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blugu64 posted:It's unreasonable and asinine. BEHOLD: MY CAPE posted:It also doesn't actually happen, Sorry for the derail. In this modern era of out of control corporations subjecting employees to unpaid searches and outrageous non-compete clauses, I'd just put it out as a possibility that some companies are going to be lovely about this sort of thing.
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Feb 21, 2015 19:07
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AgrippaNothing posted:I rifled through several threads on avvo and no one can cite a specific law and the general advice is that you need to sue. I imagine corporate legal would settle any case it was served in this regard, a company wouldn't know what to do with your wallet if it was "theirs". It demonstrably doesn't stop some companies from being assholes about it. Yeah but what is a company going to do when the fired employee calls the police and they arrive and (I would think very likely) tell them to just give him his wallet so he can go. I think it's a good derail, people are worried about this crap with employers.
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Feb 21, 2015 19:13
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dietcokefiend posted:I still remember quitting from a prior job and part of the policy was issuing erase commands to mobile devices attached to exchange. Well I at the time had my iPod Touch getting email and checked it after a few days and the drat thing was wiped. Somewhat of a bummer, but its another odd area where if it was my phone I might be a little more pissed off, but I was kicking myself for not remembering to delete the email account to remove that link. BYOD workplaces have an interesting reach into personal property.
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Feb 22, 2015 22:02
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When I've seen layoffs in a corporate setting, it's typically with a big severance and letting then go 2+ weeks ahead of time to transition their work. I had to fire someone once and it was a horrible experience even though the person 100% deserved it. My boss was friends with his dad and that's how he got the job in the first place, and got a million chances for that reason despite being absolutely horrible. This went on for several years. Then, right before Christmas, they had an epic fuckup. Everyone else wanted to wait until January, but my boss was so personally offended that he had to be let go on the spot (and no, there was no security or anything, we were too small for that.) Due to the personal relationship though, I had to do the firing. What transpired then was 10 minutes of begging, attempted bargaining, etc... He had no idea this was coming (despite repeated, documented warnings), he NEEDED this job (quite possibly, he was horrible and had no discernible skills), why did I hate him, and such. At least in a small environment that was doing well, firing people was seen as more trouble than it was worth due to state DOL regulations unless the person was a truly epic screwup. You have to start documenting everything and give multiple warnings. It also matters a lot to the state DOL, for the purposes of unemployment, whether or not the person was fired for cause or laid off, whether or not they were an independent contractor, etc...
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Feb 23, 2015 05:03
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The last guy we let go I had to fire because he straight up lied in his interview. We found out after he had been working for us for a few weeks. The poor guy started crying and then knocked over a shelf on the way out. He started set the shelf back up and tried to replace the stuff that was on it while still sobbing. I was like, "I'll clean this up, dude - just go". It was such an awkward experience. I think the biggest mistake I made was letting him start to argue with me instead of keeping it as short as possible. That meant that he had time to get all worked up. If I had cut him off and had him leave as soon as I delivered the news then he probably would have been in his car by the time he started getting emotional. It was double lovely because I was training this guy to be my replacement and we really got along great and I thought he would do a wonderful job. You can't loving lie in your interview 'tho.
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Feb 23, 2015 18:40
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Leroy Diplowski posted:You can't loving lie in your interview 'tho. Come on, tell us what he lied about.
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Feb 24, 2015 19:35
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He didn't actually like Michael Bolton.
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Feb 24, 2015 19:48
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Either way that happens, it should be mentioned that HR hosed up. Would be nice if you were allowed to be involved in the HR process especially for people who are going to be a part of your team. I know in interviewing the 2nd or 3rd stage of the interviews is generally with the person I would be working under to make sure we mesh well and that we are on the same page. Firing people sucks, good luck.
