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When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

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Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#281

Post by perl4ever »

giantg2 wrote: post #71
castlecrasher2 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'll never be more than an intermediate developer Do you mean this at your specific company? I felt the same way in my last company because there was definitely nowhere to go up, but I've since moved on and am in a more senior role.

I'm in my 30 with a family and find that I am much slower at learning new stacks now. I was a FileNet developer and then a Neoxam developer. There aren't many opportunities for me. I'm also just tired of the bullshit and and mind games that management plays. My current plan is to gamble in the stock market and 'retire' whenever I can't take it anymore or get fired. I would love to retire to run a small farm and/or wo…

If you don't like the industry you're in, programming culture, or the software stack you're used to, one way to break out of it is to get a low level office job in the sort of place you want to work and figure out how to solve problems with technology among people who don't normally have developers at their beck and call.

This is also, I think, how you find a job that is very stable and secure - focusing first and foremost on something other than technology until they can't imagine hiring someone off the street to replace you who doesn't know the business.

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#282

Post by m463 »

ping_pong wrote: post #17

This is the biggest problem with stack ranking software engineers, the practice I had to endure while at a well known software company. All it does is create a zero-sum game, so I have no incentive to compliment anyone else. I needed to make sure that my rank was as high as I could make it, which really sucked during performance time. It was very stressful, even though I was a high performer, because it didn't foster…

I was at a company that had a few rounds of layoffs. great way to destroy a culture. Everybody hunkers down, looks out for themselves, and teamwork dies.

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#283

Post by bllguo »

jedberg wrote: post #107
ping_pong wrote: post #17

This is the biggest problem with stack ranking software engineers, the practice I had to endure while at a well known software company. All it does is create a zero-sum game, so I have no incentive to compliment anyone else. I needed to make sure that my rank was as high as I could make it, which really sucked during performance time. It was very stressful, even though I was a high performer, because it didn't foster…

This is what I loved about working at Netflix. We didn't have performance reviews. It was assumed that your performance was good to excellent, otherwise you wouldn't be working there anymore. You had a constant feedback loop with your manager on performance, but nothing was ever formal. Raises were completely divorced from any performance assessment. You were paid whatever they thought the max was for your skillset,…

So when people say companies are afraid of hiring false positives because it's costly to get rid of them - it's their internal corporate culture that is to blame for firing being expensive in the first place? Rather than some overarching legal complications?

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#284

Post by jedberg »

solarengineer wrote: post #278
jedberg wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Doesn’t it seem a little funny to wait until the exit interview to ask if it came as a surprise? When else would they ask? The exit interview is when you are being informed of the decision. The process is you get a meeting invite for a 1 on 1 with your manager. They come in, tell you that you're getting let go and why, and then invite HR to come in. They then leave and HR goes over the paperwork and asks you about…

" I'm not sure when else they would ask"' Perhaps have the manager give their decision making and their inputs in writing, have the employee review these and provide a response. After all, if the employee were good enough to have lasted six years under the scrutiny of other good peers, then a sudden firing needs investigation. That's how it is done at other places where people are valued. This entire thread reminded…

You will never ever get a reason for being fired in writing here in the US because all that does is provide evidence for a possible lawsuit.

> Is it all related to American culture that the rest of us don't understand?

In part, yes. Here in the US we don't really have worker protections. Many believe it is because of this that we have such a strong growth in business.

It objectively makes our economy more nimble and adaptable, but at the expense of employees.

A perfect example: I worked at a startup in 2000, and we had a bunch of people in the US as well as Europe. When business was down and we had to lay people off, we ended up laying off engineers in the US, because we couldn't get rid of any of the people in Europe quickly enough. We had to pay people for months before they were let go, and they didn't even show up to work. It was great for them, but it was bad for the company and also bad for our growth since we had to pay people to do literally nothing.

To be clear, I think workers need greater protections. But those protections should not be at the direct expense of the company. It should be indirectly through taxation.

But to get back to your question, yes, here in the US, workers are not treated as well as elsewhere. Entrepreneurs and businesses are seen as the drivers of the economy, not the workers.

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#285

Post by stepstop »

jedberg wrote: post #245
iainmerrick wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The context being described is one in which you were just sacked at the whim of a manager. Doesn’t it seem a little funny to wait until the exit interview to ask if it came as a surprise? Maybe they’re going to act in that information somehow, perhaps sacking that manager if it’s part of a pattern of poor decisions, but they’re not planning on doing anything to help you personally, like overturning the dismissal. May…

> Doesn’t it seem a little funny to wait until the exit interview to ask if it came as a surprise? When else would they ask? The exit interview is when you are being informed of the decision. The process is you get a meeting invite for a 1 on 1 with your manager. They come in, tell you that you're getting let go and why, and then invite HR to come in. They then leave and HR goes over the paperwork and asks you about…

> When else would they ask? The exit interview is when you are being informed of the decision.

