Manager asks employee to train their replacement on his last day of the notice period, sparking debate

Getting a job is hard these days but so is leaving a job when your superiors make unrealistic demands when you are about to quit. One Reddit user u/GentlyUsedOtter shared an infuriating story with the community, recapping their last day at work and how the manager was perhaps expecting a bit too much when the former employee has already quit their job after giving a two weeks notice.

"So a few years ago I got a job working security for a little security company. I gave it a month I didn't like it so I gave them a two weeks notice. So they had two weeks to send me a trainee to train.

On my last day, on the day that I literally cared the least, they sent me a guy to train. So the kid gets there and immediately just sets up his laptop to start gaming," the Reddit user shared at the beginning of the post.

"And I told him that we were going to train today and his response was well they told me that I could be on my computer.'  They had told me that too and I responded with 'Well, I kind of need to train you to do the job first.' So in a huff, he closed his computer and I attempted to show him what to do. And the entire time he's on his phone. Now this is my last day I don't really care if he learns it or not," the post continued.

"At the end of the night, I give him control of everything, and as I predicted, he couldn't do any of it because he wasn't paying attention. So the shift ends. And the manager calls me and asks me how he did. The Reddit user did not sugarcoat anything and told the manager that the new recruit was not paying attention so he "did not learn a thing." The manager asked if the former employee can train the newbie once again but u/GentlyUsedOtter firmly informed that "they are starting at their new job that night."

The manager might have desperately wanted the new recruit to get well trained before handing him the responsibilities but u/GentlyUsedOtter suggested the manager "find somebody else to train him." "At that point, I hung up and I was done with the conversation. On my way home he called me another dozen times but I didn't pick up. If you want your people trained well, Don't have their trainer be the person who's quitting. They have no investment in how this person does," the post concluded. Fellow Reddit users shared their opinion on u/GentlyUsedOtter's situation.

u/AWholeNewFattitude shared a similar experience in the comment section, writing, "I put in my two weeks notice at my last job, I’ve been there for 15 years and I think they didn’t believe that I was actually going to leave. Well, my last day comes and about halfway through the day, I start getting panicked emails. I’m like, 'I gave you two weeks' notice, you had two weeks to get all this done, and because you didn’t pay attention or you weren’t planning or whatever you’re going to try and put it on me on my last day when I could care less, Good luck with that."

u/soaringseafoam wrote: "This is a classic 'that sounds like your problem.' You did enough trying to train the guy, a lot of people wouldn't have even done that." Every workplace has one problematic coworker or a manager and we can hope to not encounter such people in our line of work who unload all their issues at the last minute.