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Feb 24, 2015 19:55
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ephori posted:
Those two are a little related, but basically it boils down to you having something physical (well, or digital) that you can reference as a case for that person being let go. Basically you don't ever want yourself being asked or challenged on exactly why you fired someone and not have anything like that around to support your decision. Don't let it turn into "ephori fired X for a bunch of reasons that ephori said happened" and end there. It could be a lawsuit, HR, the fired person's uncle turning out to be a stakeholder or upper management or golf buddies with the CEO. Whatever or whoever it is that might question you on it, you should have something. Whether they're shirking hours, moving abnormally slow or not delivering on responsibilities, poor quality of work, etc, you want some sort of evidence that you can share and point to and potentially documented communication about trying to fix the issue with that person through retraining/warnings/etc and how that didn't work either. It also helps on personal levels too because when you are getting to that point of making the call, you can look those things over and feel solid about it being the right call and you will know you're not just going off of a gut feeling and possible hidden biases. It also serves as a sort of script if you need help broaching "the talk" when they're in your office and silently reminds that person that they should have seen this coming at least a little bit. * Not personal as in "your presence disturbs me,  " but personal as in you--a person--are making the judgement to cut someone loose based on what you've seen and experienced with them.EDIT: Having this in place and known to the rest of the employees helps as well in regards to morale with them wondering if they'll get called into your office next. If they know you will communicate and go through some sort of procedure when they aren't performing, that takes a bit of the heat off compared to you (seemingly) just pulling people off the line and poo poo-canning them. At my company, I'm not allowed to fire my employees until after I clear it with HR and my boss the CTO (though the latter would probably support me and just ask me questions to make sure I feel solid about the decision). Unless it's "for cause" like showing up to work drunk and naked and with a gun, I have to prove to them that I've tried to correct whatever troubles we're having, have communicated with them and done my part to try and make it better, so that nothing comes as a shock to anyone and all sides understand that alternate solutions have been exhausted. I make this very clear to my employees so that they feel comfortable and not under some tyranny where their fate can be decided at a moment's notice on their first goof up. Bhaal fucked around with this message at 00:53 on Feb 25, 2015 |
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Feb 25, 2015 00:42
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Kim Jong Il posted:I had to fire someone once and it was a horrible experience even though the person 100% deserved it. My boss was friends with his dad and that's how he got the job in the first place, and got a million chances for that reason despite being absolutely horrible. This went on for several years. Then, right before Christmas, they had an epic fuckup. Everyone else wanted to wait until January, but my boss was so personally offended that he had to be let go on the spot (and no, there was no security or anything, we were too small for that.) Sounds like my workplace, except in this case my boss had to fire his own daughter. The funny part was that she was terrible at her job and it was obvious she hated it and wasn't cut out for it (basic office paper shuffling, scheduling and arranging large freight shipments to customers) and in spite of that she still threw a huge tantrum as if it came to her as a complete surprise. Yelling at her own dad so everyone in the office could hear it, as if it was some huge unfair slight to her. "I don't want a loving severance, dad! God!" Even though her latest mistake sent several shipping containers to the wrong country, a nearly $40,000 fuckup when it was all said and done. She was forced upon our director of sales for 2 years, and he complained non stop the whole time. He was so mad at the whole situation that he finally said it's her or me, so my boss's solution was to take her on as his own personal assistant, and it only took 6 months and $40k of company money for him to realize the sales director was right, and she had to go.
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Feb 25, 2015 01:01
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This whole "you're fired out the door you go right this instant." is a bit foreign to me. The ways I've experienced it that the news is broken, the sacked guy gets to take the rest of the day off to lick his wounds and tell his wife, and then gets to come back one day, typically towards the end of the day, to pick up his stuff, get what he wants from his PC, say properly goodbye etc. Of course around here there's a minimum of three months severance with full pay. Apart from that, lots of good info in this thread. I've never had to fire someone, and I've only been fired once, which was a one-day-a-week student position, so that doesn't really count. Have survived several rounds of layoffs, though.
