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Fired

zachholman.com

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Re: Fired

#151

Post by kelnos »

marssaxman wrote: post #76
MCRed wrote: post #44

Incompetent management is a plague on the industry. And the cause of it is that programmers are relatively low status. In so many businesses, there are "business guys" who end up managing the engineering staff-- at one level or another, but too often it's the direct manager role--and these business guys are incompetent at engineering. When you don't know whether a direct report is doing good or not because you don't…

I'm not sure what you mean by "slip lower and lower in status". The software industry has worked pretty much the way you describe as long as I've been a part of it, and I haven't noticed any sort of diminution of status for software engineers. If anything, the trends go the other way: the industry has embraced the idea of a non-management career development track for engineers. Big companies like Microsoft, Google, a…

I think he means within an organization, not in the industry as a whole. I've noticed this, too. When a company is small and engineer-heavy, the engineers generally have a lot of autonomy and influence over the what and how of the product. As the company grows and layers of management are added, the "leaf node" engineers lose a lot of influence, and their opinions on what the company should be building tend to be less regarded, and often ignored.

Re: Fired

#152

Post by pla3rhat3r »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #51

I have often said that companies rarely take it personally when you decide to leave them, so don't take it personally when they decide to leave you. Easy to say and hard to do, like a lot of things in life. Mostly it is the illusion of control, you don't have it, you only have choices you can make in the face of unfolding events. At Zach points out, companies change as they grow, they are some weird strange attractor…

Great point and a really good way to look at this.

Re: Fired

#153

Post by drawkbox »

Engineers leaving, being fired or just being time, can happen to early engineers that made the company great as it changes. Changes like this are usually around growing pains and when power is transferred from engineers to the money/business or growth from small to medium or medium to large.

Companies and developers evolve, sometimes they aren't as nice a fit after they do. Companies always run off good processes, but when you start hearing about new or needing changes to 'processes' driven by new VPs or Directors, usually that ocean is red and you need to move to blue seas and oceans again.

Zach is probably a startup, product and research and development type of developer. He should stay at smaller companies or start up his own, I am sure he could get funding quickly. I'd even be for an additional github competitor though that could be un-interesting after this for him.

Re: Fired

#154

Post by angersock »

mod wrote: post #137
NateDad wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, have you been on unemployment? There's a max. In Massachusetts it's $698 / week (with no taxes taken out). That would only barely cover my mortgage, let alone car payment, food, health insurance, etc. And yes, people should have emergency funds... but when you were a few years out of college, did you have 3-6 months of salary saved up? I certainly didn't.

I don't think the "social safety net" was intended to keep wealthy people wealthy. It's to ensure basic needs are met. If you want to remain wealthy, you should probably not count on unemployment to play a role in that.

I think your definition of wealthy needs some serious, serious readjustment.

Re: Fired

#155

Post by FireBeyond »

wongarsu wrote: post #37
simonlc wrote: post #8

Why was he fired?

And that's the part of being fired you usually don't discuss publicly. It always makes somebody look bad and nobody wants to burn bridges

Well, he doesn't detail things, but you can see subtle bitchings about management:

"Do you know what happens after you tell them the whole story behind your termination? Virtually everyone I've had drinks with tells a similar story about the time they got fired. Seemingly everyone’s got stories of being stuck under shit managers, or dealing the fallout from things out of their control."

You tell them your story, they tell you their similar story about being stuck under shit managers...

Re: Fired

#156

Post by acomjean »

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say there is a reason that getting fired is considered bad. Its usually thought of as something you did or you have to explain it away. Either way its an extra question mark on you. The situation varies somewhat of course and there are bad bosses and other work relating things that you have little control over.

If the situation is bad but not terrible a lot of times there is a discussion and a resignation instead of a firing. While I've not been party to these discussions my understanding is that a company tell you to resign or they will fire you, that lets you go without the stigma.

Layoff is the expression used when you are let go when your services are no longer needed.

Re: Fired

#157

Post by FireBeyond »

crazypyro wrote: post #22
lucasjcm wrote: post #15

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it bad for him to talk about this publicly and insinuate that his manager was shit and that he was fired for no good reason? This situation reminds me a lot of the time an ex-employee of reddit complained about his firing, on reddit (!!), and was publicly called out for it by reddit's CEO at the time [1]. [1] https://np.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2iea97/i_am_a_former_r...

I don't think he was really insinuating that his manager was shit. I think he was simply talking about the different stories he heard. It could be just as likely that the very next thing he says "or dealing the fallout from things out of their control." or really an infinite possibilities. Just my 2 cents.

Maybe. To me, when you say "you tell your story and then they tell you their similar story about being stuck under shitty managers".

I think there's definitely a credible, though not ironclad, case to be made for insinuation.

Re: Fired

#158

Post by jchrisa »

kerbs wrote: post #98
benihana wrote: post #25

Ha, that Atlassian tweet was pretty good.

I was so sad when it wasn't true :(. My reaction was "OMG maybe he will make JIRA not suck!!!"

I wonder what would have happened if he showed up for work that day.

Re: Fired

#159

Post by rezistik »

cozuya wrote: post #56
wongarsu wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>that his manager was shit I don't think he said that in the article. He implied that the reason was out of his control, but that doesn't mean it wasn't a good reason. From later in the article: >I still consider it an objective mistake for them to have hired me, back then >I left on great terms with leadership and the people I worked with

The first quote implies that he had fundamental differences in how he thought things should be done vs what management or the rest of the people he worked with wanted. In which case it seems to me he'd have a pretty rough 5 years there.

The first quote is meant to be a humble statement.

"I still don't know why this awesome company hired my incapable self but I'm glad they did"

Re: Fired

#160

Post by rbobby »

NateDad wrote: post #138
lchengify wrote: post #91

Re: Zach's COBRA question. For those who don't know, COBRA (Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act) is a law passed in 1985 [1] that compels companies to offer "continuing health insurance" to employees that leave the company for any reason other than "gross misconduct". Basically it means that you can pay the company directly for your employer's health plan for a period of time, typically 18 months. The out-…

Just to clarify.... it's retroactive for 60 days. That means you don't really have to do anything for the first 45-ish, and if you don't need insurance in that time, and you get a new job, you're done. If you do need insurance (break a leg or something), then you can apply then, and it'll take effect retroactively to your departure date. If you get to 45-ish days and still don't have a new job that'll start before th…

Hopefully on day 45 you don't end up in a coma for the next 16 days.

Don't mess with your health insurance.

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