Pips are disingenuous. If you get put on one, find a new job as fast as possible • Hacker News Board

Re: Pips are disingenuous. If you get put on one, find a new job as fast as possible

#71

Post by vhodges » Wed, Jun 12, 2024, 1:37 PM UTC

upon_drumhead wrote: post #59

vhodges wrote: post #14

I have been on both sides 1) got a talking too about performance - it wasn't called a pip (my mom was dying and I was taking too much time out for medical appointments for her. Note the discussion was shortly after she had passed) 2) As a fairly new manager (at the time) I had to put my first hire as a manager onto a pip. It was painfully obvious to everyone they were not capable and struggled with the most basic thi…

> 1) got a talking too about performance - it wasn't called a pip (my mom was dying and I was taking too much time out for medical appointments for her. Note the discussion was shortly after she had passed) If you are in the United States, FMLA[1] provides job-protected leave for these sort of situations and ensures you have a job to come back to when it's over. Most smaller companies I've been at really hate to do t…

I am in BC, Canada which has similar things but yeah, in hindsight, I should have taken some time off, but it was a while ago now (7 years).

Re: Pips are disingenuous. If you get put on one, find a new job as fast as possible

#72

Post by vhodges » Wed, Jun 12, 2024, 1:47 PM UTC

talldayo wrote: post #16

vhodges wrote: post #14

I have been on both sides 1) got a talking too about performance - it wasn't called a pip (my mom was dying and I was taking too much time out for medical appointments for her. Note the discussion was shortly after she had passed) 2) As a fairly new manager (at the time) I had to put my first hire as a manager onto a pip. It was painfully obvious to everyone they were not capable and struggled with the most basic thi…

> I gave them every opportunity to prove to me they could do the job (or learn at least to) they were hired to do, instead they cheated their way through the pip, passing others peoples work off as their own. I feel like this is the problem with PIPs. From the managerial side, there is this good-faith expectation that a poorly-performing employee will snap back into shape once put on-notice. For people that are chron…

It wasn't performance exactly, but lack of skill. They had billed themselves as senior (and were being paid as such).

They were my first hire and made a number of mistakes:

  - I was too nice/eager (one of interviewers said 'no, they can't code' and I should have listened to them).  
  - They passed (with the one caveat) our not very rigorous screening process, this is on me as well. 
  - I did not do a formal review at the end of their probation period (it was becoming obvious they were not skilled, but I dismissed it as coming up to speed with our systems).

The pip was intended to show me they were capable of being in the role, but they cheated and I can't abide that.

Before the pip, I would have probably kept them but with a pay cut, but prevailing wisdom was that it would not work in practice.

Re: Pips are disingenuous. If you get put on one, find a new job as fast as possible

#73

Post by napierzaza » Wed, Jun 12, 2024, 3:37 PM UTC

alphazard wrote: post #20

Companies with PIPs stand firmly on the "Adult Day Care" side of the industry. When serious professionals try to work together and it doesn't work out, someone is asked to leave, and they do. They get to play it off as a reason other than performance. Egos and careers remain undamaged, and everyone can move on. Adult Day Care centers have very low bars to clear, and most roles could be performed by basically anyone.…

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Re: Pips are disingenuous. If you get put on one, find a new job as fast as possible

#74

Post by JohnMakin » Wed, Jun 12, 2024, 5:11 PM UTC

jemmyw wrote: post #67

JohnMakin wrote: post #36

Better to be put on a PIP than this other weird thing that can happen sometimes, where you’re “unassigned” from a team, maybe due to layoffs or restructuring or performance, but report to essentially no one and have no real work to do. Eventually they expect you to get frustrated and quit, but it can be very difficult when you are in that situation to figure out where you stand.

that doesn't sound that bad as an swe. Work on some of those frustrations, do some refactoring, bug fixing and documenting. Maybe have some extra time for job hunting. At least you're being paid.