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Feb 26, 2015 12:55
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bolind posted:This whole "you're fired out the door you go right this instant." is a bit foreign to me. It really depends on the type of job/industry you are in. I work in radio, where the preferred time to fire someone is immediately after they finish their shift. For rather obvious reasons they don't want you going back on air once you know you're getting the ax. Sales is pretty similar, they don't want client lists going anywhere. You get a cheque for your severance and away you go. If anyone is looking for some help in firing someone, Ira Glass did a segment on This American Life back in 2008 with a guy that fired over 1500 people. Its the first seven minutes or so, probably a useful listen if you have to terminate someone and need to know where to start.
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Feb 26, 2015 19:25
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Antifreeze Head posted:It really depends on the type of job/industry you are in. Bingo. When I was a teenager I was fired from a crappy job I hated at a call center, obviously they didn't want me getting back on the phone with customers. They walked me out past my (former) team towards an exit, with all my coworkers standing up asking what was going on. I stopped and took a few steps towards them and said "I got fired, sorry guys, I'll text you later" but man, the look on my escort's face when I didn't go directly to the door was something. I'm sure they thought I was about to go running through the building kicking computers over but I was just saying goodbye, didn't even realize I wasn't following their instructions. As we're walking down the stairs, the security guard said something like "You can't just walk over there! You can't do that! You're being walked out!" and I, being a smartass teenager at the time, said "What are you gonna do, fire me again?" which made them laugh. In that situation they brought me all of my stuff in a box before the walkout - they had someone pack it up while I was being fired, and when they gave it to me they told me if I thought anything was missing I could contact so-and-so, etc. I'm a manager now and while we've made 2 not-so-great hires over the last few years, every time it happens we figure out where our process broke down (did our list of interview questions fail to ask something important, did our skills assessment not test a relevant skill?) and try to make improvements to avoid it happening again. I definitely agree that the person's manager (and organization as a whole, if it's process related) are often a big part of the problem. Last year I coached a guy who was underperforming on the technical skills side (we put him in some internal training, he's better now) but even just during coaching, he started crying. It was incredibly uncomfortable - I can't imagine how awkward I would feel if I was firing someone and they started sobbing or screaming or both.
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Feb 26, 2015 20:38
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Antifreeze Head posted:It really depends on the type of job/industry you are in. I work in radio, where the preferred time to fire someone is immediately after they finish their shift. For rather obvious reasons they don't want you going back on air once you know you're getting the ax. Sales is pretty similar, they don't want client lists going anywhere. You get a cheque for your severance and away you go. When I was afraid I was going to get fired I used to regularly download my outlook contacts into a spreadsheet and email it to my personal address in case I was suddenly axed and lost my access. Man, that was fun, living like that for three years, let me tell you. I wasn't in sales, but I worked with a lot of outside firms within my industry, and in my naive fantasy world, if I ever got fired maybe one of them could help me get a job.
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Feb 27, 2015 02:38
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I was a team lead and manager in the IT contracting world in the 90's - early 00's. I've seen and done me some poo poo canning/layoffs/your contract is up stuff. Always have a box of kleenex on your desk within reach of the shitcanee Try to make them feel that this is a good thing. "A lot of places are hiring people with your skill set now!"  Try to make your dirty office/cubehole look moderately professional for at least that day and try not to fart just before the "meeting". Though that can quicken things up! Also, don't look or smell like a goon on that day. They're gonna be angry at you enough already. No heavy objects within arms reach of the shitcanee that can be easily turned into a projectile or club. Move personal and valuable stuff out of arms reach as well. Alert building security if you're going to shitcan multiple people in a single day(maybe even if it's just that one if he's a nutjob) and try not to do it one right after the other without having a proper time buffer - these meeting can go long. Do it on the last day of the pay period.
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Feb 27, 2015 03:13
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Reign Of Pain posted:Try to make them feel that this is a good thing. "A lot of places are hiring people with your skill set now!" The rest of your advice is great but I'd suggest skipping this one depending on the person you're dealing with. I, for example, hate these kinds of platitudes. This is not good news (unless the person was trying to get fired I guess), and since this situation in particular is people getting fired for underperforming, you might as well be telling them, "I'm sure someone will have low enough standards to hire YOU." It feels patronizing to me. But again, know your audience. Some people might need the encouragement and react positively to it, but I know that some of us don't want to hear it right then, especially not from you (the person firing us).
