you haul sixteen tons, and whaddya get?
May. 31st, 2003 04:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
topazSo, anyway, I'm unemployed again.
I knew that my manager was not happy with my work. I'd had a lot of problems communicating with the other engineer on our project, and I expected to have a discussion about it after our product deadline. So I was not entirely surprised when my manager asked me to meet with him the following day.
It was a bit of a shock, however, when, after listing the objections he had with the work I'd submitted, he announced that he'd decided the solution was to let me go. That's all. No performance review, no conversation about my strengths and weaknesses and how to balance them, just ... boom!
I'm annoyed. For the first couple of days I was feeling depressed and bummed, but now I'm just annoyed. If I had been slacking off, it would have been humiliating, like a confirmation that deep down inside I'm really nothing more than a lazy bum. But I wasn't slacking. I was working weekends and evenings, most every weekend and evening, for weeks on end. More than a few times I stayed up all night to finish the data sets I had been assigned the previous day.
It now seems apparent that this company has communication problems running far deeper than anything under my control. For example, at my termination meeting, my manager said that my performance hadn't been what he expected from the Foo project leader. Really, I said. I had no idea that I was the Foo project leader.
That's the kind of place it is.
Another example. Boss told me that the project was coming off so badly that he threatened Deb, my co-worker, that he was going to yank it completely from this release of our product if it didn't shape up. This apparently led to Deb working around the clock for several days on end to get it into a releasable condition. Why, I asked, if I was the project leader, wasn't I told that the project was in danger of being yanked from the final release? Why didn't anyone tell me how bad it was getting? He hemmed and hawed a bit at that and finally said that he'd expected Deb to tell me about all of this. Deb didn't tell me any of it, I replied. He didn't really have anything to say about that.
And yet I'm the one who's getting fired. I suppose it's possible that he's raking Deb over the coals for not keeping me up to date. But it's unlikely. He didn't express to me any frustration with how she handled the situation, and this is not a guy who hides his exasperation with other people.
I've worked for startups before. I've worked for taskmasters. I've worked for guys who had no life whatsoever outside of their work, and didn't understand anyone who did. I'm familiar with the drill. But until now, I'd never worked for someone who could assign me a task at 1:30 AM, have the results in their mailbox by 5:30 AM, and still tell me that I wasn't "demonstrating the proper sense of urgency" for the job.
Yeesh.
So for the time being, I'm determined to enjoy my liberation to the fullest. I've been working pretty much without a vacation for the last six years, so for now I'm going to by-god take one. My last day at work was a week ago; this week I saw three movies, got in a decent two-hour bike ride and managed to arrange a (most delightful) booty call. If I can do this for another couple of weeks I ought to be pretty well recharged!
Nevertheless, I could really use a steady paycheck. If any of you folks know of an opening for a mid-level software engineer -- preferably Unix although I now officially have Windows coding experience to put on my resume -- please give me a shout. Resume at http://www.unchi.org/~twp/resume.html.
I knew that my manager was not happy with my work. I'd had a lot of problems communicating with the other engineer on our project, and I expected to have a discussion about it after our product deadline. So I was not entirely surprised when my manager asked me to meet with him the following day.
It was a bit of a shock, however, when, after listing the objections he had with the work I'd submitted, he announced that he'd decided the solution was to let me go. That's all. No performance review, no conversation about my strengths and weaknesses and how to balance them, just ... boom!
I'm annoyed. For the first couple of days I was feeling depressed and bummed, but now I'm just annoyed. If I had been slacking off, it would have been humiliating, like a confirmation that deep down inside I'm really nothing more than a lazy bum. But I wasn't slacking. I was working weekends and evenings, most every weekend and evening, for weeks on end. More than a few times I stayed up all night to finish the data sets I had been assigned the previous day.
It now seems apparent that this company has communication problems running far deeper than anything under my control. For example, at my termination meeting, my manager said that my performance hadn't been what he expected from the Foo project leader. Really, I said. I had no idea that I was the Foo project leader.
That's the kind of place it is.
Another example. Boss told me that the project was coming off so badly that he threatened Deb, my co-worker, that he was going to yank it completely from this release of our product if it didn't shape up. This apparently led to Deb working around the clock for several days on end to get it into a releasable condition. Why, I asked, if I was the project leader, wasn't I told that the project was in danger of being yanked from the final release? Why didn't anyone tell me how bad it was getting? He hemmed and hawed a bit at that and finally said that he'd expected Deb to tell me about all of this. Deb didn't tell me any of it, I replied. He didn't really have anything to say about that.
And yet I'm the one who's getting fired. I suppose it's possible that he's raking Deb over the coals for not keeping me up to date. But it's unlikely. He didn't express to me any frustration with how she handled the situation, and this is not a guy who hides his exasperation with other people.
I've worked for startups before. I've worked for taskmasters. I've worked for guys who had no life whatsoever outside of their work, and didn't understand anyone who did. I'm familiar with the drill. But until now, I'd never worked for someone who could assign me a task at 1:30 AM, have the results in their mailbox by 5:30 AM, and still tell me that I wasn't "demonstrating the proper sense of urgency" for the job.
Yeesh.
So for the time being, I'm determined to enjoy my liberation to the fullest. I've been working pretty much without a vacation for the last six years, so for now I'm going to by-god take one. My last day at work was a week ago; this week I saw three movies, got in a decent two-hour bike ride and managed to arrange a (most delightful) booty call. If I can do this for another couple of weeks I ought to be pretty well recharged!
Nevertheless, I could really use a steady paycheck. If any of you folks know of an opening for a mid-level software engineer -- preferably Unix although I now officially have Windows coding experience to put on my resume -- please give me a shout. Resume at http://www.unchi.org/~twp/resume.html.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
I have two words to say about this:
Date: 2003-05-31 07:40 am (UTC)Goat.
Re: I have two words to say about this:
Date: 2003-05-31 07:39 pm (UTC)And this may be an actionable firing. An at-will employee can be fired for no reason at all, but if the company gives a reason it has to be justifiable, and some reasons are totally verbotten. (Usual legal disclaimers, which add up to: consult a competent atty if you want to follow this up. I might be able to find one for you, if you want.)
no subject
Date: 2003-05-31 08:20 am (UTC)-a,
Projects included:
* "Phoenix," a WYSIWYG Web editor/browser (Tcl and C).</pre></blockquote> Oh, so <b>you're</b> the reason Phoenix had to rename itself to <a href="http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firebird/">Mozilla Firebird</a>!
-a, <g,d,r>
no subject
Date: 2003-05-31 05:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-05-31 07:39 pm (UTC)there. My ex-boss said they wouldn't contest any unemployment
application, and that he'd give me a reference and wouldn't "dump
all over me," so I don't particularly feel like raising a ruckus
about it. Like you said, I'm probably better off not working for
them, and while I wouldn't mind having stayed on a few more months
so some of my options could vest I don't think it's worth the
struggle.
Plus I already signed a release. :-)
The stated reason for termination is essentially "wasn't a good fit
with the rest of the team," which insofar as it means "my co-workers
didn't like me" is more or less accurate. :-) I think they're being
pretty stupid but not acting outside their legal grounds.
one more thing...
Date: 2003-05-31 05:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-06-01 12:59 pm (UTC)On the considerably less dismal side, maybe this means I'll end up seeing more of you in the near future! That would be lovely!