What happens if you resign while suspended?

[Capp]

I was suspended at work for an error. Initially I thought I was fired. In fact I feel my employer may have kept me in the dark in order to be intentionally disrespectful. Right now I am waiting for the facility to schedule a time with me to come in and discuss the incident, but my boss is being very flaky with me in getting a time set. If you're curious about the circumstances you can read about them here (though it is irrelevant):

https://allnurses.com/general-nursing-discussion/will-this-affect-977174.html

My question is this: what happens if I resign while suspended? I have no interest in remaining at the job at this point; the culture of the place is terrible and there are too many problems there for me to feel comfortable working there. I am thinking about sending a letter of resignation (I have been commuting 2.5 to 3.5 hours a day at this job so I am not keen on driving there for a one minute conversation.) I would ask it to be effective immediately, and if they accepted I could just take a job elsewhere immediately. My fear is that this might create negative job history for me, especially if they twist the details of my departure. For example, if HR from my dream job calls them six months from now they might say, "Oh he didn't quit. We fired him," or "He just quit because we were in the process of firing him."

Alternatively, I could drive there, resume working there, and give two-weeks notice on my first day back. If I did something like that, they might get irritated and fire me out of spite.

I can see a number of ways this could turn into a spiteful, "You can't quit, you're fired!" scenario. Also, it's possible they intend to fire me anyway, in which case my resignation could be construed as, "You can't fire me, I quit!"

[herring_RN, ASN, BSN]

I've known nurses to make an agreement to resign so long as the employer agrees to a neutral recommendation.

Nurses who do this often find another job. So long as they have no reason to report you to the board of nursing and you don't want to work there it may be the easiest solution.

Don't go alone. I remember one LVN who brought her mother as a witness who took notes. That prevents a misunderstanding or accusation that you admitted to wrongdoing.

Alternately if other nurses have not been disciplined for similar mistakes an attorney or union rep can generally help you prevail.

[Capp]

I've known nurses to make an agreement to resign so long as the employer agrees to a neutral recommendation.

Nurses who do this often find another job. So long as they have no reason to report you to the board of nursing and you don't want to work there it may be the easiest solution.

Don't go alone. I remember one LVN who brought her mother as a witness who took notes. That prevents a misunderstanding or accusation that you admitted to wrongdoing.

Alternately if other nurses have not been disciplined for similar mistakes an attorney or union rep can generally help you prevail.

That is comforting. I wasn't even thinking of it as resigning as a result of my error or out of fear of discipline, but rather based on my other concerns about the facility and the damage to our employer/employee relationship. Other nurses have been caught intentionally doing what I did accidentally; they may have been written-up for all I know, but none of them were fired or suspended.

[mrsboots87]

Also keep in mind that it is illegal for a previous employer to say you were fired or give any reason for why you no longer work there. They can only give your dates of employment and your position to a prospective emplyer. The only way a new employer can get more information from a previous employer is if you use them as a reference because in that case you are asking the old employer to talk about you to the new employer. So just list the job as a previous place of employment, but dont anyone there as a reference.

[Rose_Queen, BSN, MSN, RN]

Also keep in mind that it is illegal for a previous employer to say you were fired or give any reason for why you no longer work there. They can only give your dates of employment and your position to a prospective employer.

Not necessarily true. There may be facility policies that restrict the information given, but as long as information provided is factual, it may not be illegal at all to provide that information.

[caliotter3]

As I have posted before, an employment attorney assured me that it is not illegal for a previous employer to provide factual information about a former employee.

[mrsboots87]

It may be different by state, but I'm pretty sure it is federal law that mandates what can and cant be disclosed to prospective employers. My mom works in HR in the state I grew up in and when I asked her how being fired from a job would affect my ability to get another job, she told me that it is illegal for the previous employer to give that info out as my prev post stated.

[WookieeRN, BSN, MSN, RN]

It is NOT illegal for a former employer to tell a potential employer that you were fired. They can tell a person calling them for a reference anything as long as it isn't confidential. They just need to have documented proof of what they are telling the potential employer. Many times, when you sign paperwork on references, you allow the potential employer to get ANY information from your previous employers.

Now, will your previous employer say anything but you position, dates of employment, and salary? Depends on their company policy.

[caliotter3]

I thought federal laws were applicable in all fifty states, and that attorneys, as officers of the court, were obliged to act in accordance with law.

[Capp]

I feel like what they legally can say is largely irrelevant. If they tell a prospective employer something untrue (like that I was fired when I wasn't,) I probably will never even hear about it. The prospective employer will just shred my resume and never call me again.

[caliotter3]

I feel like what they legally can say is largely irrelevant. If they tell a prospective employer something untrue (like that I was fired when I wasn't,) I probably will never even hear about it. The prospective employer will just shred my resume and never call me again.

Your assessment of the situation is right on point, and you're not even addressing what is said "non officially". Off the record conversations occur all the time in health care.

No reason to be overly concerned since there is almost nothing you can do about it. Just push on through.

[Capp]

Your assessment of the situation is right on point, and you're not even addressing what is said "non officially". Off the record conversations occur all the time in health care.

No reason to be overly concerned since there is almost nothing you can do about it. Just push on through.

Exactly. In fact, as I mentioned in the earlier post that I linked to in my original post here, I was in the process of transferring to a different facility because of all my various concerns, and the DNS of the facility where I was trying to transfer to had called the DNS of my current facility very shortly before I was "suspended" for accidentally doing for the first time what several of my coworkers have been caught doing intentionally on a regular basis (with no consequence.) I also found out later that day the the two Directors of Nursing were basically best friends.

I will never know the extent to which that conversation played a factor in what happened.

I still have to figure out what to do next though. I will probably send my letter of resignation tomorrow with the request that they accept it effective immediately. I do wonder if they are intending on getting lots of work out of me still and will be vindictive once they get my notice and say they wanted to fire me all along. Of course, if they wanted to fire me, why the hell didn't they do that in the first place?

But our job is, if nothing else, a thankless one, and we have to just focus on providing the best possible care we can to our patient's and accept that our success or failure in our careers won't always be deserved.