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Feb 27, 2015 04:05
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Che Delilas posted:The rest of your advice is great but I'd suggest skipping this one depending on the person you're dealing with. I, for example, hate these kinds of platitudes. This is not good news (unless the person was trying to get fired I guess), and since this situation in particular is people getting fired for underperforming, you might as well be telling them, "I'm sure someone will have low enough standards to hire YOU." It feels patronizing to me. Yeah, it really does depend on the audience. I was mostly dealing with level 1 and level 2 tech support folk at a time when there wasn't a lot to choose from in Austin or Florida. This type of delivery is usually best for people that never should've been hired in the first place - I had a lot of that. Mass hirings=mass firings. Though, if they do have some skills for similar positions at other companies it can work beautifully. I remember seeing another manager have people she let go walk out of her office over and over again with smiles on their faces because she basically told them that Dell was hiring.
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Feb 27, 2015 04:31
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Reign Of Pain posted:Do it on the last day of the pay period. Unless you like them and they are salaried. In which case, do it on the first day.
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Feb 27, 2015 17:01
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Antifreeze Head posted:It really depends on the type of job/industry you are in. I work in radio, where the preferred time to fire someone is immediately after they finish their shift. For rather obvious reasons they don't want you going back on air once you know you're getting the ax. Conan O'brien There are ways to fire people without lying to them and without treating them like poo poo. You want the person not to be emotional and to leave quickly; so don't treat them like poo poo. Unless it is for fraud, the termination almost always happens because the company doesn't have the ability/resources to train the person to the degree that is needed for the position.
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Mar 4, 2015 17:19
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I hope that you have gone through the process of getting explicit enough in their behavior that they should see this coming. If you've already done a written warning with some terminology around "the next time XX happens you may be terminated" then you are in the clear. It's easy to point back to that and say "Look, I warned you" (quick edit: what I meant was you can use it as a jumping point like "as we discussed on <some date> during our meeting, you were warned that if XX happened again then it could be grounds for termination. On YY date, <behavior> happened and at this point we have made the decision to end your employment". Not as a defensive, "I warned you" sort of thing) My first boss told me to be angry at the person I was letting go rather than feeling sick (which I did.. feel sick). It only kinda of worked. For all the people who said it's the fault of management - sometimes. In this case she couldn't make it to work on time for a shift that required that you were there to man the phones. There wasn't much I could do - and she'd had ample warnings to change and fix that behavior. So, I suppose the only advice I can give is to make it not-personal and make sure that it's not a surprise to the fire-ee. And it's okay to feel like poo poo - you're human. Oh, and I've heard don't fire people on a Friday - you can't go do anything on a weekend except stew about what just happened. If you fire on a weekday it gives them time to feel like they have some agency about their next steps. Lipumira fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Mar 4, 2015 |
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Mar 4, 2015 18:16
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Lipumira posted:For all the people who said it's the fault of management - sometimes. In this case she couldn't make it to work on time for a shift that required that you were there to man the phones. There wasn't much I could do - and she'd had ample warnings to change and fix that behavior. So it sounds like she was competent, but management didn't have the resources to allow her to have a different (or more flexible) schedule.
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Mar 5, 2015 18:23
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Spook posted:So it sounds like she was competent, but management didn't have the resources to allow her to have a different (or more flexible) schedule. I'd call agreeing to be somewhere, be it a meeting or appointment, at a specified time and then repeatedly failing to do so professional incompetence on a really basic level.
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Mar 5, 2015 19:17
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sanchez posted:I'd call agreeing to be somewhere, be it a meeting or appointment, at a specified time and then repeatedly failing to do so professional incompetence on a really basic level. I disagree; we don't know why the employee was late to work each day, so you can't call it incompetence. Perhaps she has a child that needs to go to school in the morning and the bus is regularly late to pick the child up. But the organization cannot let the employee have flexible time because then it would have to address the issue with all employees in that business area.
