I was written up for being too pessimistic. It was about 8 years ago, I was a project manager at a small retail company. I was in a small meeting with my boss and the owner of the company. I was telling the owner all the possible risks associated with this new project I was given, the major one being that we didn’t have enough time to complete everything by the owner imposed deadline. Calling out risks is literally one of the main responsibilities of being a project manager. Also the meeting went fine, no one got upset, it seemed everyone understood. A few days later I get called into HRs office with a write up for basically being a Debbie Downer. I was told to be more positive with my updates and stay away from any bad news. I was in total shock! A few days later I put my notice in and found a new job making twice as much. So it all worked out in the end. Thanks for the motivation Todd!
Worked for a company that hired some Harvard guy who fired the QA team for “being down on the product.” He didn’t see value in a team of people who did nothing but test the software and report what was wrong with it.
Right? I wish I had that same confidence in my own code, let alone an entire team of devs’! He probably carries his balls around in a wheelbarrow to pull something like that.
in most companies formal interactions, like writing people up, have to go through HR. Tha you can write people up in the US for such silly things is truly remarkable though. In my country writing someone up is only valid, if they violated the terms of their contract or disobeyed proper and legal procedures. While i guess you could write “has to be positive all the time” in the contract or company regulations it would not hold in court.
The write up is a requirement for the later firing in a lot of cases. Yes some places are at will employment anfmd you can technically just fire a person, but having a paper trail helps if they sue for wrongful termination.
I’m doing a business course atm and the professor has worked in risk management for a very long time. Probably the first thing she told us about risk management is how careful you have to be and how hard it is to get people to actually talk about risks for this exact reason. It’s ridiculous, you’d think people would want to cover their bases. She also mentioned this is why it’s almost always outsourced, so nobody in the company has to be the bad guy.
I was written up for being too pessimistic. It was about 8 years ago, I was a project manager at a small retail company. I was in a small meeting with my boss and the owner of the company. I was telling the owner all the possible risks associated with this new project I was given, the major one being that we didn’t have enough time to complete everything by the owner imposed deadline. Calling out risks is literally one of the main responsibilities of being a project manager. Also the meeting went fine, no one got upset, it seemed everyone understood. A few days later I get called into HRs office with a write up for basically being a Debbie Downer. I was told to be more positive with my updates and stay away from any bad news. I was in total shock! A few days later I put my notice in and found a new job making twice as much. So it all worked out in the end. Thanks for the motivation Todd!
Worked for a company that hired some Harvard guy who fired the QA team for “being down on the product.” He didn’t see value in a team of people who did nothing but test the software and report what was wrong with it.
Damn, what a chad
Right? I wish I had that same confidence in my own code, let alone an entire team of devs’! He probably carries his balls around in a wheelbarrow to pull something like that.
*shart
hr being involved sounds like middle management butt hurt.
in most companies formal interactions, like writing people up, have to go through HR. Tha you can write people up in the US for such silly things is truly remarkable though. In my country writing someone up is only valid, if they violated the terms of their contract or disobeyed proper and legal procedures. While i guess you could write “has to be positive all the time” in the contract or company regulations it would not hold in court.
The write up is a requirement for the later firing in a lot of cases. Yes some places are at will employment anfmd you can technically just fire a person, but having a paper trail helps if they sue for wrongful termination.
That’s embarrassing… for them
I’m doing a business course atm and the professor has worked in risk management for a very long time. Probably the first thing she told us about risk management is how careful you have to be and how hard it is to get people to actually talk about risks for this exact reason. It’s ridiculous, you’d think people would want to cover their bases. She also mentioned this is why it’s almost always outsourced, so nobody in the company has to be the bad guy.