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Advice to new managers: don't joke about firing people

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Re: Advice to new managers: don't joke about firing people

#381

Post by pvg »

whatok wrote: post #376
pvg wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who has been fired for 'one off remarks'? Older work getting re-evaluated, viewed from a different angle, etc, is more or less how culture works. Murphy or Seinfeld don't seem to be any worse for the wear at all.

> Who has been fired for 'one off remarks'? Google "comedians fired social media" or "comedians fired old material". If not one-off remarks then a tiny percentage of overall material. > Older work getting re-evaluated, viewed from a different angle, etc, is more or less how culture works. I have no problem with anyone taking a nuanced look through an entire piece while also considering the time and place when it was…

So people aren't getting fired for 'one off remarks'. It's hard to really evaluate your claim that seemingly normal changes in cultural and social norms are some dreadful modern scourge if you can't really produce evidence it actually exists and is harming anyone. "I don't like some stuff I see on Twitter" is a problem more or less everyone experiences, it's probably not some important social ill.

Re: Advice to new managers: don't joke about firing people

#382

Post by Shoreleave »

pvg wrote: post #365
whatok wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The rules about comedy don't apply to professional comedians, because you know if they break them they're still trying to funny. I don't think this is true in the modern age. Countless non-established or up and coming comedians and adjacents have gotten fired for one-off remarks in old material or social media posts. If there's a constantly evolving list (which no one person on Earth is completely aware of in its e…

Who has been fired for 'one off remarks'? Older work getting re-evaluated, viewed from a different angle, etc, is more or less how culture works. Murphy or Seinfeld don't seem to be any worse for the wear at all.

'Fired' doesn't make much sense for stand up. Most comedians won't play (or aren't invited to) college campuses anymore. Two decades ago every comedian would tour campuses. Something has changed drastically.

Re: Advice to new managers: don't joke about firing people

#383

Post by torstenvl »

P-ala-din wrote: post #333
xapata wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Not all foo are bar." "This foo is bar." Both statements can be true simultaneously.

Of course, that's true but I can't map that to the statements at hand. I understood it to be: P(W) == P(M) and P(W) > P(M)

"P(W) == P(M)" is not supported by the statement. More like "P(W), but also P(M)"

Re: Advice to new managers: don't joke about firing people

#384

Post by SamuelAdams »

DevX101 wrote: post #33

While we're on this topic, managers don't invite your direct reports for one-on-one meeting out of the blue with no agenda. I've heard multiple people tell me they assume they're about to be fired.

That goes for random phone calls too. About two weeks ago I get a call on my office phone from the CIO at 4:45 PM on a Friday.

There's about 50 people in the IT staff and there's one manager between me and the CIO. I might chat with her once a quarter as I pass her in the hallway, but due to COVID I haven't heard from her informally in quite a while.

I guess she really did just want to chat about how things are going. But for a quick 10 seconds I really did think "oh crap, I'm fired."

Re: Advice to new managers: don't joke about firing people

#385

Post by whatok »

pvg wrote: post #381
whatok wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who has been fired for 'one off remarks'? Google "comedians fired social media" or "comedians fired old material". If not one-off remarks then a tiny percentage of overall material. > Older work getting re-evaluated, viewed from a different angle, etc, is more or less how culture works. I have no problem with anyone taking a nuanced look through an entire piece while also considering the time and place when it was…

So people aren't getting fired for 'one off remarks'. It's hard to really evaluate your claim that seemingly normal changes in cultural and social norms are some dreadful modern scourge if you can't really produce evidence it actually exists and is harming anyone. "I don't like some stuff I see on Twitter" is a problem more or less everyone experiences, it's probably not some important social ill.

> The rules about comedy don't apply to professional comedians, because you know if they break them they're still trying to funny.

This was the original notion that I was disagreeing with. If you can't think of a single comedian fired for social media posts or previous material then you really aren't educated on the topic that you are arguing about. Also, complete exaggerations like:

> dreadful modern scourge

> not some important social ill

are not conducive to conversation. I never once claimed that changes in societal norms are negative so please don't put words in my mouth. What I'm saying is that there is a complete lack of nuance or context with many of the modern forms of evaluation and nuance and context are kinda important for appreciating any artform. Some of that evaluation takes place on social media and ends up having outsized real-life effects.

Re: Advice to new managers: don't joke about firing people

#386

Post by scarface74 »

llimos wrote: post #358
kemiller2002 wrote: post #3

This is sound advice. You have a significant amount of control over people's lives as a manager, and that should be treated with a level of respect. You have no idea how people feel, and it is quite possible that someone you manage doesn't know where they stand with you. At times that is more than enough to cause them stress and even convince them to look elsewhere. Work is stressful enough, and you don't need to add…

I had a manager do this to me once. In a situation where I knew for sure he was joking. I was top of the department, and it wasn't even in the context of having done anything wrong. He had just been given some new responsibilities, and I asked him what he was planning to change, and he said, totally jokingly, 'well, today is your last day.' And I knew 100% it was a joke, and I still felt a horrible sinking feeling fo…

It’s a strange feeling “being fired” even if it doesn’t affect your income.

The company I worked for in 2011 was acquired for its customers. We all knew that we were going to be let go as soon as the acquisition happened. Most of us had other jobs lined up and we were sticking around for the severance.

In my case, not only did I have a contract lined up with one of our customers, I knew I was going to start working the following Monday and getting paid more, and my termination letter had a special provision that gave me access to all of my former company’s intellectual property and software that I needed to work with the customer. I still felt bad for getting let go.

After we all “got fired” we ate lunch, had a few drinks, and came back to the office and just hung out.

Re: Advice to new managers: don't joke about firing people

#388

Post by P-ala-din »

mattkrause wrote: post #368
P-ala-din wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes sense, thanks. I was misled by the use of "prevalence" in the first part of the sentence.

In this context, prevalence means something like "the proportion of affected people in some group." Men and women could be equally likely to develop some form of imposter syndrome (thus, equal prevalence), but the women could be more severely affected (scores of, say, 5 vs. 3 on some kind of test or questionnaire).

yeah, the definition of prevalence is clear to me.

but it's the other way around. Men and women are affected with the same severity but women are more likely to develop it. ( or at least that's what I understood from bradjohnson's comment).

Re: Advice to new managers: don't joke about firing people

#389

Post by mark-r »

goatinaboat wrote: post #342
Kaze404 wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with this. I recently had an honestly disastrous experience at a job because we tried to pretend that power dynamic doesn't exist. My boss (the CTO) considered me a friend and vice versa, but that made every work interaction so awkward (for me at least) because I could never tell whether we were talking as friends, teammates or employer-employee. I attribute this as both of us being incredibly young (lower 20…

I could never tell whether we were talking as friends, teammates or employer-employee There’s an old saying, if your boss if your friend, he’s either a bad boss or a bad friend.

A couple of weeks ago my family binge-watched "The Office". That show demonstrates the truth of that saying very well.
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