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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)

#261

Post by steve_adams_86 »

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…

Haha, I did this to myself once. I had no idea, and seemingly no one I worked with had any idea, and we laughed a bit as I got up to "go get fired" at my meeting. Then I came back and had to explain that I was actually just fired.

Luckily I haven't been fired since, but that "joke" stuck with me.

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

#262

Post by exolymph »

some_random wrote: post #117

Here's another one that's a bit less obvious: anytime you're scheduling a 1x1 with a report, ALWAYS mention the reason for the meeting. You might think it's obvious or that it's just a normal meeting, but you have no idea how the other person will take it.

+1 to this being a bad habit. Even when it's not vaguely threatening (which is the default), it's still annoying.

When on the receiving end of a contextless meeting request I usually say, "Sure, what do you want to talk about?"

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

#263

Post by AmericanChopper »

HelloNurse wrote: post #167
AmericanChopper wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many ordinary social interactions have become sins recently. Saying anything that could be interpreted as offensive poses a very real risk to your career, the list of potentially offensive things is incredibly long, and gets longer with each passing moment as novel outrages pop up in all corners of the world. You can still be kind, empathetic and polite to everybody you work with. But avoiding authentic personal rela…

But inappropriate jokes about firing people and the like are not "ordinary social interactions" with aspects "that could be interpreted as offensive", they are an objectively oppressive and distressing behaviour that even the least upset subordinates of such a manager recognize as inappropriate.

I’d agree that this is usually true. But the comment I was replying to is about jokes in general.

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

#264

Post by hnick »

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 :-)

My wife recently had a snap meeting communicated after hours, saying all staff have to be in the office and present at 8:30AM no exceptions. They didn't say why, and this was a small business (~15 people).

To anyone who has been working a while, that absolutely stinks of redundancies or other tough measures that have to be discussed en masse without rumours getting ahead.

Turns out they just hired someone new without telling anyone and wanted them to get up to speed so they don't look like a clueless bunch with bad communication. Meanwhile everyone in the office is worried they'll be the one fired.

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

#267

Post by pbhjpbhj »

Volundr wrote: post #176
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, agreed. In this case I think it was exacerbated by developmental stage too.

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

#268

Post by raxxorrax »

bradlys wrote: post #228
3pt14159 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yikes I'm sorry. In my early twenties I'd jokingly do the "finger gun to the head" thing when I got a task I wasn't pleased about. Then my cousin died by suicide and, being my first encounter with suicide in the real world, it dawned on me that doing that in front of people was super, super not cool. I'll never know if I did that in front of someone that had lost a loved one to suicide via firearm.

There are so many jokes we make everyday that are about dying or experiencing something unpleasant that it's not reasonable to put up such a barrier. You're basically saying, "NO JOKES!" You lost the statistical battle but most people will never encounter this scenario. We all encounter scenarios where we make a joke without knowing X person is going through that. You learn and adjust. For instance, I couldn't make j…

For many people the ability to move on it is dependant on others not changing their behavior out of consideration. But that is entirely dependant on the situation.

But yes, making arbitrary rules about bad taste jokes is almost always useless.

Still, as a manager with responsibiliy you might want to restrict your toolbox of jokes by your conscience.

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

#269

Post by [deleted] »

meerita wrote: post #105

My experience is, never state your powers. People already know your reach, but sometimes, they don't. It happened to me in a multinational ecommerce giant where employees started to feel they were bosses. The relationship with the managers started to scalate badly, there was no respect at all. The feeling back then was "what, are you gonna fire me?" and so on. Projects went crazily bad and devs blamed management, whe…

[deleted]

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

#270

Post by Lio »

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…

It’s usually security policy to clean whiteboards after meetings.

Many years ago it got to be a standing joke in various places I’ve worked that if someone actually left a digram on a whiteboard, eg some bit of server infrastructure or UML, you’d add extra arrows pointing to “DOWNSIZING” or “EMPLOYEE REDUNDANCIES” bubbles.

Then one day I explained the old joke at a new gig and everyone in the room got really serious for a moment.

They told me that 6 monthish prior someone from senior management had left plans for the last downsizing round on a whiteboard and lots of people had seen it…

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