
On being the employee who “needs improvement” - jamiepenney
http://www.virtuouscode.com/2017/07/14/on-being-the-employee-who-needs-improvement/
======
humanrebar
I don't know what the motivations for the bosses in this story were, but in
corporate America personal improvement plans are fundamentally about gearing
up to fire someone more than any actual improvement. When defending yourself
against a wrongful termination lawsuit, it looks good to courts to say, "Look,
we met every week, we had these conversations, and things didn't get better
enough."

In the story linked, it seems like the author was prioritizing family or
health over work at times (me: Good! We need more of that!). The employer
can't just fire you for that as it looks a lot like wrongful termination. So
they need to build up a paper trail.

~~~
tigershark
Honestly to me it seems that the author was _extremely_ unprofessional. He
just disappeared for _whole days_ without letting anyone know. In all the
companies that I worked it was explicitly mentioned in the contract that such
behaviour was subject to disciplinary actions up to dismissal.

~~~
JimDabell
It really depends on how the team was being run.

Some remote teams are like co-located teams and work synchronously with set
office hours. Other remote teams work asynchronously instead and individuals
are free to arrange their work and life as they see fit. In the latter case,
if somebody is working on a task that'll take a few days, not hearing from
them for a day or two isn't unusual or a problem.

It sounds like perhaps he thought all remote work was asynchronous, but his
employer wanted him to work synchronously. But it would take a severe
communications breakdown for that to get to the point where a weekly
performance review was needed. Normally, you'd talk about how this all works
before the person is even hired.

But honestly, when he describes it as humiliating, having a problem with being
managed by younger people, and characterising being "judged" by his bosses as
threatening, it does give the impression that the prima donna label isn't far
wide of the mark. It's absolutely fine for younger people to manage older
people, it's not humiliation to have weekly meetings to resolve a performance
problem, and your bosses judging your performance is not a threat, it's a
mandatory part of their role.

~~~
avip
I've never seen a remote setup wherein being unreachable for more than 1 day
during normal work days would come across as legit. It sounds downright
unprofessional.

~~~
JimDabell
It's not. You're judging asynchronous/remote working styles according to
synchronous/co-located standards. There isn't necessarily any such thing as a
"normal work day". Monday–Friday 9:00–5:30 isn't 100% applicable when your
team members aren't in the same time zones or observe the same
national/religious holidays. So long as they get the work done when they say
they will, the exact hours they work aren't important.

~~~
avip
No, I'm judging by my extensive experience co-working with remotes. No "time
zone" makes it legit to be non-responsive for over 24h during work days. It's
100% ok to be not working but that's referred to as "day off" and should be
communicated as such.

~~~
JimDabell
It's not just you that has extensive experience with this. Sure, _some_ teams
are managed synchronously as if they were co-located, but just because that's
what works for you, it doesn't mean that is the only way to do things. You
quite clearly have a concept of a standard work day because you keep going on
about "work days". Not all teams are run that way. If you communicate to your
team that you want them to work to set hours and they don't? Sure, that's
unprofessional. But stop pushing the idea that your way is the only way and
everybody else is unprofessional. Different teams have different norms.

~~~
dllthomas
I think it is misleading to label "expected to be responsive within 24 hours
during the work week" as "managed synchronously _as if co-located_ ". Sure,
there are even looser arrangements that can work great for some contexts. And
it's absolutely the case that norms vary. But "within 24 hours" more-or-less
puts all timezones on the same footing and is pretty far from co-location.

------
pweissbrod
The key to being a successful remote worker is a foundation of trust. Its
unfortunately Human Nature to assume the worst when a remote contact is
unreachable when you need them . Therefore it's crucial to establish a
reputation where your co-workers trust you to do the right thing connected or
not. The moral of the story is not about abusive bosses or misaligned
corporate goals. It's just about maintaining that crucial level of trust in
the team. And it's a two-way street . Both manager and employee play a an
active part. Personally I would never hire a remote worker I could not
confidently trust nor would I work for a place that didn't implicitly trust me

Edit - I've been a remote worker for over 10 years and will likely continue as
long as I possibly can

~~~
codyb
I find managing upwards is the best way to deal with these situations. I've
had micromanagers before and no one enjoys that random "hey wheres X at?"
question so what I do is give status updates every so often. I avoid the
stressful question entirely this way.

