Maybe your company, or even your state, is special. I just know how every company I've worked for in NC did things. A boss would just go up to someone and say we don't need you anymore. Gather your personal belongings and leave. In the case of one factory job, the tool box was examined by the boss, sealed, and then reexamined at the gate on the way out. No notice is required by either party. I left a job high and dry in the middle of a rush time.

On the other hand, I think PA is special. I went there to do genealogy work and found that the state archives were locked away in a windowless tower. They were accessible only by choosing a record from the catalog, submitting a request, and then waiting for the records priest to go fetch that one item. You couldn't browse anything at all, and it would have taken years to have done what I could have done in a day or two in NC archives. Philadelphia wouldn't even let me look at old deeds. Here in NC, the clerk points the way and says have at it. So I can look through original records from back in the 1700s.