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Advice to New Managers: Don't Joke About Firing People (2020)

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Re: Advice to New Managers: Don't Joke About Firing People (2020)

#121

Post by thebean11 »

PeterisP wrote: post #97
michaelt wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In medium/large companies, 99.9% of employees can be fired at the end of a HR process and that HR process is something only their line manager can start. And while transferring an inept employee to another manager might save you some paperwork, it'll make that manager an enemy (unless the employee's performance is much improved by the move). So many managers would do the paperwork.

From the perspective of that HR process, they generally care about the employee as much (or as little) as about that manager. A manager may start some process, but HR might as well consider that it's better (or easier?) for the organization to replace that manager instead of replacing that individual contributor.

In what world would that be better? I manager tries to fire a bad performer and now the org is down a manager and keeps a bad IC?

Re: Advice to New Managers: Don't Joke About Firing People (2020)

#122

Post by jan_Inkepa »

pc86 wrote: post #67
arthur_sav wrote: post #7

What about quitting? I always joke about quitting

The reason you don't joke about firing someone is because of the power imbalance. The employee will usually be in a bad spot if they actually are fired, and the company will be fine (usually better off, even). Furthermore, there's no real recourse on the employee side. If they are offended by the joke they can't really complain, because if the boss is so tone deaf as to joke about firing, they're unlikely to take cri…

>The employee will usually be in a bad spot if they actually are fired, and the company will be fine (usually better off, even).

Boss, to employee: "I'd just like you to know that I'd never joke about firing you. I recognise that it would be needlessly cruel because, although you're reliant on the company to earn a living, the company would actually be better off without you." D:

Re: Advice to New Managers: Don't Joke About Firing People (2020)

#123

Post by throwaway0a5e »

Veen wrote: post #58
anoonmoose wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GP getting upvoted because managers are in the minority on HN P getting downvoted because members of historically powerful groups and genders are not in the minority on HN

Or because no one likes being lectured by pompous self-righteous strangers on a topic barely relevant to the article. Especially when it's something we've all heard a thousand times before presented as if it were a gift of great wisdom.

I agree in this particular case but the exception proves the rule. Shoving vaguely applicable yet mostly useless proverbial advice into internet comment sections is a great low effort way to be rewarded with virtue points. There are a few examples elsewhere in the comments of such. Had he been more tactful about how he worded the topic it likely would have been better received.

Re: Advice to New Managers: Don't Joke About Firing People (2020)

#124

Post by noneeeed »

terramex wrote: post #11

As a more general advice - person in position of power should not joke about causing harm. Whether is is manager joking about firing employee, stronger person joking about beating up weaker one or parent joking about throwing child out of house when they misbehave. This kind of humor works only when it is coming from weaker position and even then only in certain situations.

Totally agree with you on that.

However a slight variation about joking with kids that I find does work surprisingly well is the totally exhagerrated consequences. But it really has to be totally over the top and utterly unbelievable, the sillier the better. It simultaneously breaks the impending mood of conflict, makes them laugh, while somehow actually motivating them to do what they are resisting. We all know it won't be the real consequence of them (not) doing whatever, but it still seems to work. It's weird. Doesn't always work of course (nothing with kids ever does), but a variation on the theme has frequently helped.

Re: Advice to New Managers: Don't Joke About Firing People (2020)

#125

Post by throwaway0a5e »

dustintrex wrote: post #115
PeterisP wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the perspective of that HR process, they generally care about the employee as much (or as little) as about that manager. A manager may start some process, but HR might as well consider that it's better (or easier?) for the organization to replace that manager instead of replacing that individual contributor.

In any remotely sane company, HR does what management says. The manager may well be replaced, but it's the manager's manager or someone even higher in the food chain who makes that call, not HR on their own.

HR has their own obligations to the people they report to. If they can't justify the manager's suggestion without sticking their necks out to a degree they're comfortable with they probably won't.

They'll mostly side with the manager (because selection bias, not a lot of managers are bringing them cases of people they want fired where that outcome is not compatible with the processes) but may very well tell a manager to just deal with it if that's what's "doing their jobs" looks like.

