In the United Kingdom, Garden leave (or gardening leave) describes the practice of instructing an employee who is leaving an employer (following a resignation, or having been made redundant or otherwise terminated) to stay away from work during their notice period. The practice is often used to prevent employees from working for the employer’s competitors for a period of time.
Today is the first day of my Garden Leave from $BIG_COMPANY and it started with a telephone call from the US-based 24/7 call centre wanting some help due to a failed overnight automatic job on one of the production systems. I had to tell him which team in New York to call because my pass, logins and remote access were all revoked Friday and there’s no-one left in Belfast since my leaving.
I’d only place an employee on Garden Leave if I thought there was a real danger of them getting pissed off during the notice period as anyone who has admin-level access and held a grudge would surely have placed all their time-bombs and stolen their secrets before handing in their notice. So, yeah, it’s kinda stupid. I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth however and have settled nicely into not having to get up at 05:30 and there’s a Cocoa book sitting beside me that I should get some time to open.
Nice to see that communication had gone through and the contact wiki pages were all updated. As some of these agents keep their own little contact lists, I’m expecting some more calls over the next few weeks.
…and then there were none…
Good luck with the new gig when it comes around!
When are we going to get to hear about the new job??
If you can carve a bit of time out of your busy lying-about-downloading-iPhone-apps, then gimmie a bell and we’ll do the cashflow for the coworking space? There’s an application to do to apply as a not-for-profit (shared on Google Docs) that I’d appreciate some help with the language on too.
You’re not getting off so easy with me about, Matt!
@Andy – I certainly have the time to work on it. Going down to see Ger McB’s space this week as well.
@Conor – You’re one to talk. LinkedIn still says “Not Telling” for you 🙂
@mj Can I catch you on IM or via email? Whats best? You know me and my impatience!
?! Are you sure? I just checked and it has my updated details…
@Conor – ah, haven’t stalked you in Ages…
@Andy – pelorus at mac dot com is my AIM account. I’m about to head out to a kids fun place with the wee lad so won’t be on for a wee bit. If I can get a decent connection, I’ll be on with the AIM app on iPhone though.
As the Lisburn people say: Soun sa Poun
Congratulations on the escape, Matt! Best of luck with the upcoming gig.
Any chance you could do some weeding for me?
Same thing happened me at Nortel after I left for a while….
howd the exit interview go then?
no doubt there was attentive listening, you leave the room and it is curled up and dumped on top of all the rest of the exit interviewed, not to action at a later date because the “management must be right” – i mean, why would they even want to try changin anything? that makes no sense!
i think i’ll take up the drums again, grow my hair and fail at being a musician again. it will be fun though.
bleh! might give this blogging thing a go, but I am concerned that i will me Meldrew-tastic and it will spawn a trail of depressive suicides…..
They didn’t bother with an Exit Interview