Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

651–660 of 862 posts

Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?

#651

Post by shifto »

Grangar wrote: post #643

Well I actually just got "fired" today. I'm doing an infosec traineeship right now, and I supposedly don't put in enough effort at home. Employer told me the company expects people to put in another ~20hrs of studying by themselves on top of the 40 in the office, I hope this is not industry wide... Had I known this I wouldn't have signed in the first place. Any infosec companies with sane hours hiring trainees in the…

Do you want to mention the company name? I'm curious as I have an idea about which company this is.

Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?

#652

Post by analog31 »

bmaupin wrote: post #627
dav1app wrote: post #403

On my last job, a new manager called me for a meeting on Friday 4PM. I spent the whole month on an extremely stressful project. The meeting was about an app that integrates credit card payments, billets and bank account on a terminal that is going to be available to the general public. The deadline? 11PM of the same day. Final version. From 0 to 100% in 6 hours. I said that it was impossible. He said that I was incap…

Sounds a lot like at-will employment ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment )

A shady personnel manager at a former job explained the difference to me: If someone is terminated as an "at will" employee, they can collect unemployment and possibly other benefits as well such as severance.

If they are terminated "with cause," no benefits. I have never seen a PIP, but it may require you to sign away your rights as an "at will" employee.

Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?

#653

Post by navigatesol »

RealityNow wrote: post #472
virgilp wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a sad story; but PIP is really the pink slip; you take it as an advance notice that you're going to be fired, and start looking for jobs. I've heard stories of people completing PIP programs successfully, but quite honestly, I don't get it. Once you got to that point, you're not a good fit to the team and/or they don't appreciate you. Makes no sense to stay. I could understand staying with the company & switchin…

PIP isn't a pink slip at all companies. I once got a PIP when working at a mid-sized corporation. Fortunately my performance wasn't an issue, they just didn't like that I was frequently late to the daily morning standup (which upper management refused to allow us to reschedule to later in the day despite my insistence), didn't appear attentive in meetings, and was working from home too much. I started coming in to wo…

>I started coming in to work on time and stopped coding during meetings and they took me off the PIP a couple weeks later.

So, you were consistently late for work, didn't pay attention in meetings and were admittedly inattentive and working from home "too much". So you were put on PIP and you took that as a reason to leave the company?

What did you expect them to do? You sound like a nightmare employee. I'm sure the company is equally glad you're gone.

Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?

#654

Post by Grangar »

shifto wrote: post #651
Grangar wrote: post #643

Well I actually just got "fired" today. I'm doing an infosec traineeship right now, and I supposedly don't put in enough effort at home. Employer told me the company expects people to put in another ~20hrs of studying by themselves on top of the 40 in the office, I hope this is not industry wide... Had I known this I wouldn't have signed in the first place. Any infosec companies with sane hours hiring trainees in the…

Do you want to mention the company name? I'm curious as I have an idea about which company this is.

I can neither confirm nor deny before I get another gig, I don't want to burn any bridges prematurely just in case. What company are you thinking of?

Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?

#655

Post by mbarronj »

sbfeibish wrote: post #623
dav1app wrote: post #403

On my last job, a new manager called me for a meeting on Friday 4PM. I spent the whole month on an extremely stressful project. The meeting was about an app that integrates credit card payments, billets and bank account on a terminal that is going to be available to the general public. The deadline? 11PM of the same day. Final version. From 0 to 100% in 6 hours. I said that it was impossible. He said that I was incap…

"I thought throwing myself from my apartment window." You got it backwards. You think of throwing your manager out the apartment window.

The best Defenestration is a good Offenestration

Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?

#656

Post by frenchy »

throwarayes wrote: post #31
bonestamp2 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume your doctors have considered it, but have either of you had a vasectomy or undescended testical?

I have had a vasectomy (which my urologist knows, cause his office did it). I'd be curious why you say that. Is there a link?

Unfortunately, age is probably the most obvious link.

Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?

#657

Post by abledon »

throwaway58129 wrote: post #66
throwaway58129 wrote: post #64

I didn't know this format was a thing and am so very excited to discover it. I hope you folks enjoy reading horror stories. I got a job as a Software Engineer in my current company 4.5 years ago; friend-of-a-friend sort of thing. The company had an apparently disastrous piece of software that was their main LOB. They had gone through pretty much every local consulting agency - at least once, on a few occasions they h…

I have no idea the right way of posting long posts. Here's the rest: https://pastebin.com/k0tYZYgY

please write fiction please. you are like a thriller writer, it was better than watching "the dark night"

Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?

#658

Post by Random_Person »

That'd be great. I'm actively searching, but a 40 year old junior dev isn't in high demand. I took my present job hoping for some mentor-ship to better develop my skills. My days are spent in my office, with no concrete understanding of what is expected of me. I have projects that are "mine"... and by that, I mean that no other developer has a clue what I do. There is no team. No goals. No targets. I just work on whatever I feel like working on, and it's slowly driving me crazy.

Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?

#659

Post by gadders »

bitwize wrote: post #16
oldsklgdfth wrote: post #4

My office mates audibly fart throughout the day and act like it's normal. Pretty sure it's not.

I once worked one desk over from a bloke who did CrossFit in the middle of the day, and for some reason had to hang up his damp, sweaty, reeking gym things on the substructure of his desk to dry when he got back. I had to lay down a protective Lysol force field to protect myself. Oh, and this was at $LARGE_SEARCH_ENGINE_COMPANY, who treat contractors as subhuman scum, not even entitled to a laptop so they can work in…

I once worked at an office for a large bank that had an atrium as you walked in, and then desk partitions up against the glass windows.

Some of the people that went to the gym used to hang their towels over the partitions, until an email from the Head of Facilities saying that they made the office look like a holiday hotel in Benidorm.

Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?

#660

Post by mburns »

sbfeibish wrote: post #623
dav1app wrote: post #403

On my last job, a new manager called me for a meeting on Friday 4PM. I spent the whole month on an extremely stressful project. The meeting was about an app that integrates credit card payments, billets and bank account on a terminal that is going to be available to the general public. The deadline? 11PM of the same day. Final version. From 0 to 100% in 6 hours. I said that it was impossible. He said that I was incap…

"I thought throwing myself from my apartment window." You got it backwards. You think of throwing your manager out the apartment window.

>If you are wise, however, this is precisely what you will avoid doing because the average Vogon will not think twice before doing something so pointlessly hideous to you that you will wish you had never been born—or (if you are a clearer minded thinker) that the Vogon had never been born.

— Douglas Adams, H2G2

Post reply on HN