Things like this are never as black and white as people looking for cheap upvotes make them out to be.

Re: Advice to New Managers: Don't Joke About Firing People (2020)

#126

Post by namelosw »

terramex wrote: post #11

As a more general advice - person in position of power should not joke about causing harm. Whether is is manager joking about firing employee, stronger person joking about beating up weaker one or parent joking about throwing child out of house when they misbehave. This kind of humor works only when it is coming from weaker position and even then only in certain situations.

I grew up in a region parents would randomly say something like the following to their kids on daily basis and I hated it:

- You’re eating too much and we can’t afford you, we will giving you to human traffickers for free.

- If you go out and play before finishing the homework you will be eaten by wolves.

- If you don’t obey the cops are going to arrest and execute you.

- Stay away from dogs or it will bite your pp off.

- Oh we thought you were useful when we found you in the trash can, it turns out we’re wrong and we’re going to throw you back.

And there are hundreds of variants or so. They must have an anti-fortune cookie database kept under their pillow… So pathetic.

Re: Advice to New Managers: Don't Joke About Firing People (2020)

#127

Post by PeterisP »

FreezerburnV wrote: post #114
PeterisP wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the perspective of that HR process, they generally care about the employee as much (or as little) as about that manager. A manager may start some process, but HR might as well consider that it's better (or easier?) for the organization to replace that manager instead of replacing that individual contributor.

I'm not sure I've ever heard a story where a manager attempts to fire someone, but HR decides to replace the manager instead. Is that something you've seen? I only hear stories about managers being protected as hard as possible by HR.

Yes, I have seen unit-level "personality conflict" situations being resolved by firing the line manager.

It's important to note the distinction between "manager" and "management". In larger organizations an entry-level worker is x levels away from top management, and a first level line manager is x-1 levels away from top management, where x is 5-10 i.e. they are quite far from management and very close to the actual worker.

In a large company, from the perspective of actual decision makers or HR, a first level line manager or a team lead is just a slightly different job description of anonymous interchangeable peon. You have a hundred customer service representatives and a bunch of CS teamleads; you have fifty small branch offices/stores/warehouses/whatever and so you have fifty mostly interchangeable branch managers. Their role is supervising the team and executing the assigned goals and policy with minimal influence on it - any actual policy is set by that manager's boss boss or higher; any policy exceptions are likely to require approval from that manager's boss or higher, etc. Of course, if you have only a hundred or so people in the whole organization, then it's different, and most organizations are small or medium enterprises - but quite a few people do work in large corporations.

Re: Advice to New Managers: Don't Joke About Firing People (2020)

#128

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

ransom1538 wrote: post #96
simias wrote: post #6

That's excellent advice that many have learned the hard way... Honestly even as a non-manager it's a very bad idea. When I was a junior one of my colleagues was called to the manager's office. I assumed it would be for some mundane project scheduling or whatever, so I jokingly said "you're getting fired" as he was going there. And he was. This is one of these memories that come back to haunt you late at night when yo…

Off topic. Do firings come out of the blue though? I was a VP for a while (not anymore) - but when the person I had to fire was about to get fired, they KNEW it as soon as the door opened. Firing someone is the worst experience ever - the only reason I had to fire someone was because WE screwed up in the interview process.

> WE screwed up in the interview process

Curiously how did you screw up the interview process?

Re: Advice to New Managers: Don't Joke About Firing People (2020)

#130

Post by VBprogrammer »

dgfitz wrote: post #95
VBprogrammer wrote: post #62

My advice for new programmers: Don't use expletives in any log message, debugging alert, or even code comments. The chance of this coming back to haunt you is not worth the momentary satisfaction it gives you.

You ever grep the linux codebase for expletives? Give it a shot some time. I wouldn't make it at a company that frowns upon a 'God Damnit' in a log message.

I probably wouldn't either. It's not that I wouldn't like to write those things, or enjoy reading them in the tribulations of those who'd been there before me. The problem is more when it reaches a customer via some error prompt which you modified for debugging or some logging output which ends up in their console.
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