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Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

where.coraline.codes

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Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#81

Post by tonymke »

The impression I have after reading this that Ms. Ehmke had a shit attitude and people got sick of it. And that she hasn't seen that yet.

I'm sorry if this seems unempathetic - getting fired sucks, and is extremely painful. But there's no other way I can put it.

A long time ago, when my career first started, I also went through the "PIP deathspiral", and it took months... maybe years after my termination to realize I was just fired being a shithead.

I see the same "it's not my fault it's theirs" attitude I had at the time in this.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#82

Post by steveklabnik »

chollida1 wrote: post #63
steveklabnik wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not the only story I've heard about this kind of thing, at various places of employment. At-will means "for basically any reason." PIPs are used to try and demonstrate cause so that collecting benefits is harder. It's not always in these words, sometimes it's presented as "culture fit", which is a bit broader but "communication style" fits under it.

> PIPs are used to try and demonstrate cause so that collecting benefits is harder. I mean, I'd agree that someone at some point in time has used a PIP for this reason, but I'd strongly argue that this is wrong. I'd argue a much more charitable and accurate description of why PIP's are used is to protect the company from a litigious former employee. They are designed to show that they company tried to help the fired…

... and the reason that they want to do that is so that the person cannot collect benefits, or has a harder time doing so.

Maybe you've worked with better employers than I have, but it's pretty much been an open secret in a few different places I've worked, both inside and outside of tech.

Or, sometimes it's not a PIP, but something similar. Many fast food places have a policy where if you're underperforming, your hours get reduced. If they want to fire you, they don't fire you: they give you one, four-hour shift a week at the slowest possible time of the week. That way, they didn't fire you; you quit, and so you don't get unemployment, etc. If you don't show up for your shift, then you're fired with cause, and so you don't get unemployment, etc.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#83

Post by dragonwriter »

mattbillenstein wrote: post #47

If you're ever put on a PIP, get out -- it's a sign someone in the company doesn't want you there. I've never heard of a PIP working out and both the company and employee being happy -- maybe you only hear about the bad cases, but a PIP often seems to me like a cover your ass plan on the part of the company. They want to get rid of a person, but they're afraid of getting sued, so a PIP is a way to document why a pers…

> This practice seems pretty common in California, but given California is an at-will employment state, I'm not even sure why.

Because the PIP exists to to support the argument that the firing was not for a prohibited reason in the event that the employee charges that it was. “At-will” doesn't mean there aren't prohibited reasons for firing, and if you don't have any evidence for what the firing reason was, it doesn't take much evidence of an improper purpose to meet the “preponderance of the evidence” standard for civil litigation.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#84

Post by rjbwork »

mattbillenstein wrote: post #47

If you're ever put on a PIP, get out -- it's a sign someone in the company doesn't want you there. I've never heard of a PIP working out and both the company and employee being happy -- maybe you only hear about the bad cases, but a PIP often seems to me like a cover your ass plan on the part of the company. They want to get rid of a person, but they're afraid of getting sued, so a PIP is a way to document why a pers…

Guy on my team at my last company was - he was non-technical, but was in charge of looking at raw data and finding discrepancies and things we could write code to fix on an ongoing basis as he was a domain expert. He had a rough time with technical topics, and so part of his PIP, as I understand it, was to become basically proficient in using SQL to query, and understand the basics of RDBMS. He did so, and was removed from PIP and went on to be a key contributor on the team, and had some light technical duties assigned to him, which he performed competently.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#85

Post by emodendroket »

opportune wrote: post #49

The main thing I've taken away from the whole github situation is that, as a tech company, you should just entirely stay away from public involvement in the social justice sphere. That doesn't mean exclusively hiring white men and sending out Kalanick-style emails; it means keeping your work environment as professional and politically neutral as possible unless absolutely necessary. My employer does a good job of thi…

I don't get it though. Didn't they want to bring her on specifically because her political profile gave them cachet with people they wanted to make overtures to?

