How many of the 'classic' GitHub team are left there now?
Is GitHub, the product we've come to like and know so well now run by people with different views to those who started it?
Fired
211–220 of 410 posts
Re: Fired
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is the one thing I really don't like about the whole fire fast mentality that is starting to pop up, particularly the extreme examples of "fire for any reason as soon as the person isn't a perfect fit, regardless of overall quality". I'm fine with that, but make sure that I know it's likely coming well in advance. Make sure I understand that I'm not pulling my weight. Make sure I understand that the company is m…
YES. Everybody deserves this. As a manager, I try extremely hard to make sure this happens. The way I think of it is this. On the day you are fired, when you get called in a room, if I ask you, "why do you think you're here?", you'd reply: "I think I'm getting fired". Because I want us to have had so many conversations about it, and been so direct, that the actual firing is incredibly unsurprising. I think any manage…
The new fire fast mentality being pushed is not for performance though. It is you are a rockstar at X, but now we need X+1, you're fired. Basically companies are starting to treat full time employees as contract employees without paying the increased contract rates.
Re: Fired
#213There are people who were at OpenDNS in the early days who were incredible, and as we grew, became less and less incredible, largely because the things that made them incredible actually started to be really frustrating as the company grew and they didn't want to change those things. So they had to leave. Usually it was a series of conversations about how the person, their peers, and the company were all unhappy, and…
> people are fired all the time
No, they're not. In the Western world, this is mostly an American thing. In most Western countries, there's a major responsibility for the employer to prove there is no other way before getting permission to fire someone.
Now there are all kinds of downsides to that, and it's far from ideal especially for start-ups, but I do like the way it doesn't tolerate the immature, irresponsible and downright immoral behavior towards employees that's regularly on display here on HN and considered "normal".
The cop-out of "this isn't working out, you're fired" borders on infantile behavior on the level of "I don't wanna play with you anymore". Firing people can have a devastating impact on the lives of the people it happens to.
Firing people should not be that easy, and in most civilized countries it isn't.
Re: Fired
#214This is probably a stupid question, but could someone explain what it means to be fired in the USA? Here in the UK (especially after you've been employed for over two years and/or you're off "probation") it tends to be the last step in a long process of verbal then written warnings where you're repeatedly doing things you're getting told off for. Relatively few things are actually "bad" enough to get you instantly di…
> From what I'm reading, in the US it seems to be a case that you could loose your job, with no notice at any time for any reason?
Yes, exactly.
In many states, US employers can terminate an employee at any time, for (almost) any reason, or for no reason at all. It's often called "At-will employment" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment
Note that while it technically works both ways, realistically it only works to the employers benefit. The employer is allowed to fire any employee at any time, for no reason, with no recourse.
But it's considered highly inappropriate for an employee to quit without offering an employer at least two weeks notice (unless the employer has committed some sort of major misconduct, committed a crime, ceased payroll, etc).
Re: Fired
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
A lot of people in tech struggle with the frustration of being fired, or potentially being fired. This post helps to relieve some of the stigma associated with that, and coming from someone who very clearly worked hard at a notable company for a number of years, is also a reminder that people change, and companies change. Did you read the post? Is there anything about it that you found detestable?
I did read the post and didn't find anything detestable at all. It just didn't have much substance given that it's the top post on the front page of HN. He basically just said he got fired, and that being fired has too harsh of a stigma attached to it. Ok, I agree, but is that it? He didn't even touch on why he was fired. If he was anonymous software engineer at , I doubt this would've gotten any attention. Maybe I'm…
Hm. I think you are probably right that an anon random programmer wouldn't have hit the top of the front page, that's a good point, but I also think that when a well known engineer is lamenting about being fired it sends a different message than a random person. That is, being well known and successful doesn't make you immune to reality :)
I do agree, though, that he could have elaborated. Not about why he got fired, I think that's too nuanced and is not likely to really help anyone beyond satisfying base desires. What would have been helpful is the hindsight: what can YOU do today to avoid falling into this situation yourself?
I'm willing to bet that it's too recent for him to have these insights.
From my own experience, I've learned that you should prioritize who your manager is over who your company is. Managers have a great power over your advancement and success at a company, both socially and productively. They can empower you to succeed, or they can take credit for your work, while simultaneously making you look like a burden.