It makes your managers life easier and yours as well and allows you to give
updates on your time instead of theirs.

This works remotely and in person. I work my face off a lot of times so it's
valuable to turn the tables and not get caught in the middle of something with
a question that can take me out of work flow.

At the end of the day, managing people is very hard. Transperency works very
well for me.

~~~
e40
I can't stress how good the above comment is at dealing with this. As a long
time manager, people that behave this way are a total joy to manage.

Also, if you have a smartphone and your company uses slack, there is no reason
to be unreachable, unless you are in a deadzone of cell reception or driving.
But, if you practice the above, it shouldn't be an issue. For example, a post
to #OOO: hey, running an errand for the next hour, offline.

~~~
CydeWeys
Being unreachable during core business hours is definitely a huge problem from
the perspective of the non-remote employee (me) who's in the office for the
typical eight hours a day trying to get something done and being blocked by a
coworker who's unreachable because they're remote. If you a remote worker, the
onus is on you to never let the fact that you're not in the office become a
burden on your coworkers. If you end up being harder to work with because
you're less reachable then your coworkers will begin to resent you for it, and
that doesn't lead down a good path.

If you're not online and available during the expected business hours for your
position then you're not really doing 100% of your job, because you're not
able to assist your team members as is expected of your role.

Note that this applies to members of standard software engineering teams, and
not necessarily to contractual work that involves delivering products on
certain timetables but not necessarily close collaboration with a team.

~~~
sbov
Lots of places offer flexible business hours, even for people coming in the
office. Not everyone always takes lunch at the same time either. Even people
in the office are not 100% available all the time. Your attitude towards
remote workers seems unnecessarily hostile.

~~~
CydeWeys
You're misinterpreting my post. At my current job we are flexible -- people
come in and leave at different times, eat lunch at different times, etc. I'm
not expecting everyone to be at their desks from 10-6 all day every day.
That's why I said "core business hours". There's a difference between someone
who is unavailable because they're off eating lunch and someone who is
incommunicado for many hours at a time and impedes progress. I've seen remote
workers drastically slow down progress by simply being unavailable while all
of the non-remote workers are present and blocked on them for something. In
theory an onsite worker could do this too, but in practice they don't simply
disappear for hours at a time at the office.

~~~
sbov
Our team is usually fully remote. I've actually worked my full career in
mostly remote positions (15 years now). I've very rarely experienced people
randomly disappearing for hours at a time, and usually a simple text will
clear things up. However, if you work in a flexible office and your team has
core business hours, official or not, your manager should probably convey
this. This just falls under "managing expectations", and is not necessarily a
failure of the employee.

Sometimes emergencies will necessitate missing even core business hours. This
is more a matter of having more responsibilities (family, kids, etc) than
being remote though. But if an employee has these sorts of responsibilities,
I'm guessing they are more likely to take up remote work.

There are positives and negatives to hiring remote workers, and I think there
are several ways to compensate for the negatives. Obviously since I work
remotely I think the positives outweigh those negatives. But I also think
placing so much emphasis on one of the negatives, that I rarely experience in
practice, is extremely narrow sighted. But maybe your remote workers are bad
at working remotely, maybe your company is bad at managing remote workers, or
maybe there's confounding variables like the one I mentioned above.

~~~
CydeWeys
I think the answer is that the remote workers were just bad/slackers/not
devoted to their jobs. As I said, they failed to move upwards in the company
and some were even fired. This was not at a company that was a particularly
good or high-paying place to work, mind you. Maybe you've been luckier in the
caliber of people that you've worked with, but I contend that, in general,
across the entire workforce, it's not rare to see people taking liberties with
remote work.

------
darawk
> and I had been taking advantage of the freedom to prioritize family needs
> when they came up. To the degree that sometimes my bosses were left hanging,
> waiting for a day or more on my work.

> From my biased perspective, it is difficult to see how these “personal
> improvement programs” for a disappointing employee can ever be a
> constructive force.

> By the end, they were quite happy with my work.

