When someone is leaving a company it is a common practice to schedule an exit interview to provide key information.

This can also be a good opportunity for the employee to give feedback and ask final questions.

In this story, however, the employee did not want an exit interview but HR wouldn’t let it go.

Let’s see how it plays out.

Check with your boss about your availability? Sure!

I’m the HR Manager of a medium-sized company based out of the United States.

We are in an industry that relies heavily on most people having an assistant to manage their schedule, handle their phones, etc.

This HR manager is already getting ‘annoyed’ because an employee is leaving without giving a full two weeks’ notice. She is living up to the HR stereotype so far.

I had someone tell me on a Wednesday that their assistant was leaving.

Let’s call the assistant Andy.

I talked to Andy who said his last day would be the next Friday. It’s less than two weeks’ notice, which is annoying but not illegal, and I understand that things happen, so I’m not gonna put up a stink about it.

HR calling someone a ‘nightmare’ just because he wants to finish his job and skip an exit interview? Real professional…

Andy was a nightmare for the next week and a half.

When trying to schedule interviews for replacements, he kept insisting on prioritizing certain candidates because he wanted to do it his way. He wouldn’t follow our recruiting protocol and complained to his boss that we were pushing back, when we most certainly weren’t. But the worst part was scheduling the transition meeting/exit interview.

At my company, our policy is to conduct a transition meeting and exit interview together. I do these meetings, and they are usually pretty harmless. I’ll give the employee their final paycheck as required by law, tell them about how to sign up for benefits after they leave if they want (COBRA), share info on porting over their retirement, etc.

After going over all the transition information, I’ll conduct a brief exit interview asking them about how we can improve the working experience, etc.

I always tell them that this exit interview is for their benefit as a final means of giving feedback to us, but I also make it clear that they don’t have to share anything they don’t want to. All in all, these meetings usually take somewhere between 15-20 minutes.

At first I had a time on hold with Andy to do an exit interview on his last day. He then emailed me and said he wouldn’t be able to do an exit interview because his priority was wrapping things up for his boss (let’s call him Ben).

I let him know that I needed to be able to give him his final paycheck and additional information; he told me to just leave the paycheck on his desk.

Wow.  HR is ‘fed up’ with this employee.

I can’t imagine why he wants to leave the company! lol

By this point I’m fed up with him because his emails are incredibly rude, so I cc my boss, the Head of HR (let’s call her Carol). I tell Andy that there’s more than just the final paycheck that I need to share, and that I’d be more than happy to share more about our company policies in our meeting.

I also said he’s welcome to reach out to anyone on the HR team to ask.

Andy ignores my email. I follow up the next morning. I run into him in the elevator and he literally refuses to acknowledge me—not even to say good morning or smile awkwardly. He ignores this email too.

By the afternoon I’m over it.

I tell Carol, who calls Andy.

Carol says, “Hey, I heard from the HR manager that she’s having a hard time getting a hold of you to schedule an exit interview.”

He responds that he’s just soooo busy wrapping things up for his boss and he really appreciates us following up but no, he won’t be available, and if there are any issues, we can reach out to his boss. Cue the malicious compliance.

Carol lets him know that this isn’t optional, and that it’ll only be 15 minutes, but if he’s so busy we can certainly reach out to Ben to make sure there’s time carved out. He stutters and isn’t able to make a coherent sentence, then says we don’t have to do that.

Carol says it’s ok, we understand the need to make sure Ben is on board, so we’ll call Ben on his cell—and she hangs up.

They just can’t let it go. Now they are getting his boss involved!

We then call Ben, and she tells him, “I’m so sorry to do this, but Andy let us know he won’t be available for an exit interview. Could you make sure he has time for it? We’re trying to schedule something and are having a hard time.”

He asks how long, and she says 15 minutes; he says “That’s F****** ridiculous, he should have 15 minutes. I’ll call him and take care of it right now.”

Carol thanks him and we continue to have our meeting.

A few minutes later, Andy comes by and is fuming. He demands that we do the exit interview at that moment; I calmly tell him that there are important documents I need to prepare which is why we are trying to schedule time. Carol then calmly tells him that there are policies and procedures to follow when you leave a company.

The assistant says he doesn’t appreciate us going to Ben, and that he felt really disrespected; Carol gently reminds him that he said it was ok to check in with Ben, and we’re glad it’s a priority now, and how does 10am sound tomorrow?

Andy stormed down the hallway, and we had our exit interview the next day at 10am.

Best part? It would have been a brief 15 minutes, but then Andy got argumentative and we went over time.

It is hard to believe that this HR Manager thinks she is acting appropriately here.

To me, it sounds more like she is on a power trip and can’t accept that the employee doesn’t want to do an exit interview.

At least this story had a happy ending, the employee got out of that toxic company!

Maybe I’m wrong though, let’s look at what other commenters had to say.

100% agree with this comment. Do employers give two weeks’ notice when letting someone go?

Exactly. This HR Manager needed to realize that an exit interview is not an obligation.

Why would a (soon-to-be) ex-employee care about corporate policy?

HR really needs to learn to put the employees first.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.