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Mar 5, 2015 22:55
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sanchez posted:I'd call agreeing to be somewhere, be it a meeting or appointment, at a specified time and then repeatedly failing to do so professional incompetence on a really basic level. Holding anyone to any kind of standards is criminal these days.
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Mar 5, 2015 23:01
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Lipumira posted:Oh, and I've heard don't fire people on a Friday - you can't go do anything on a weekend except stew about what just happened. If you fire on a weekday it gives them time to feel like they have some agency about their next steps. Additionally, I've found that when someone gets fired at my office on a non-Friday, it tends to really hurt morale and productivity for the rest of the week. I'm certainly no expert, though.
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Mar 5, 2015 23:18
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Spook posted:I disagree; we don't know why the employee was late to work each day, so you can't call it incompetence. Perhaps she has a child that needs to go to school in the morning and the bus is regularly late to pick the child up. But the organization cannot let the employee have flexible time because then it would have to address the issue with all employees in that business area. No one else has a life that they need to manage. Only her.
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Mar 6, 2015 00:53
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I had an Organizational Behavior professor who used to say that that he believes companies get the kind of employees they deserve. I can't say I disagree.
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Mar 6, 2015 03:41
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Spook posted:I disagree; we don't know why the employee was late to work each day, so you can't call it incompetence. Perhaps she has a child that needs to go to school in the morning and the bus is regularly late to pick the child up. But the organization cannot let the employee have flexible time because then it would have to address the issue with all employees in that business area. It depends on the type of position. For instance, I've seen engineers regularly come in later than normal who have children. That's okay as long as they're getting their work done because they don't usually have to be at work for a specific time unless there is some kind of scheduled work or meetings. On the other hand, our front desk person has to be there at 8:00 - 4:00 every day. That's when the office doors are open. If they're not there, they need to make alternate arrangements to let delivery/other external people in and I can't see that happening every day. Maybe it doesn't seem fair but different positions have different requirements and there's lots of exceptions. I think it also comes down to relationship between the employee and their manager. If the employee gets results and the manager is happy, then the employee probably would have more leeway than one who doesn't have as good relationship/productivity. Pretty much if your manager doesn't like an employee, they can always find a reason to get rid of them and being late is one of them. rt_hat fucked around with this message at 03:46 on Mar 6, 2015 |
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Mar 6, 2015 03:43
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Spook posted:I disagree; we don't know why the employee was late to work each day, so you can't call it incompetence. Perhaps she has a child that needs to go to school in the morning and the bus is regularly late to pick the child up. But the organization cannot let the employee have flexible time because then it would have to address the issue with all employees in that business area. Interesting responses. She had a choice of certain available shifts. She *chose* her start time. And here's the deal - yes.. maybe traffic was sometimes bad. Maybe the bus was late. Maybe maybe maybe. You know what you do when you are a responsible person who is in the kind of job where you can't let everyone just wander in when they want to? You leave early. You swap shifts. It's not like she was late once and we fired her the next time it happened. And yes... in some instances (in this case we worked in a call center and we staffed shifts based on call volumes and what sort of customer experience we wanted them to offer) you can't be flexible. I have generally found that if you are in the sort of job where your shift starts at a very specific time there's a reason for it. Lipumira posted:Oh, and I've heard don't fire people on a Friday - you can't go do anything on a weekend except stew about what just happened. If you fire on a weekday it gives them time to feel like they have some agency about their next steps. Thanatosian posted:I would think the opposite would be true; if you fire them on a non-Friday, you've pretty much just cancelled all their major plans for the rest of the week (i.e. working). If it's a Friday, they're going into the weekend that they were going to be not-working, anyway. I think the theory behind letting them go with week left is that's when they can start to do whatever they need to do to get the next thing going - like going to file for unemployment. Keep in mind that that was also enough years back that you had to call into somewhere to get your claim filed rather then hitting in online. As for the office morale thing.. yeah - that's always rough. I am by no means an expert... in fact the last round of layoffs I had to manage (old company got bought) I actually worked with each person on my team on what would work best. since we needed to give at least 60 days notice. Of course, that's a different situation than letting go for cause.
