Ouch. I know you must realise this, but you should always be certain before you hand in your notice... If there were no pressure on getting another job, I'd say renegotiate, but that does carry a risk of the offer being withdrawn. Can you afford to support yourself while you find something else? Bear in mind that hunting without a job usually forces you to take worse offers as you don't have the luxury of time.

I barely think about people who used to work for me two years ago, even ones who had been there a couple of years. Too many other things to think about that are more relevant. This might provide you closure but I doubt it would do anything for your ex-manager other than make them say "Oh, you remember Bob? He wrote to apologise for how he left. How nice. Right, back to today's meeting". That's not to say don't write, but know that writing is likely only to be for your benefit, not your ex-manager's.

Don't forget recognition - sometimes all it takes is a title (or even salary bump) not because they want the money, but because they want something to (humble)brag about.

@ProvoloneDolce Thanks for the update but I have to say not telling HR sounds risky. If it happens again, there's no official record to point at

If this was a joke then it was inept, inappropriate and dumb. It's something that many people might not take as a joke and therefore should be avoided by anyone claiming to be a professional. Making jokes at someone else's expense is very difficult if there is more than a layer of hierarchy between you. The subordinate may not feel they can object so can be placed into a difficult situation, even if it wasn't ill-intentioned to start with.

@Aba Interesting, I read that as "I'm busy doing work... Like you should be"

I had a near-identical experience to @emragins. Started working for a call centre for minimum wage, rewrote their intranet in my spare time to make things simpler and more powerful (hosted on an old desktop no less!). That brought me to the attention of the IT department (as I'd hoped) who nabbed me. I've been in software development ever since.

I'd definitely say this is country-specific. Other countries have far more stringent privacy laws "Additionally, the Spiegel newspaper printed a list of items from Origin's license agreement it reported could violate German privacy law."

@HLGEM The linked question is by the OP...

@KateGregory Unfortunately, swap to my mother and a topic of computers and although the questions are in the same vein, there's no retention. The same conversation can be repeated the next day and the next. She's so sharp in other areas, I'm convinced the whole thing is an act so I'll fix her laptop. +1 Btw for the examples. Very clear

@JoeStrazzere As you said in your answer, it's a matter of context. It may also be a cultural thing. Without meaning to be offensive, I've noticed Americans tend to be more puritanical about these things. Of course, that's anecdotal and I don't know if that's a result of the litigation culture or something else entirely. It may also be the size of the office, with only ~15 of us in each room, it's easier to reach consensus and we're all pretty relaxed about a lot of things (eg nobody clock watches as long as your work gets done). Of course, that balances with occasional late nights/weekends

Two of the devs in our office just quit and went to vaping. They puff away at their desks, in meetings, etc and nobody cares in the slightest. Personally, I'm far more bothered by a colleague with bad breath...

@thursdaysgeek You can't volunteer?