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Advice to new managers: don't joke about firing people

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Re: Advice to new managers: don't joke about firing people

#351

Post by rsweeney21 »

amznthrowaway5 wrote: post #320
rsweeney21 wrote: post #112

I know the tech community likes to hate on company policies and bureaucracy, but this is exactly why you need SOME rules - to protect employees from bad managers. If you have a process in place that managers must follow in order to terminate an employee, employees don't have to be afraid of tasteless jokes about firing. If there is a process that involves the employee (like a PIP), you also don't have to be afraid th…

These policies and processes like PIPs are for protecting the company and managers, not the managed employees. Most of the stuff on these PIP documents are usually just for leaving a paper trail and avoiding lawsuits, anything can be exaggerated to make the employee look bad. Employees should still be very afraid of poor management.

You are missing the point. A PIP isn't going to help you keep your job, but it will prevent you from being blindsided as an employee. So when you are put on a performance plan, you can start looking for your next job.

Re: Advice to new managers: don't joke about firing people

#352

Post by amznthrowaway5 »

groby_b wrote: post #107
binarytox1n wrote: post #53

I agree with the sentiment wholeheartedly - It’s easy for technical people promoted to a people management role not to realize that their words now have a significantly greater affect on morale. The author did a good job expanding on situations that are now not funny, but here’s another one that I see all the time: Butts in seats. As a manager, anything you say about the clock, the vacancy ratio of an employees chair…

Yep. And it only gets worse as your scope grows. There comes a point where you'll say something like "Huh, that looks interesting, I wonder what would happen if X", just because you still have some engineering thinking left in you, and three weeks later you'll get word that somebody spun up a working group to investigate X. If you ever wondered why manager emails to a large team always look super-formal? We've touche…

> you'll get word that somebody spun up a working group to investigate X

That "somebody" is often one of the yes-men of the manager, these are the types of people that management usually rewards so of course they are going to take your suggestion as gospel. Upper management often does not appreciate when you point out they have no idea what they are talking about, even if you try and be polite about it.

Re: Advice to new managers: don't joke about firing people

#354

Post by pc86 »

notJim wrote: post #338
CapriciousCptl wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of life is tactfully dealing with people who have power over you. It’s not very comfortable for anyone.

Turning this into an issue of mere comfort betrays a great deal of privilege. Many, arguably most, people are a firing or two away from poverty and misery. In tech, this can be especially true of people early in their careers, and especially those from less-advantaged backgrounds. If you get fired from your first tech job, and your manager talks a bunch of shit about you, that may be your last tech job.

Even in the current climate employers are desperate for (good) developers, at all points on the experience spectrum.

If you live in a city you can probably get an interview the day after you get fired. Sooner if you're willing to use a recruiter.

Re: Advice to new managers: don't joke about firing people

#355

Post by pininja »

The damaging feelings a joke about firing someone can cause complex team dynamics issues.

If anyone is unfortunate enough to be in this situation it’s important to recognize its normal to feel because feels are always legitimate. If comfortable, you should ask to listen to your peers thoughts and feelings to get a deeper understanding of the jokes effects.

Together, you could provide direct feedback to the manager of “when you said that made me feel . I wish in the future you ”. Hopefully they accept the feedback and you can monitor their actions going forward, if they don’t accept... we don’t have the ability to control people, but you can be on the same page.

Re: Advice to new managers: don't joke about firing people

#356

Post by rsweeney21 »

MAGZine wrote: post #197
rsweeney21 wrote: post #112

I know the tech community likes to hate on company policies and bureaucracy, but this is exactly why you need SOME rules - to protect employees from bad managers. If you have a process in place that managers must follow in order to terminate an employee, employees don't have to be afraid of tasteless jokes about firing. If there is a process that involves the employee (like a PIP), you also don't have to be afraid th…

Pardon me saying so, though the base vacation policy seems middling in generosity. It strikes me that maybe the unlimited policy didn't work for facet because of that. essentially: including company holidays in PTO calculation is lame. It's essentially forced PTO, not vacation. I'd consider your vacation policy to be about three weeks, not five, which is "just ok." It's enough for a two-week vacation and some time of…

I agree that 3 weeks of vacation isn't leading the industry by any means.

