The sunny side of firing someone

I've also seen people be remarkably oblivious with what they're doing being a complete time suck of rework. And in spite of this they apparently thought they were doing just fine and I think even resented the rework a bit.

Firing someone usually sucks.

Having your manager fire someone that really needs to be fired can be massive relief though, I think that is pretty much the only case where there is much of a sunny side.

It's a huge relief to the team to have a bad performer removed.

I've been on a team where a bad player was removed and the whole team was noticeably better performing a month later. It sounds a little "woo woo" to say it, but I think a lot of energy was freed up by the firing. Instead of thinking about how to deal with our bad teammate, we could focus on getting our work done.

> "This is an extremely bad thing for the people who have to leave, who in most cases do not even get much warning that it will happen."

If this is the culture then the person being cut loose is the winner. Not much warning is bad management / leadership.

I was fired from my first industry job. I had been thrilled to find my first role as a software developer, was making more money than I had ever made in my life, and my relationship with teammates started out super-pleasant. The team, and company-at-large, seemed similarly thrilled to be bringing me on-board.

I was woefully unprepared, having worked mostly meaningless jobs up until then. I was complacent and lazy and took the opportunity I had been given for granted. I started out strong and did good work for the first few sprints, but fell back on my old habits.

At the same time, my supervisors seemed to have unrealistic expectations for a first-time software professional. The team also despised pair-programming (even if done occasionally), and the dread and resentment any time I asked for help were palpable.

A couple of months in, a supervisor started dropping hints that they weren’t happy with the quantity nor quality of my contributions. The 100-day check-in was a trainwreck. Half an hour or so of two supervisors dumping on me. The only kinda positive thing mentioned was that I “socialize well”.

I was eventually given typed meeting notes, and they considered that my PIP. The next few months had ups and downs but overall nobody was happy. I started responding to recruiters and exploring potential new jobs, but the company already had my exit in motion. After about 10 months total, I was fired because I was late finishing my work and “depending too much on other developers”.

The timing and manner of my firing were humiliating, as were the terms of my severance.

I was initially heartbroken, and went through the five stages. In retrospect, I still have mixed feelings about everything that happened. I really tried to get my act together and do better work, but was never given any structure or support. It seems their mind had already been made up at 100 days, and they just wanted to get their ducks in a row before firing me.

Fortunately, I found another job not too long after getting fired. I felt I had learned my lesson, and came out very strong out of the gate and worked harder to sustain that. There was also more structure and collaboration. We got more learning resources (we were basically expected to learn on our own time, with our own money, at the first company). My teammates and supervisors liked me, and were patient in giving me time to learn and grow. The salary and benefits were much better. I eventually left after less than 2 years because I felt I had hit a ceiling and couldn’t grow much more within our legacy tech stack, and I didn’t want to get pigeonholed and have to write enterprise Java for the rest of my career.

I’m now in my third industry role, learning and collaborating more, using the coolest tech stack ever, and making even more money. I’m even playing a leading role in team-wide learning initiatives, and I’ve had opportunities to evaluate potential new hires. I feel infinitely more happy than I was at the first company (and a lot happier than I was at the second).

I’m writing this partly for catharsis, but also to provide an example of being fired not meaning the end of the world, and in my case it ended up being a blessing in disguise.

The first company also seems to have found devs who worked out much better for them, and they even got acquired by a larger company in their space.

So overall I think it ended up being a win-win.