Although there are lots of these career "advices" that are perceived as "universal truth", I hardly believe they are the only truth. Life is more complicated than that sometimes, so are your workplace. Use your best judgement(s), rather than follow the dogma. Long enough you will have your own believes, perhaps from a different angle to the same dilima.
It's Never Too Early to Fire
151–160 of 189 posts
Re: It's Never Too Early to Fire
#152Just a note, this isnt about firing junior people fast. That is absolutely scummy. This is about hiring/firing very senior, well paid people with lots of prior experience. If you are hiring and then firing junior people fast, you are the problem.
> If you are hiring and then firing junior people fast, you are the problem.
Yeah? How so? What is fast?
If I hire a junior dev, and I say "Hey, I do expect you to know how to program. Not well, I'll teach you, but you need to know how to code. Do you know how to code?"
And they have problems for the first 1-2 months, it's not my job to teach them something I expected them to know.
They shouldn't get through the interview, but they do, sometimes.
Re: It's Never Too Early to Fire
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a senior programmer with a bit more life experience, I quit somewhere after only 2 months. They valued me, the pay was great, the tech challenges were interesting, but their processes drove me potty. I have never regretted it and only feel relief whenever I think about it. I walked straight into another job. If I were to stop freelancing and get a job again, I would just leave it off my CV.
> As a senior programmer with a bit more life experience, I quit somewhere after only 2 months. They valued me, the pay was great, the tech challenges were interesting, but their processes drove me potty. I've done something similar twice, except there were no interesting technical challenges. Both were government jobs where I was lured in to do all this cool work and then get told to sit there and do nothing. The pa…
So you could have spent time doing your own stuff and get paid. Sounds awesome
Re: It's Never Too Early to Fire
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a senior programmer with a bit more life experience, I quit somewhere after only 2 months. They valued me, the pay was great, the tech challenges were interesting, but their processes drove me potty. I have never regretted it and only feel relief whenever I think about it. I walked straight into another job. If I were to stop freelancing and get a job again, I would just leave it off my CV.
> As a senior programmer with a bit more life experience, I quit somewhere after only 2 months. They valued me, the pay was great, the tech challenges were interesting, but their processes drove me potty. I've done something similar twice, except there were no interesting technical challenges. Both were government jobs where I was lured in to do all this cool work and then get told to sit there and do nothing. The pa…
So you could have spent time doing your own stuff and get paid. Sounds awesome
Re: It's Never Too Early to Fire
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If you are hiring and then firing junior people fast, you are the problem. I'm going to challenge this point of view. It is absolutely, and obviously, expected that junior people have a ton to learn, and they should be given leeway for that learning process. So yes, if you fire a junior person because you're not willing to put in the mentorship necessary, then I agree, you are the problem. However, junior people re…
The keyword here is that GP never said "if you do fire junior people", but "if you are firing junior people". The later implies a recurrent pattern of behavior and, unless you want to argue that an unknown factor beyond your control has been sending a disproportionate amount of bad apples your way, it is ultimately your problem. Most common causes I can think for this problem are: an indiscriminate hiring process tha…
This is exactly my point. Thanks for the clarification.
Re: It's Never Too Early to Fire
#156Even more important is to take the blame yourself and fix your hiring process. In the example below, detect the exaggeration during the interview not after they start.
> you’ve realized that what sounded like their “experience” in the interview and even confirmed in reference checks, turns out to be things they observed but they didn’t really drive (or truly understood from within) and therefore can’t replicate
Re: It's Never Too Early to Fire
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure if this is common knowledge outside the US (it wasn't for me): "Fired" and "let go/laid off" don't mean the same thing. Fired means they were laid off for some gross reason, e.g. incompetence, stealing from the company, etc. Laid off means they were just let go because of reasons not very related to their performance. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
I don't know if there are precise definitions, but I've always used (in the US): * Fired with cause - gross reason: sexual harassment, illegal activities, etc. * Fired - incompetence, laziness, other ineptitude related specifically to the employee, but nothing illegal * Laid off - financial reasons or business direction reasons for the company. (Some people who are borderline performers get swept up into lay offs, wh…
I see, thank you. That's pretty clear.
Re: It's Never Too Early to Fire
#158Just a note, this isnt about firing junior people fast. That is absolutely scummy. This is about hiring/firing very senior, well paid people with lots of prior experience. If you are hiring and then firing junior people fast, you are the problem.
> If you are hiring and then firing junior people fast, you are the problem. Yeah? How so? What is fast? If I hire a junior dev, and I say "Hey, I do expect you to know how to program. Not well, I'll teach you, but you need to know how to code. Do you know how to code?" And they have problems for the first 1-2 months, it's not my job to teach them something I expected them to know. They shouldn't get through the inte…
If that happens once in a great while, then like you said, it happens. But if it's constantly happening, then the problem is you, not the people you're hiring.
Re: It's Never Too Early to Fire
#159Just a note, this isnt about firing junior people fast. That is absolutely scummy. This is about hiring/firing very senior, well paid people with lots of prior experience. If you are hiring and then firing junior people fast, you are the problem.
> If you are hiring and then firing junior people fast, you are the problem. I'm going to challenge this point of view. It is absolutely, and obviously, expected that junior people have a ton to learn, and they should be given leeway for that learning process. So yes, if you fire a junior person because you're not willing to put in the mentorship necessary, then I agree, you are the problem. However, junior people re…
>However, junior people really shouldn't have any problem with motivation and drive
How are you going to determine if that really was the problem?
Every time I've heard a colleague say something like this, (s)he is just utilizing a model in his/her mind to explain the behavior, and pretty much never attempts to validate/falsify. Pretty much always post hoc justifications.
Re: It's Never Too Early to Fire
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's odd, because my first two dev jobs I had to be let go. First time was due to them needing someone of senior skill yet paying for a junior salary and let me go after just 3 weeks, and the other due to money running low and let me go after a year of working for them. This taught me that businesses are out for themselves no matter how nice the people are. It then taught me that if I don't like somewhere, I will jus…
yup, basically kept getting increases in pay (but not promotions or authority to change the situation I was in for the better) to stay. Don't take the bait. it's an admission that they know you are more valuable than you are being treated, and an acknowledgement that your misery in the situation is not going to change, which is exactly why they are hoping you will be ok with continued frustration in lieu of more mone…
That's still a pretty good deal though. Plenty of companies will never budge on money. They'd rather you quit and just find another sucker.