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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)

#211

Post by thewebcount »

Oh man, I had to sit through something like this one time. I was at a resort in the Pacific with my spouse. It was on a tiny island, and there were 2 restaurants that were the only places you could eat. One was a moderately priced restaurant you'd go on most nights, and the other was a very fancy restaurant that only sat 8 people at one large table, so you had to book it the day you got to the resort as it always filled up. The chef made the food right in front of you and you got to meet and interact with a few other couples at the resort.

The chef was a young woman of color, and the resort manager, and older white woman who was everyone's boss was from the country that had colonized the island. The boss decided to insert herself into the dinner because some friends of hers were staying at the resort and were at the restaurant that night. She dominated the conversation the entire night, and repeatedly made jokes about firing the chef. It was incredibly awkward and made an otherwise fantastic meal horrible. We wrote a letter to the resort about how awful the experience was. I don't know what eventually became of it, but I hope it made some sort of difference.

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

#212

Post by vmception »

mrosett wrote: post #77
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…

I once had a friend uncharacteristically not respond to a couple texts confirming plans we'd made. I eventually sent "Are you alive?" and got a call back from the hiking companion who had watched her fall to her death two days earlier. That one gives me nightmares.

yeah this one bothers me about my interaction with some women who take the "never respond" approach to expressing disinterest, I don't even know if they made it home okay and I'm not even sure if I'm in the place to ask

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

#213

Post by throwaway98797 »

option_greek wrote: post #30

Don't Joke is a good advice in general for management and leadership. You have to assume people will read into most of the stuff you say as you are their primary information conduit for anything related to workplace.

The greater the risk the better the laugh.

Depends on what you are going for.

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

#214

Post by SNosTrAnDbLe »

foobarian wrote: post #155
indigochill wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen a couple of mass layoffs. How much you see that coming can be a function of how close to the decision-making you are and how familiar you are with the process. As I've advanced, I've progressively seen it coming farther out. But the first one was totally out of the blue to me. Individual firings seem a bit more predictable.

Do you have any tips/signs to look out for :-)

If your startup org is bought by private equity. Run really really fast. Nothing you do will matter, staying is a lose lose proposition.

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

#215

Post by peteradio »

namelosw wrote: post #126
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 o…

Jesus, where did you grow up. Where I grew up we would make the first part of the joke but not the second. You are going to jail. Not "you are going to get shot in the head". Dogs biting dicks off?! America is too puritanical for that kind of imagery to fly.

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

#216

Post by sebastianconcpt »

I think the advice is good but too narrow. The problem is calibration of jokes. I saw managers joke in very bold ways and it was totally fine but also saw managers using humor as passive-agressive initiative of an attempt to downplay someone's work.

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

#217

Post by Trufa »

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.

Darn, I made the mistake once and never again, the face of the CEO pointing at the word "PENIS" on the site was a good enough lesson I guess.

I guess it was as lucky as you can get since we had made the joke together and I just forgot to delete it. Still remember the code, I thought I was sooooo funny. I apologize on behalf of my former self.

*:after { content: 'PENIS'; }

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

#218

Post by johnsimer »

ipnon wrote: post #177
tailspin2019 wrote: post #4

No 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.

Check out Humor, Seriously: Why Humor Is a Secret Weapon in Business and Life (And how Anyone Can Harness It. Even You.) by Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas

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

#219

Post by macksd »

ziml77 wrote: post #91
macksd wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep - a guy I shared an office with walked in and told me he had been wondering if he was going to get laid off. I comforted him and told him that I couldn't see why there would be lay-offs - we had tons of work to do. He picked up everything off his desk and walked out. Turned out he had just been fired, but he had been told it was a lay off to soften the blow. I actually thought he should be fired but the problem h…

If he told you that he was worried about being fired, then you made the right choice of what to say. Imagine if you'd just shrugged. The only reason you'd respond that way instead of in a comforting way is if you thought there actually was a chance he'd be fired. He'd certainly realize after getting fired that you expected it and that because of that you must not think highly of him.

Well what I'm concerned about is that I think he was told "we have too many people, so we had to make the difficult decision to part with one of our great employees", and I effectively told him, "dude there's no way that would actually be the reason".

I appreciate the reassurance, though! Maybe I'm overthinking it, but I think the parent comment is right that it's better to just not say anything when you don't know the whole situation.

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

#220

Post by kingaillas »

foobarian wrote: post #155
indigochill wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen a couple of mass layoffs. How much you see that coming can be a function of how close to the decision-making you are and how familiar you are with the process. As I've advanced, I've progressively seen it coming farther out. But the first one was totally out of the blue to me. Individual firings seem a bit more predictable.

Do you have any tips/signs to look out for :-)

At my previous company, I was caught in a mass layoff (best I can estimate is it was ~10 employees at a site with ~200? It's been 12 years and my memory is fuzzy). The company was known for annual layoffs of a handful of people, and the typical timeframe for it was approaching.

Around 4 or so weeks before, I started receiving unusual interest in projects I was working on, as in my 2nd line manager (boss's boss) dropping by to make various inquiries - how's it going, remember to write up some documentation/process, do you think you'll get to the XYZ portions). It was unusual since my supervisor and I didn't talk about that during our one-on-one meetings - a more natural flow would be for boss's boss to follow up on issues I raised with my boss, or for him/her to relay their questions through my boss, not for him/her to inquire directly.

Second oddity was that weekend or the next weekend. I stopped by the office for a few hours Sat morning, and saw another even higher level manager, maybe my 3rd line manager (can't remember who reported on up etc). But I was previously a direct report of the 3rd line manager so it wasn't weird to say hi and chat. They asked what I was doing there on a weekend and if anybody specifically asked me to come in. Well no... at the time I thought it was a little odd to ask that.

Third odd sign was I put in a vacation request for Fri and Mon two weeks in advance, and it got denied. With the reason "you are scheduled for XYZ class on that Fri", and oh, I hadn't heard that class was coming or I was added to it. It was weird because typically they'd send email and ask who is interested in XYZ, we're thinking of bringing in a class, of these days which is good, etc. To find out you are in a class next week by denying a vacation request? That was weird. I asked around various coworkers and nobody else was scheduled for that class or even knew it was coming. Big red flag.

Final sign was the Tue before, boss emailed and said I could have Fri off after all. No mention of Mon off too, and no mention of class details the Tue before the class.

I figured out the layoff day moved to Thu so I would get Fri off anyway and of course I would have Mon off too (boss slipped up not mentioning it).

And sure enough, I get in Thu, I hear rumors that layoffs are occurring. After checking email and seeing nothing, I went up to the sales area (errand to run) and saw a few employees in tears while packing up. I return and my boss is looking for me, asking where I was, and oh we need to have a meeting right now. 2nd line manager is there and someone else I didn't recognize (i.e. the HR rep). Suspicions confirmed as I looked in from the hallway.

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