<story><title>Advice to New Managers: Don&apos;t Joke About Firing People (2020)</title><url>https://staysaasy.com/engineering/2020/06/09/Don%27t-Joke.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>foobarian</author><text>Do you have any tips&amp;#x2F;signs to look out for :-)</text></item><item><author>indigochill</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve seen a couple of mass layoffs. How much you see that coming can be a function of how close to the decision-making you are and how familiar you are with the process. As I&amp;#x27;ve advanced, I&amp;#x27;ve progressively seen it coming farther out. But the first one was totally out of the blue to me.&lt;p&gt;Individual firings seem a bit more predictable.</text></item><item><author>ransom1538</author><text>Off topic. Do firings come out of the blue though? I was a VP for a while (not anymore) - but when the person I had to fire was about to get fired, they KNEW it as soon as the door opened.  Firing someone is the worst experience ever - the only reason I had to fire someone was because WE screwed up in the interview process.</text></item><item><author>simias</author><text>That&amp;#x27;s excellent advice that many have learned the hard way...&lt;p&gt;Honestly even as a non-manager it&amp;#x27;s a very bad idea. When I was a junior one of my colleagues was called to the manager&amp;#x27;s office. I assumed it would be for some mundane project scheduling or whatever, so I jokingly said &amp;quot;you&amp;#x27;re getting fired&amp;quot; as he was going there. And he was.&lt;p&gt;This is one of these memories that come back to haunt you late at night when you&amp;#x27;re trying to sleep...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>redshirtrob</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve seen a couple mass layoffs. I survived one, but did not survive the next one a few years later.&lt;p&gt;This is very general advice and you need to correlate it with other events, but it&amp;#x27;s been a pretty strong indicator something was up: Keep an eye on your manager&amp;#x27;s priorities especially if they shift in a ways you can&amp;#x27;t explain.&lt;p&gt;One example from early in my career: Our manager abruptly became much less interested in product status and overall progress. To his credit he scheduled a call (we were a remote office) a couple weeks later in which he said the following: &amp;quot;Commit your code. Ignore all policies and procedures. Work at your own pace.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;We suspected as much, but that call was the confirmation. Ironically, the organization was so large, and the layoffs so huge, they had to arrange financing just to complete the layoffs. This led to a one to two month period where we were employed, but had nothing to do. It was really weird. Generally we&amp;#x27;d come to the office, play a bit of Half-Life, then adjourn to my friend&amp;#x27;s basement to work on the BattleBot we were building.</text></comment>
<story><title>Advice to New Managers: Don&apos;t Joke About Firing People (2020)</title><url>https://staysaasy.com/engineering/2020/06/09/Don%27t-Joke.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>foobarian</author><text>Do you have any tips&amp;#x2F;signs to look out for :-)</text></item><item><author>indigochill</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve seen a couple of mass layoffs. How much you see that coming can be a function of how close to the decision-making you are and how familiar you are with the process. As I&amp;#x27;ve advanced, I&amp;#x27;ve progressively seen it coming farther out. But the first one was totally out of the blue to me.&lt;p&gt;Individual firings seem a bit more predictable.</text></item><item><author>ransom1538</author><text>Off topic. Do firings come out of the blue though? I was a VP for a while (not anymore) - but when the person I had to fire was about to get fired, they KNEW it as soon as the door opened.  Firing someone is the worst experience ever - the only reason I had to fire someone was because WE screwed up in the interview process.</text></item><item><author>simias</author><text>That&amp;#x27;s excellent advice that many have learned the hard way...&lt;p&gt;Honestly even as a non-manager it&amp;#x27;s a very bad idea. When I was a junior one of my colleagues was called to the manager&amp;#x27;s office. I assumed it would be for some mundane project scheduling or whatever, so I jokingly said &amp;quot;you&amp;#x27;re getting fired&amp;quot; as he was going there. And he was.&lt;p&gt;This is one of these memories that come back to haunt you late at night when you&amp;#x27;re trying to sleep...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>edgriebel</author><text>When you have a one-on-one with your manager and the VP of Engineering or a HR person is there too, or when your team in another site is laid off and you hear it thru the grapevine instead of from your manager.&lt;p&gt;But for something more actionable, if your manager is constantly pressing you for &amp;quot;what happened with this one&amp;quot; when dates are slipping, or reminding you &amp;quot;you know, you&amp;#x27;re one of the highest paid people here...&amp;quot;</text></comment>