I started working at a public institution exactly a year ago. I knew I'd need to go back to university in September, so I stated during the interview that I would be staying for a year only. They were fully aware of this when they decided to hire me.
Spring rolls around, and I hand in a two-month notice in May. (Two months because a) I anticipated a lot of administrative traps & craps and wanted to make sure there's time to figure out everything; and b) when a team member had quit before, management gave them a lot of shit for not giving at least a two-month notice). Policy is that all three of my bosses (in hierarchical order) and HR need to sign the notice for it to take effect. Again, this is how administration works in my country – all public institutions operate under similar policies here.
Boss 1 signs it. Boss 2 flat out says no. Reason? “I don't want to upset Boss 3 with this right now.” A few days pass, and he gives in and signs anyway. Boss 3 signs it too, and my file is slowly making its way to HR. I monitor it like a hawk through the document tracking system, and everything seems fine. I take out my last paid vacation days well in advance, I start wrapping up my projects, and a colleague is designated to take over. Perfect.
A week passes, then two, then almost three weeks, and I start to worry because I still haven't heard back from HR. I call them. “Yeah, we remember your file, we'll see what's up with it and call you back.” They don't. I call them again. “Don't worry, we didn't forget, we'll call you back.” Fine. They finally call me back and say – “Oh, we held your file back because your department will move to a new management in July. As you want to leave in July, we can't sign it, please contact your new management and – you'll need to hand in a new notice please.”
They knew full well they wouldn't be able to sign it the moment they got the document at the end of May/beginning of June. They just decided to put it aside, not do anything, and wait for me to notice something was wrong.