Trust me, it sucks, especially when the next performance review rolls around. In large organizations where this is possible, often you won't even be able to work on anything because it requires approvals from a managerial chain you are not a part of, or repository access that is given by team, etc.

Re: Pips are disingenuous. If you get put on one, find a new job as fast as possible

#75

Post by esd_g0d » Wed, Jun 12, 2024, 5:25 PM UTC

JoshTriplett wrote: post #5

talldayo wrote: post #2

No shit, next you're going to tell me water is wet. If you're the sort of person that cannot decode what a "Performance Improvement Plan" means then you're going to be eaten by the industry alive. It's insane to me that we even need qualified people to reassure anyone about that.

> If you're the sort of person that cannot decode what a "Performance Improvement Plan" is then you're going to be eaten by the industry alive. On the one hand, yes, this is true. On the other hand, it shouldn't take decoding doublespeak to know that a "performance improvement plan" has nothing to do with improving performance, and is just a box-checking CYA exercise to make a paper trail for firing someone. And the…

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Re: Pips are disingenuous. If you get put on one, find a new job as fast as possible

#76

Post by apple4ever » Wed, Jun 12, 2024, 6:30 PM UTC

cqqxo4zV46cp wrote: post #45

ugh123 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keeping low performers on a team (or ones that yield "failed projects" consistently) isn't good for the rest of the team and/or your own personal stress and productivity (as a manager).

It depends. Sometimes people just need a kick in the ass. Sometimes they have a blind spot that needs to be pointed out. People should be given a chance to improve. In terms of action required, there’s often very little difference between helping an under-achiever hit the mark, and helping an adequate performer grow. It’s just a question of expectations. I argue that a failure to ever do the former makes one a bad ma…

Totally agree. I've had to put people on PIPs and also had to decide instead of a PIP just cut them. It's never fun, but these people were long time underperformers. I'm sure in some places they do PIPs as a formality, but I never seen that and I would never do that.

Re: Pips are disingenuous. If you get put on one, find a new job as fast as possible

#77

Post by apple4ever » Wed, Jun 12, 2024, 6:31 PM UTC

upon_drumhead wrote: post #59

vhodges wrote: post #14

I have been on both sides 1) got a talking too about performance - it wasn't called a pip (my mom was dying and I was taking too much time out for medical appointments for her. Note the discussion was shortly after she had passed) 2) As a fairly new manager (at the time) I had to put my first hire as a manager onto a pip. It was painfully obvious to everyone they were not capable and struggled with the most basic thi…

> 1) got a talking too about performance - it wasn't called a pip (my mom was dying and I was taking too much time out for medical appointments for her. Note the discussion was shortly after she had passed) If you are in the United States, FMLA[1] provides job-protected leave for these sort of situations and ensures you have a job to come back to when it's over. Most smaller companies I've been at really hate to do t…

Problem with FMLA is you don't get full salary. It's half I believe. So you have to make a choice between working and getting paid, or not working and getting much less.

Re: Pips are disingenuous. If you get put on one, find a new job as fast as possible

#78

Post by apple4ever » Wed, Jun 12, 2024, 6:34 PM UTC

talldayo wrote: post #16

vhodges wrote: post #14

I have been on both sides 1) got a talking too about performance - it wasn't called a pip (my mom was dying and I was taking too much time out for medical appointments for her. Note the discussion was shortly after she had passed) 2) As a fairly new manager (at the time) I had to put my first hire as a manager onto a pip. It was painfully obvious to everyone they were not capable and struggled with the most basic thi…

> I gave them every opportunity to prove to me they could do the job (or learn at least to) they were hired to do, instead they cheated their way through the pip, passing others peoples work off as their own. I feel like this is the problem with PIPs. From the managerial side, there is this good-faith expectation that a poorly-performing employee will snap back into shape once put on-notice. For people that are chron…

Yes of course in most cases they may not snap back, but it's not a bad faith expectation. It's a good faith expectation that they need a chance regardless of whether they end up doing it.