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Mar 6, 2015 03:56
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Spook posted:So it sounds like she was competent, but management didn't have the resources to allow her to have a different (or more flexible) schedule. Spook posted:I disagree; we don't know why the employee was late to work each day, so you can't call it incompetence. Perhaps she has a child that needs to go to school in the morning and the bus is regularly late to pick the child up. But the organization cannot let the employee have flexible time because then it would have to address the issue with all employees in that business area. I've never seen someone work so hard at fitting a square peg into a round hole. Impressive. Being late over and over is a problem that the employee has to address, not the business. If you have flexible scheduling that's great but I don't know of many positions that would offer that type of work unless all you do is sit in a cubicle and type code all day and it doesn't matter when you do it. In my line of work if you're late, you're screwing someone else who now has to hold over. Being late is being late, I don't care what the reason is. Emergencies and problems come up, that's understandable. But if you're late so often that it ends up getting you fired, that's really quite a feat given how easy it should be to correct that type of behavior versus someone who's just plain incompetent at the job. Lipumira posted:And yes... in some instances (in this case we worked in a call center and we staffed shifts based on call volumes and what sort of customer experience we wanted them to offer) you can't be flexible. I have generally found that if you are in the sort of job where your shift starts at a very specific time there's a reason for it. The only way the business could be responsible for this is if they hired her with the full knowledge that she would have hardships getting to work on time. If your schedule is such that you can't commit to rigid work hours, you need to find another job or line of work. The Shep fucked around with this message at 05:10 on Mar 6, 2015 |
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Mar 6, 2015 05:01
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rt_hat posted:Maybe it doesn't seem fair but different positions have different requirements and there's lots of exceptions. I think it also comes down to relationship between the employee and their manager. If the employee gets results and the manager is happy, then the employee probably would have more leeway than one who doesn't have as good relationship/productivity. Pretty much if your manager doesn't like an employee, they can always find a reason to get rid of them and being late is one of them. It's only fair that good performers get leeway that poor performers don't. It's a simple cost-benefit equation: you replace somebody when they aren't producing benefits commensurate to their costs. If you keep on somebody who doesn't meet the benchmarks for productivity or causes an unreasonable amount of problems relative to performance, then that's not fair to the other staff and shareholders who have to eat the cost of a chronic underperformer's mistakes, and it's not fair to the many competent candidates out there who could fill the underperformer's role. Lots of people need jobs.
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Mar 6, 2015 05:18
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Blackjack2000 posted:No one else has a life that they need to manage. Only her. Maybe she was killing hitlers every morning. Are you some kind of hitler lover you jew hater? Let the woman come in late.
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Mar 6, 2015 10:51
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Cmdr. Shepard posted:I've never seen someone work so hard at fitting a square peg into a round hole. Impressive. I am saying to fire her, it's just that by acknowledging the factors outside of the employees control, they will feel better about their opportunities elsewhere and can move on. When she is in your office and you are giving her that news, "We have to let you go, as we discussed before, the company can't afford to have you consistently be late," that will go over much better than "you are such a gently caress up, you can't get here on time so I am firing you." You still keep your "this is non-negotiable, and there is nothing else to say, it was all said when we talked last time" stance.
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Mar 6, 2015 22:55
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Spook posted:I am saying to fire her, it's just that by acknowledging the factors outside of the employees control, they will feel better about their opportunities elsewhere and can move on. When she is in your office and you are giving her that news, "We have to let you go, as we discussed before, the company can't afford to have you consistently be late," that will go over much better than "you are such a gently caress up, you can't get here on time so I am firing you." I haven't seen anyone advocate that anyone couch it in a "wow, you suck, you're fired" sort of way - that would be horrible and just plan mean. Although, frankly, I wouldn't go out of my way to take the responsibility out of their hands either. That's why it's easier if you have documented conversations with the person before it gets to end game. If you can go into the situation with the knowledge that you have very clearly and specifically outlined a series of failing behavior and have communicated that and the consequences of that continued behavior then it's easier because it's not personal.
