Dolphins would have been able to cut him immediately without paying some ‘severance’.
There, a non-political non-transportation post. The enb.
