Recently got laid off for criticising my boss' code who then asked his friend the CEO to fire me. Am typing this, unemployed, from a coffee shop as my rent is due. Has anyone else been fired recently and want to share some war stories?
Ask HN: How did you get fired?
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Re: Ask HN: How did you get fired?
#2[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: How did you get fired?
#3Nope. But I constantly feel like I'll be fired because I have a history of questioning authority when I see something wrong and also feel like my output is lower than others.
Re: Ask HN: How did you get fired?
#4SaaS Sales job: Failed to make sales quota, put on probation, failed to make quota again the next month, was ushered out the door. First adult job (ignoring the non career jobs) and first job firing.
Another SaaS Sales job: My sales were fine, highest in our department, new director came in, i didnt really want to be there anymore, invited the whole department out for burritos, execpt for the unlucky 10 of us whobwere prompty canned by HR lol. This was a blessing in disguise transitioned into software development after.
Re: Ask HN: How did you get fired?
#5Throwaway for obvious reasons
I didn't get "fired" but my position did get eliminated. I was given about 5 minutes notice and told my employment was ending effective immediately. When I asked why, I was told they could not discuss it for legal reasons. When I asked if I was being fired, I was told "no". When I asked if I was being laid off I was told "no". When I asked for a letter of recommendation I was told "no".
The Position was Director of User Experience at a mid-size software and services company (~70 employees). My team–JS devs, copywriters, and designers–and I had been high performers for years with stellar reviews, raises, etc. At the time we had been twiddling our thumbs for 9 months because backend development, which we worked with very closely, was so far behind.
The writing was on the wall, obviously. I know why they did it. It was business. My position was a 6-figure line item in a budget sheet and wasn't producing tangible value. My team's output (user experience design and front end development) wasn't being utilized due to back end development delays.
The execution really rubbed me the wrong way, though. I had been at the company for six years and had been told by the CTO (literally 72 hours before the HR meeting) that I would "always have a place here". I had received a number of similar reassurances by the CEO/Founder for months leading up to termination. These were all in response to my asking about the development delays on the other team affecting mine. The manner in witch I was terminated was very disrespectful and hurt my feelings.
I'm mostly over it now, but I have lingering trust issues of upper management. Which is probably fine, honestly. I have been successfully relieved of my naïveté. It only took 12 years in the industry.
Re: Ask HN: How did you get fired?
#6Contractor position: for doing math using company resources. Basically, they were looking to trim their budgets and us contractors were the best paid. In addition we'd already got the job done, just waiting for term to end. I was so mind numbingly bored that I started doing Project Euler, first at home then eventually at work to fill the time. That was 'just cause'.
I also suspect that one of my solutions wasn't well appreciated. There was a job that analyzed historical data and generated a projected date (or risk I can't exactly recall) that was very complicated and took way too long to run. I cooked it down to one database query where all the data was anyway to get an answer in a couple of minutes. It took a long time to make the query, needing multiple updates (PTFs) of IBM DB2 to extend limits I was bumping into and working around with guard condition heuristics to narrow the search space. The single query was about 3 pages long. There were timeline diagrams showing the areas that each heuristic was narrowing or excluding but not simply enough.
I remember when the guy who had to deliver the news, but obviously didn't make the decision had the talk with me. My reaction was "Fantastic!" as it was such a relief to escape boredom early.
Re: Ask HN: How did you get fired?
#7I had an awful manager who discouraged team collaboration (work independently, don't ask questions or bother others). I seriously struggled because I was a new developer and had no onboarding. Just tossed into the deep end and unfortunately I drowned. Our 1 on 1 meetings were an interrogation about all the mistakes I've made over the past week and why I made them. The increased stress of not making mistakes made me make more mistakes... Finally the deadlines were constantly shifted. Boss would ask how long something would take, I'd give an estimate, we agreed on that date. When that date arrived he'd say, "I think it shouldn't have taken this long. The other guys on the team could have done this in half the time". This went on for a few months until one day I was fired on the spot. It was a blessing in disguise! I'm at a much better place now.
Re: Ask HN: How did you get fired?
#8Contractor position: for doing math using company resources. Basically, they were looking to trim their budgets and us contractors were the best paid. In addition we'd already got the job done, just waiting for term to end. I was so mind numbingly bored that I started doing Project Euler, first at home then eventually at work to fill the time. That was 'just cause'. I also suspect that one of my solutions wasn't well…
>My reaction was "Fantastic!" as it was such a relief to escape boredom early.
I know it is time to leave a job when my reaction to the idea of being let go is "Yes please!"
Re: Ask HN: How did you get fired?
#9These things don't happen in Europe. Yay for socialist work laws!
Re: Ask HN: How did you get fired?
#10These things don't happen in Europe. Yay for socialist work laws!
They don't but it also made HR (in some shady places) a lot more prone to logging minor "mistakes" as ammunition to be used in case they want to terminate your contract.
Personal example: First few weeks on a new job, I had my headphones on and Spotify open in one of my 3 screens since it was a loud open-space.
A few minutes later I receive an email from HR -with all the chain of managers CC'd- saying that I'm costing the company too much money to be listening to music while i'm supposed to be working. Formed as warning in a very formal language. It felt that they just wanted ammunition on me "just in case".
I left that toxic place as soon as I could!