Also of course a well-performing employee could be harmed by this, but the method is irrelevant - that is a bad company and the employee is well to find another job anyway.

I think the problem with your statement is you are trying to overgeneralize. PIPs run the gamet depending on how good the company is. I've never see a PIP be used in the ways you described, and I have never used them in such a way (and never will).

Re: Pips are disingenuous. If you get put on one, find a new job as fast as possible

#79

Post by apple4ever » Wed, Jun 12, 2024, 6:38 PM UTC

xnx wrote: post #35

mvdtnz wrote: post #18

I work with two people who survived PIPs and are now productive members of my teams. I wasn't the manager involved, but I think she made a good choice, both when she PIP'ed them and by passing them when they picked up their game. This is going to vary company to company, but from my perspective there's absolutely no reason a capable person can't get themselves out of a PIP and remain at a company.

> from my perspective there's absolutely no reason a capable person can't get themselves out of a PIP and remain at a company. Many (possibly most) companies use PIPs as a pretense for a firing decision that has already been made. In those companies it is a fool's errand to try and improve your performance (because performance may have nothing to do with it). You cannot win. You should feel lucky that you only seem t…

Sure some do that, but I have not run into that in my career. Its never "a decision has been made" but "lets give them one more chance". Personally, if a decision has been made, you just cut them. No reason to go through the process.

Re: Pips are disingenuous. If you get put on one, find a new job as fast as possible

#80

Post by lazide » Wed, Jun 12, 2024, 7:16 PM UTC

nine_zeros wrote: post #68

lazide wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, ‘externalities’? Please do tell.

> Oh, ‘externalities’? Please do tell. Tell of a manager that doesn't understand engineering, collaboration, and tradeoffs.

Those are included directly in the PIP if deficient. And are always key parts of the job.

While there are plenty of incompetent (or just plain dickish) managers, no one who ever reported to me got a PIP for anything but being consistently ineffective or so abrasive they were causing more trouble than they were worth.

Ineffective could mean anything from couldn’t code effectively (compared to peers) to couldn’t design/figure out what to do to a decent enough quality, or wasn’t independent enough for the level they were working at, or unable to get peers to help them due to being a problem, etc.

Abrasive being picking fights with co-workers over things that didn’t matter, pointlessly antagonizing or scaring people, bullying co-workers, etc.

In all cases it needed to be a pattern of behavior (not a one off), they already had significant feedback/chance to improve and had not, and I have concrete guidance on what to do instead, why it mattered, and I would check in regularly and independently to see if there was improvement and give regular feedback.

And I made sure that the managers who reported to me (later) did the same. Which is why we had such good turn around rates. But ultimately, it wasn’t up to us - the most we could do is show a path. They had to walk it.

Anyone who didn’t think it was fair (but couldn’t articulate why in a way we could reconcile), or refused to understand and take ownership of the situation didn’t do well. Which was unfortunate. And did happen.

If they left without completing it, I would have understood and hey - better for everyone. No point trying to fit a square peg into a round hole forever.

But in all the time I was managing (over a decade, 200+ different folks, peak of a little over 60 at one time) no one ever did. Even though in some cases we offered them significant money to do so.

The case that tried to hit every button and blame/manipulate everyone else was particularly terrible, because I had to go into CYA/document everything mode while he tried to sabotage the team and anyone else he could get ahold of. Including false accusations against me, the HR rep, and several nearby managers who had nothing to do with it.

All because he got hired in to code, but near as I could tell literally couldn’t. He kept trying to make all his co-workers do it for him, which got old very fast. 3 months in, all his co-workers hated him, and that was quite a feat on that team.

He turned down a six figure ‘please stop already’ offer just to try to complete the PIP - which he didn’t, and everyone who wasn’t completely delusional knew he wouldn’t. And got fired.

So what are you talking about, specifically?