At a previous employer, a manager would need to formally put you on a performance improvement plan to give you a chance to improve, to discuss about what's going on (maybe you need a leave of absence for family; or maybe training). HR should be surprised that the exit interview is the first time they're talking to the person.

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#286

Post by iainmerrick »

jedberg wrote: post #245
iainmerrick wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The context being described is one in which you were just sacked at the whim of a manager. Doesn’t it seem a little funny to wait until the exit interview to ask if it came as a surprise? Maybe they’re going to act in that information somehow, perhaps sacking that manager if it’s part of a pattern of poor decisions, but they’re not planning on doing anything to help you personally, like overturning the dismissal. May…

> Doesn’t it seem a little funny to wait until the exit interview to ask if it came as a surprise? When else would they ask? The exit interview is when you are being informed of the decision. The process is you get a meeting invite for a 1 on 1 with your manager. They come in, tell you that you're getting let go and why, and then invite HR to come in. They then leave and HR goes over the paperwork and asks you about…

The process is you get a meeting invite for a 1 on 1 with your manager. They come in, tell you that you're getting let go and why, and then invite HR to come in. They then leave and HR goes over the paperwork and asks you about if you expected it.

That must be an absolutely horrible experience, if you genuinely didn’t expect it! Is there at least a reasonably generous severance package?

Edit to add: in fact, thinking about it, doing the entire process in a single meeting like that feels like a bit of a mean trick -- catching people off-balance so they’re probably more likely to answer the HR questions honestly, rather than having time to think about what they want to say and what they want to ask.

I wonder what questions that HR team asks and what use they make of the data.

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#287

Post by jedberg »

stepstop wrote: post #285
jedberg wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Doesn’t it seem a little funny to wait until the exit interview to ask if it came as a surprise? When else would they ask? The exit interview is when you are being informed of the decision. The process is you get a meeting invite for a 1 on 1 with your manager. They come in, tell you that you're getting let go and why, and then invite HR to come in. They then leave and HR goes over the paperwork and asks you about…

> When else would they ask? The exit interview is when you are being informed of the decision. At a previous employer, a manager would need to formally put you on a performance improvement plan to give you a chance to improve, to discuss about what's going on (maybe you need a leave of absence for family; or maybe training). HR should be surprised that the exit interview is the first time they're talking to the perso…

That's my point. Those things still happen, even without a formal process. Most likely if you're in that meeting, you've already had multiple meetings with HR and your manager about your performance.

If HR is just hearing about it for the first time in the meeting, that is when they would be following up, because it means the manager made a quick rash decision.

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#288

Post by iainmerrick »

jedberg wrote: post #287
stepstop wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When else would they ask? The exit interview is when you are being informed of the decision. At a previous employer, a manager would need to formally put you on a performance improvement plan to give you a chance to improve, to discuss about what's going on (maybe you need a leave of absence for family; or maybe training). HR should be surprised that the exit interview is the first time they're talking to the perso…

That's my point. Those things still happen, even without a formal process. Most likely if you're in that meeting, you've already had multiple meetings with HR and your manager about your performance. If HR is just hearing about it for the first time in the meeting, that is when they would be following up, because it means the manager made a quick rash decision.

Would they potentially overturn the dismissal in that case?

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#289

Post by jedberg »

iainmerrick wrote: post #286
jedberg wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Doesn’t it seem a little funny to wait until the exit interview to ask if it came as a surprise? When else would they ask? The exit interview is when you are being informed of the decision. The process is you get a meeting invite for a 1 on 1 with your manager. They come in, tell you that you're getting let go and why, and then invite HR to come in. They then leave and HR goes over the paperwork and asks you about…

The process is you get a meeting invite for a 1 on 1 with your manager. They come in, tell you that you're getting let go and why, and then invite HR to come in. They then leave and HR goes over the paperwork and asks you about if you expected it. That must be an absolutely horrible experience, if you genuinely didn’t expect it! Is there at least a reasonably generous severance package? Edit to add: in fact, thinking…

The severance was several months of pay and usually a few months of health insurance too. It's the most generous package I've ever heard of.

For high level execs it got up into a whole year's salary sometimes.

Even for the lowest levels of engineers, the severance would be in the $40,000 range.

VPs could walk away with $1M+ in severance. CxOs even more.

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#290

Post by jedberg »

iainmerrick wrote: post #288
jedberg wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's my point. Those things still happen, even without a formal process. Most likely if you're in that meeting, you've already had multiple meetings with HR and your manager about your performance. If HR is just hearing about it for the first time in the meeting, that is when they would be following up, because it means the manager made a quick rash decision.

Would they potentially overturn the dismissal in that case?

I don't think so. The last thing you want is to have someone working for a manager who tried to fire them. I don't recall any case where a dismissal was overturned.

Keep in mind, the HR person will still have at least a few hours warning, since they are invited to the meeting ahead of time and will know what the meeting is about, because they have to prep the paperwork. So if they disagree, they are most likely to ask the manager to discuss it first.

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