I think this falls under the general "don't threaten the relationship." Whether it's joking about firing, saying "maybe we should just get divorced", joking a child was an accident etc. When things get stressful people often reevaluate comments in their new emotional state and what might have felt like a joke could become a threat. Subsequently instead of working to solve a problem for a situation they trust, people often work for self preservation.
Advice to New Managers: Don't Joke About Firing People (2020)
171–180 of 278 posts
Re: Advice to New Managers: Don't Joke About Firing People (2020)
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
3 years ago, I had a talk with the Chief Senior Physician of the hospital my mum was treated. She was terminally ill, she was fightiing for weeks, but there was no hope left. So it was decided to end all life support measures. When I went back to my car, where my then-minor sister was waiting for news, I said: "Sie hat es geschafft.", which literally means "She made it" in German - however, I meant it in the meaning…
I also try to avoid double meanings and also indicate the part of the question I am answering as often times people have different shorthand for the question they are asking than I might have. example question: "Is this job running?" (implied: is it "working"?) Answer: "No, it is not currently running however I see it is scheduled to run daily at 7pm. I don't see any errors in the past 2 days. Did you expect it to im…
Oh god yes. I constantly see misunderstandings and conversations that take three times as long as necessary because people don't clearly and explicitly say what they're asking or answering.
Re: Advice to New Managers: Don't Joke About Firing People (2020)
#173Ok, that's nice. I'm sure some people do it carelessly but lets at least be honest and acknowledge that many also do it deliberately. It's an easy and cowardly way to assert your dominance. If you get called out on it, and you won't, you'll just say you were joking. When you're not called out on it it's a easy way of reminding people that you can do it. Maybe not now but maybe in the future when you're not feeling so…
I have been mentioning in interviews that I had to fire an employee. It was very hard for me to fire the person and I really do not wish to have to repeat that experience so I try to warn the candidates. Backstory: Our company is fully remote. One of the clause on the contract of each employee is no moonlighting. They are not allowed to work on anything else professionally. They can work on personal software project…
If you want that much control over your employees you're going to get employees that allow you to take that much control over them. It's the new "pay peanuts, get monkeys"
No moonlighting, screenshots, this quote "This is because in a fully remote companies there are not office hours and it's very hard to define what's work and what's not"
Someone good enough to do exactly what you need is not the sort of person that only does exactly what you need. You're only interviewing people that didn't rule you out
Re: Advice to New Managers: Don't Joke About Firing People (2020)
#174My 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.
Agreed. I once worked for a company that built custom e-commerce sites. One of our clients decided to bring development in-house, and wanted the codebase for their site. I had to go through every source file line by line to remove all of the expletives the core team had put in the comments before handing over the code.
Re: Advice to New Managers: Don't Joke About Firing People (2020)
#175At my last job there was a chatbot with a !fire command. That would track how many times it had been used on a given subject. 'chatbot fires printers for the fifth time!'
It was incredibly toxic when applied to humans.
Re: Advice to New Managers: Don't Joke About Firing People (2020)
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 w…
I've often done that with my own kids, once tried it with a child at my work - trying to none with them - kid took it seriously and screamed the place down. No young kids get sarcasm, but lots don't get exposed to silliness and so will believe even ludicrous stuff from parents. That child taught me well!
I think people often underestimate the role trust plays in humor (with both kids and adults). This explains why some pretty awful jokes can be funny when coming from someone you know intimately but not from a stranger, and why your kids find it funny when you suggest xyz as a consequence, but someone else's is horrified.
Re: Advice to New Managers: Don't Joke About Firing People (2020)
#177No one told me this prior to becoming a manager, and I did make this mistake once and immediately regretted it. It seems like obvious advice, but the circumstances where this sort of thing could happen are described very well in the article. I revert to humour in awkward situations, like a lot of people, but I quickly realised that there are some things that you can’t joke about when in this position. Thankfully I do…
You should be all business at work. It is your job after all. Work parties then become hilarious because all the humor is saved for special occasions.
Re: Advice to New Managers: Don't Joke About Firing People (2020)
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> Firing someone is the worst experience ever I mean... yeah, it sucks, but have you tried being fired ?
-I've tried both, and by a wide margin the worst was firing someone. (Doubly so as I was a low-level manager in a very hierarchical organisation, so I had little to no sway on who got the boot and not - I was basically handed a list over the employees who were to be fired and told to get on with it.
That was the hardest bit - I wasn't even able to tell them WHY they had been selected over others as I had no idea.
Then a few weeks later, they came for me, too.
Re: Advice to New Managers: Don't Joke About Firing People (2020)
#179As 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.
"Always punch up, never punch down"
Exactly. The article’s advice applies just as well if you’re a senior IC talking to a junior IC.
Re: Advice to New Managers: Don't Joke About Firing People (2020)
#180Along the lines of this advice, I've been trying to find an article I read at some point in the past with advice that sounded like:
> On day 1 of a new hire's employment, I explain what it will look like if and when I come to fire them. I explain that I will be negotiating their severance and here's how it will look...
Does this ring any bells with anyone? I have this article lodged in my brain as being a great conversation to have with someone on day 1, but have since never been able to find the article again.