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#86

Post by eropple »

throw201707 wrote: post #70

This is not a comment on the experiences described in the article, but it makes me extremely sad that the word "meritocratic/meritocracy" is used pejoratively, almost as if it were damning in itself. To me, meritocracy is something to be cherished, being far preferable to the systems that came before it, and being inherently anti -discriminatory. (Yes, people's hardships which prevent them achieving their full potent…

"Meritocracy" is regarded with derision in no small part because what is actually meant by it, rather than what you describe, is "this person is similar to me and I like them, so I think they do a better job."

It's the ingroup club made manifest. What you describe would be great, but it's not what "meritocracy" actually means in practice.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#88

Post by georgespencer »

mattbillenstein wrote: post #47

If you're ever put on a PIP, get out -- it's a sign someone in the company doesn't want you there. I've never heard of a PIP working out and both the company and employee being happy -- maybe you only hear about the bad cases, but a PIP often seems to me like a cover your ass plan on the part of the company. They want to get rid of a person, but they're afraid of getting sued, so a PIP is a way to document why a pers…

> This practice seems pretty common in California, but given California is an at-will employment state, I'm not even sure why.

Because sometimes it's a genuine desire for someone who is a good cultural fit to improve.

> If you're ever put on a PIP, get out -- it's a sign someone in the company doesn't want you there.

I've put folks on PIPs before (we don't call them that and we're much more straightforward about it than some employers I hear about who do), and had positive outcomes. The correct way of thinking about a PIP is:

1. We rely on people to work adequately-to-well by themselves 2. If they can't, we tell them they aren't and expect them to improve, 3. If they can't, we get more specific in our feedback and meet more often to discuss course corrections 4. If that doesn't work, because the continued presence of performance problems means we can't work productively as an employer/employee, we try to meet on a MUCH more regular basis than 1, 2, 3 in order to track and improve performance.

The best and most effective feedback is given in the moment: you are doing [x], here's how it has an impact on [y], here's what we think would be a better way. A PIP basically means you get more refined and structured feedback way more often.

I'm not saying that a PIP is a hugely positive or stress-free thing for anyone, but we try to assume positive intent and treat it as a great opportunity to help someone constructively get over a block to being a better contributor to our company.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#89

Post by jermaustin1 »

thsowers wrote: post #38
ivraatiems wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just think it's worth mentioning that she doesn't seem to present evidence that the data scientist was "transphobic". She doesn't say they were. She says the question as phrased was. That's a big difference.

You are correct, thank you for pointing that out. However, she is still assuming that the question was phrased in a "Transphobic" way. Perhaps she reads it like that, but I doubt that was the authors (or questions) intention. Perhaps i'm wrong

Having grown up around a lot of gay and working closely with a number of trans people, I have come to the conclusion (possibly wrongly), that they will forgive a lot of "-phobic" speech, as long as you accept the criticism they provide.

One of the critiques I often got was to be more gender inclusive in my speaking. Which a lot of people do now (re: replacing he/she with they). From what I read, it seemed like this person would provide feedback that would either be ignored or the contributor/employee/whomever would actively retaliate against.

It really isn't how you mean something, it is how you make someone feel. If you are trying to run an inclusive community, that distinction is very important.

All of the "accidental racism" of years past have now become "accidental -phobic".

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#90

Post by yusyusyus »

mattbillenstein wrote: post #47

If you're ever put on a PIP, get out -- it's a sign someone in the company doesn't want you there. I've never heard of a PIP working out and both the company and employee being happy -- maybe you only hear about the bad cases, but a PIP often seems to me like a cover your ass plan on the part of the company. They want to get rid of a person, but they're afraid of getting sued, so a PIP is a way to document why a pers…

I actually _have_ seen PIPs work out. Pretty rare though. In this context though, I believe it was done because of stack ranking, so perhaps the person PIPed was not actually "undesirable" so much as the manager had to pick someone.
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