Struggling with Health Issues and a Tough Notice Period: How Can I Navigate This?

Hi all, I am working in an IT company for almost 2.5 years. I went on medical leave for two months due to jaundice and provided a medical certificate for this. After that, I rejoined the company, and now, after one week, I have submitted my resignation citing health problems as the reason. I want to be relieved from my company as soon as possible because I intend to prepare for government exams through coaching.

Despite stating my reason for resignation as health problems, my manager insists that I work the two-month notice period and keeps assigning me new tasks. As I am disillusioned with the IT field and its work pressure, I have decided not to return to it and have lost motivation to work.

I have clearly communicated to my manager that I am unable to work due to health issues, including tiredness, drowsiness, and an additional problem of hemorrhoids caused by three hours of daily travel and physical exertion over the past eight years. I also experience stress, feeling anxious with trembling hands under even slight stress. I have expressed my willingness to take on testing or other tasks with less effort, but he continues to assign development work on a project that I find challenging, especially since it has been six months since I last coded and my motivation to work has diminished after resigning.

I seek your valuable suggestions on how to address this situation.

Dear Ignitedmind,

Your post needs to be analyzed thoroughly. While doing the analysis, incisiveness is unintended. Following are my comments:

Your manager is not wrong when he insists on fulfilling the conditions of your appointment letter. If you wanted to avoid the notice period, you could have resigned during your two-month absence due to illness. Managers need to use available manpower optimally. Please remember, when you were absent, he must have assigned your work to someone else, thereby increasing others' workload. He cannot continue sharing your workload with others even when you are present at the workplace.

Secondly, it is easy for you to say that you have lost motivation for the work. Nevertheless, the manager's motive to assign work to his subordinates is not lost. Therefore, what you need is to show patience for two more months, take rest to become medically fit, and then pursue your career in the government or any other job.

When you suffered due to a disease like jaundice, you could have been more thoughtful about rejoining. You could have taken a little more rest. Secondly, spending three hours commuting to the workplace was your conscious decision. You should have shown foresight and thought, "What if I fall sick, and in the post-sickness period, will I be able to commute?" Please do not hold your company in general and your manager in particular responsible for the trauma you are going through.

If you have been selected as a software developer, you will be assigned work according to your designation. There has to be a vacancy in the Testing Department to accommodate you. The manager's job is not to rotate manpower as per the whims of the subordinates. Please remember, for the eight long years, this very career as a software developer provided bread and butter to you. Rather than aspiring for higher positions in this field, now you deem it fit to change the track of your career. It is your personal call. Secondly, overall government jobs are cushy. However, the private sector works with lean manpower, and they cannot be as liberal as government officers in accommodating the concerns of an employee who is back after sickness. Lastly, please ponder over your growth in the last eight years and ask yourself whether you would have had the same growth in some government job.

Final Comments: My comments may sound uncharitable. Nevertheless, I have analyzed the case dispassionately. Senior members of this forum are expected to be neutral and cannot get carried away by the emotions of junior members. At this stage, somehow complete your two-month notice period and then resign from the job. Partially, your problem is that you have joined duties even though you were medically unfit and partially because of the sudden loss of love for the IT industry. Lastly, do not ever think of absconding from the job as it would be like throwing the baby out with the bathwater!

Thanks,

Dinesh Divekar

Dear Dineshji,

Your comments and reasons regarding resigning and running out during the notice period are very fitting both to the company and to similar employees who want to desert their posts for various reasons, forgetting or disregarding the benefits they received from the company earlier. It should serve as an eye-opener to many such employees who suddenly choose to quit without complying with or respecting the terms and conditions of their appointment.

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Mr. Dinesh has nicely and objectively analyzed the whole issue threadbare. His advice is appropriate and the best possible in the circumstances of the case.

Work for a two-month notice period and then quit.