Finding a great manager is really hard, and I think that's at the root of why many people end up getting fired, or even end up dissatisfied in their work.
Looking back on my career, I've had many different kinds of managers, but one of my earliest ones stood out. I was 16, running a dial-up ISP and it got completely and totally hacked by an acquaintance. They didn't actually mean to cause data loss, but they did and I had to answer for it.
My manager at the time stood between myself and the owner of the company who was furious, and took the blame, then stayed with me through the night manually re-entering customer data and getting things back on line.
I've had good managers since then, but that's the exact kind of situation that people end up running into in their jobs which can change the course of their employment. You can do a lot of things to make sure you remain productive and to appear to be valuable to a company, but if your manager doesn't want you working there, they can do a lot to diminish all your contributions.
Anyway, thanks for replying, it definitely helped me understand your point of view :)
Re: Fired
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cut expenses, payoff debt, increase savings... on principle. Then when you see the first early warnings, do the same but twice as hard. I am well on track to pay the mortage in 4 years instead of the standard 20, have probably 6 months of expenses in the bank, plus another 2-3 months of expenses in a different account because the wife has begin to have funny ideas about what to do with the extra cash. (I have already…
are you saying that you are hiding money in secret accounts from your wife because she wanted to have a vacation?
It appears so!
Re: Fired
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is the one thing I really don't like about the whole fire fast mentality that is starting to pop up, particularly the extreme examples of "fire for any reason as soon as the person isn't a perfect fit, regardless of overall quality". I'm fine with that, but make sure that I know it's likely coming well in advance. Make sure I understand that I'm not pulling my weight. Make sure I understand that the company is m…
> I'm fine with that, but make sure that I know it's likely coming well in advance What's missing from the equation is what it does to others. Sure one person got fired, bam! easy peasy. Well not so easy because everyone else in the company witnessed that. It becomes a message to everyone else. "As soon you hit the first bump, or maybe you are sick, or have a family emergency we'll throw you under a bus". Everyone pa…
It's certainly important to make sure your employees understand the real message. At a previous company, lots of folks were fired or "resigned" and a lot of us in the engineering side would comment on it from time to time, and of course worry a little. One day we had a frank conversation with our boss about it, and the thing we didn't quit grok when seeing these firings were that it was sales/marketing - where you can't as easily check out someone's GitHub or have them solve some programming assignments.
Re: Fired
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
The real tragedy is, learning business is not hard. Any programmer can do it. As a person who's switched back and forth between the technical person, the manager, and the business developer - I can tell you that all of the roles in the company take skill to do properly.
You're right, but it's no doubt much easier for an engineer to learn business and sales than for a business person to become good at programming and write production code daily.
Hm. I would say it's easy for either role to learn at the entry level.
I am entirely confident that an engineer who had the desire to learn some business could pick up the basics fairly easily, just as I am confident a business/sales person who had the desire to learn programming could pick it up fairly easily.
But, it is no doubt just as difficult for the engineer to learn how to manage enterprise sized operations as it would be for the Sales guy to learn how to architect a complete system. In both cases a great deal of persistence and time is required--things often seem easy to us when we haven't really delved into them. As you really immerse yourself in a given field you begin to realize how much you don't know and the massive amount of things you can still learn.
Re: Fired
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
But part of the problem is that in a meritocracy you need people to know who the bad actors are. It seems pretty obvious from outside Github that something has gone rotten in the company over the past couple of years, and the is the latest of the smells. Now any one of us could end up hiring that rotten apple from github in the future, if we don't know who it is. Of course you don't want to slander or libel people, b…
>meritocracy Has anyone ever seen an actual meritocratic work place? Eight years working and I'm convinced that it's nearly impossible for small organizations to implement and outright impossible for large organizations.
I'll show you a meritocratic workplace as soon as you show me a way to measure developer productivity.
Re: Fired
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
While I agree with your advice to not take it personally, I disagree with your reasoning. For a company you are just a small gear that can be replaced, relatively easily most of the time (even Steve Jobs was successfully replaced). But for you, your job is 30%-60% of your conscious time. While replacing a worker will barely ever disrupt the operations of a company, losing a job will certainly destabilize you.
> even Steve Jobs was successfully replaced Some would argue about that :)
Well, not the stock market.