Like I mention in the blog post, we are a small bootstrapped company. It's the best we think we can offer right now because we aren't subsidized by VC money.

Re: Advice to new managers: don't joke about firing people

#357

Post by camjohnson26 »

ryandrake wrote: post #182
JoshTriplett wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There comes a point where you'll say something like "Huh, that looks interesting, I wonder what would happen if X", just because you still have some engineering thinking left in you, and three weeks later you'll get word that somebody spun up a working group to investigate X. This is somewhat avoidable. You can communicate this to your team. You can make it clear you invite feedback and corrections, and demonstrati…

I worked in a place once where, when you met with any of the senior execs, you had to have 2-3 notetakers present, so that every word the guy said could be jotted down and turned into actions. Everything that came out of an exec's mouth had to be turned into a project, because nobody was willing to stick their neck out and try to distinguish between "random musings" and a "command to do this thing". It was a very tox…

Reminds me of the sticky bear sketch from Silicon Valley https://youtu.be/uAxAVusStCg

Re: Advice to new managers: don't joke about firing people

#358

Post by llimos »

kemiller2002 wrote: post #3

This is sound advice. You have a significant amount of control over people's lives as a manager, and that should be treated with a level of respect. You have no idea how people feel, and it is quite possible that someone you manage doesn't know where they stand with you. At times that is more than enough to cause them stress and even convince them to look elsewhere. Work is stressful enough, and you don't need to add…

I had a manager do this to me once. In a situation where I knew for sure he was joking. I was top of the department, and it wasn't even in the context of having done anything wrong. He had just been given some new responsibilities, and I asked him what he was planning to change, and he said, totally jokingly, 'well, today is your last day.' And I knew 100% it was a joke, and I still felt a horrible sinking feeling for a fraction of a second that was enough for me to promise myself that, should I ever be a manager, I would never ever do that to anyone.

Fast forward a couple of years, I'm a manager in a different company, the company wants to move everyone over to a different legal entity by firing and then rehiring them. Totally innocuous. Remembering the above conversation and self-promise, I planned very carefully how to tell my team and in which order to say the words, and... someone interrupted with a question and I managed to cause exactly that moment of panic I'd been trying to avoid. You win some, you lose some...but at least I wasn't doing it as a joke.

Re: Advice to new managers: don't joke about firing people

#359

Post by SwiftyBug »

Yeah. One manager I worked with used to "joke" like this towards a specific coworker in a weekly basis. It was never funny and she always seemed upset by the "joke". It didn't take long before I found out how red that flag was. Worst manager I've ever had the misfortune to work with. He's been fired recently and I couldn't feel more relieved. Not having him around makes working at our company so much less stressful.

Re: Advice to new managers: don't joke about firing people

#360

Post by User23 »

vkou wrote: post #339
User23 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Catholics believe that marriage ends only with death. While obviously a civil divorce is possible, the actual sacramental marriage is indissoluble. One of the consequences of this belief is that Catholic couples are considerably less likely to get a civil divorce than other Christians or atheists[1]. [1] https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/catholics-continue-t...

Except that Catholics also practice annulment, which is, for all intents and purposes, a divorce (That you carry out through the church, as opposed to secular courts.) Instead of breaking up a marriage, they claim, post-facto, that it was not a 'true[1] marriage', and is, therefore, invalid in the eyes of God and men. This is a loophole big enough to drive a bus through, and is practiced quite frequently. [1] The tec…

Any number of factors can cause an attempted marriage to fail. Impaired consent is one major one. Unwillingness to have children is another. Even entering marriage with the expectation that divorce is possible means no sacramental marriage was formed. I suppose one can choose to view those factors as loopholes and I imagine some poorly formed Catholics do just that. That said, a validly celebrated marriage cannot be annulled.

Whether or not tribunals are erroneously issuing declarations of nullity is a question I don’t know the answer to. In any event a Catholic who tries to game the system this way would be well advised to consider that God won’t be fooled.

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