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Mar 7, 2015 01:11
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Spook posted:I am saying to fire her, it's just that by acknowledging the factors outside of the employees control, they will feel better about their opportunities elsewhere and can move on. When she is in your office and you are giving her that news, "We have to let you go, as we discussed before, the company can't afford to have you consistently be late," that will go over much better than "you are such a gently caress up, you can't get here on time so I am firing you." That was clearly not what you were saying at all, and you're still conjuring up excuses for her based on nothing.
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Mar 7, 2015 01:41
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I have had a few interesting episodes of needing to let people go. I have never been able to just 'fire' someone, HR has always been involved and there were either layoffs or a very well documented case for termination. But then again :California: employment laws. The fit issue: I took over a team (watch the theme here) and found out that the historical bottom performer on the team has been underutilized and on all kinds of performance improvement over the years. Part of the issue was language, and the job required fluent english, and while he had good grammar, he was not well spoken (was not a native english speaker). Apparently we had sent him to speaking and presentation classes and all sorts of things, and while he improved he never improved enough. So, I embarked on a 'get well' plan (the stage before being put on a straight up performance management plan). Documented actions, what was needed, improvements, all that. And the guy improved. Just enough to not go to the next stage. While this was happening I was trying to find him a new job internally that would be a better fit and not require language and sales skill the person did not possess. The team he supported still did not use him, and no matter how much he progressed against the performance plan, the major issues never got better. We finally were able to put together an actual performance plan that required the people he supported to sign off that the issues were resolved, and that got the individual to get the hint and take the package (after getting lawyers involved). The Insanity Defense: I took over another team and found (shocker) and employee issue that the previous manager had neglected. This employee was toxic and checked out. Conveniently his role was supporting two different teams, so he constantly played the teams against each other (request from team A would get 'I'm too bust working for team b' and vice versa). When I spoke to my boss about the issue, I got a 'yeah we know about that you should do something about it, talk to HR.' There was ample documentation on issues with this employee and we should have just been able to put them on plan. But no. The person in question actually got himself considered by HR to be in a 'protected' employment class in his state due to medical reasons, specifically mental health related. I think he claimed that his job was so stressful he had to see a shrink and was depressed or suicidal or something. I tried the tact of 'you aren't happy here...,' and, 'your issues just aren't fixable here,' to no avail. Now we could not fire the guy, or even put him on plan at this point. So we took a chance. We had the 'we can do this the easy way or the hard way,' discussion. Either he could resign and go gracefully or we could put him on plan and eventually fire him (which was a total bluff). He was miserable to the point where after a few days we had his resignation letter. Still surprised I didn't get sued over that one. The Didn't Take the Hint Guy: Layoffs suck. Hard. As the person doing the layoffs, you know it is coming and usually there is a day where everyone has to get notified and you hope you do it quickly enough to avoid the rumor mill and crazy stuff that can go down. In one case, the date was set and we knew a few days in advance who and when all this had to happen. One of the people being let go was going to start a nice vacation on the date in question. The requirement is that you attempt to notify the person on the date of termination, but if you can't (due to a situation like this) you can usually just do it when they get back. The calls were scheduled maybe 24 hours in advance. I told the guy to enjoy his vacation and that we would talk when he got back, but was careful to give no hints as to what was happening. When HR reached out to schedule the call, he actually replied with his travel itinerary and said that he would take the call from his layover in (city) where he was meeting (family) to head overseas to (nice vacation destination). There are actually more details that I cannot share but make this even more sad and devastating, but might reveal too much. HR moved the call to accommodate the travel schedule. So we got on the call bridge and he wasn't there. After about two minutes I suggested we pull the plug, must have missed him and he dings in on the line (his flight was a few minutes late that day). So we had to lay him off. Over the phone. On the way to a nice vacation, with other very sad and tragic implications. I still feel like poo poo about that one. Sorry, employee. Next time don't take work calls on your vacation. I think I kind of ruined his life. The (Metaphorical) Explosion: Imagine the most stressful project of your life. The days when you start off in the morning getting yelled at, eat lunch and dinner at your desk, and at some point stumble out of work and close the bar down knowing you have to do it all again tomorrow. Then do that for nine months straight. Some people crack. The project manager for this fun little project lasted about six months. Then one day he snapped. By now the project was a real shitstorm. Senior VPs for my company and the customer were in town, and there were meetings to try to salvage the project. Well, in the meeting with the VPs, the project manager lost his poo poo. It was ugly. He was sent home the next day. Luckily he wasn't fired, but just reassigned. After that they tried to rotate personnel out of the pressure cooker, but people still quit over this deal. Anyone who didn't burn out ended up getting nice promotions in the end.
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Mar 19, 2015 17:58
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Ultimate mango, could you clarify about timing on layoffs. Are you saying that people would find out on the day they are no longer employed or could find out after the fact?
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Mar 19, 2015 21:52
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NancyPants posted:Ultimate mango, could you clarify about timing on layoffs. Are you saying that people would find out on the day they are no longer employed or could find out after the fact? At least when I have done it, you had to notify everyone being laid off on the same day, or in the case I tried to make happen, at least attempt to notify the person. The notification date is not necessarily the same as the last day worked. In the case of the guy going on vacation we made it so his last day worked was after he got back so he could turn in his company property and we didn't want to totally dick him over (though we really, really did). Sometimes people get several weeks/months notice, sometimes it is effective immediately. The important thing is that the people who are laid off get an official notification (verbal, followed by email) from their manager and/or Human Resources and not like a friend or coworker.
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Mar 19, 2015 23:04
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Ultimate Mango posted:The (Metaphorical) Explosion: Imagine the most stressful project of your life. The days when you start off in the morning getting yelled at, eat lunch and dinner at your desk, and at some point stumble out of work and close the bar down knowing you have to do it all again tomorrow. Then do that for nine months straight. Some people crack. The project manager for this fun little project lasted about six months. Then one day he snapped. By now the project was a real shitstorm. Senior VPs for my company and the customer were in town, and there were meetings to try to salvage the project. Well, in the meeting with the VPs, the project manager lost his poo poo. It was ugly. He was sent home the next day. Luckily he wasn't fired, but just reassigned. After that they tried to rotate personnel out of the pressure cooker, but people still quit over this deal. Anyone who didn't burn out ended up getting nice promotions in the end. I wore tons of different hats at my last job, managed vendors, products, platforms, handled reporting, data validation, systems development, on and on. No job sucked half as hard as project management. I still have nightmares about project spreadsheets. I work for a firm with notoriously insolent workers too, so you can just imagine what a joy it was. Not even in a pressure cooker kind of way. More of a no resources, no cooperation, no support (even from your own manager) spin your wheels endlessly kind of thing. If I can help it, I will never do project management ever again.
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Mar 20, 2015 04:43
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Blackjack2000 posted:I wore tons of different hats at my last job, managed vendors, products, platforms, handled reporting, data validation, systems development, on and on. No job sucked half as hard as project management. I still have nightmares about project spreadsheets. I work for a firm with notoriously insolent workers too, so you can just imagine what a joy it was. I could write a thread about that project. Would probably get me sued. The person who imploded wasn't even a project manager. He was just a manager who had to project manage the impossible project. Eventually the project succeeded but just in time for our customer to be acquired and the whole thing iced due to a previous acquisition by the parent company that competed with what we built. I may have more firing stories if this thread is interested. I have seen so many things go so badly firing wise.
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Mar 20, 2015 05:42
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