...sounds pretty constructive to me?

~~~
peteretep
The biggest problem appears to be his/her having taken it very personally and
then subsequently holding a grudge.

------
whiddershins
I completely and intuitively understand what this employee is reacting to, and
I think the it is hard to articulate why the approach his managers took is not
great.

In this situation the managers could have gotten the same exact result without
making the employee feel humiliated. Something along the lines of "stuff is
falling through the cracks, let's do a meeting to touch base once a week so we
can make sure everything is going well."

In those once a week meetings, the managers could provide positive and
negative feedback in a balanced way.

However, once you've told an employee they are being "a prima Donna" and
basically you need fixing, every meeting is another denigrating experience.
That whole PIP idea makes sense for a paper trail justifying termination, but
is otherwise terrible for morale.

Edit: in all relationships, professional or personal, try to keep your
feedback specific and impersonal. "We need a reply to emails within 24 hours"
is much better than "you have a communication problem." "Don't yell at John
during meetings." Is way better than "you lose your temper too often."

Etc.

------
overgard
I agree that PIPs are mostly just HR covering themselves in firing an
employee, but this just reads like a long list of excuses for a person not
performing their job. Its at-will employment for both sides, the company isn't
obligated to care about your personal issues. If your work output isn't good,
it kinda doesn't matter if you have kids and your manager is younger -- theyre
giving you money for your work not because theyre your friend.

I think people that fall into this mindset should realize that most of the
kumbaya things companies say are pleasantries. Employment is a business
situation and its healthier to not get confused about that.

~~~
Consultant32452
I had a contract with a household name theme park company that is known for
treating its employees like disposable widgets. It made headlines a while back
by laying off tons of people and only keeping some on to train their offshore
replacements. That kinda place. So while I was there, there was this one guy
in the department who was almost never at work. He was always "working from
home." Occasionally he would turn in some work, but there was no way to really
justify his position. I came to find out that his wife was having serious
medical problems and he had been spending most of the last year at the
hospital 24/7\. Everyone on the team, including the manager, just picked up
the slack and not one word was ever said about him or his (lack of)
productivity.

I'm not sure I really had a point here, because this isn't about a company's
false kumbayas. However, even at a big megacorp people will sometimes take
care of one another when the going gets rough.

~~~
nate_meurer
What's with the fake obfuscation? Any reason to avoid saying simply "I worked
for Disney"?

------
ptero
Leaving aside the clear miscommunication that led to the "needs improvement"
state first, it seems to me the management did just fine after that:

1\. They quickly and clearly told the employee of the problem.

2\. They proposed a course of action

3\. Their proposal worked (at the end they were happy with his work).

It was not pleasant for sure (for both sides, I bet), but would it be worse to
say nothing and terminate him for non performance in a couple of extra months.
My 2c.

~~~
ggambetta
My thoughts exactly - this is a clear case of the process working as intended.

~~~
canes123456
The intended process ends with the employee being fired. The only reason to do
a PIP is to cover the companies ass when they get fired or encourage them to
quit. This person frankly messed up by staying at the company.

The correct way to do this if they actually want to let the employee improve:

\- Ask the employee if there is anything going on with their life \- Ask them
how they feel they are doing and validate them \- Tell them about some of your
concerns \- Let them explain their side of your concerns \- Propose a way to
improve the situation where both parties are happy \- Reiterate that they are
happy with the work otherwise

If the employee improves, encourage them and make them feel safe in the room.
Repeat the steps if the situation does not improve. If this doesn't work start
the official PIP, i.e. start slowly firing them.

------
bitshepherd
I've been on both ends of the spectrum, from being PIP'd out the door to never
hear from them again -- after burning bridges to be there and dedicating years
to the mission -- to getting multiple base salary increases in a year and
"keep doing what you're doing, you're definitely getting noticed".

Getting fired is definitely not the end of the world. In fact, I'd say it's
more a measure of the employer/employee compatibility. The hardest part of the
interview is determining "do I want to count on this guy/gal/team/company
every day?" and sometimes it takes getting shown the door to realize that the
answer was "no" all along. From my perspective, if you've never been fired,
you've never tested the boundaries of your employability.

~~~
hiddenkrypt
Unfortunately, the hard part of every subsequent interview with other
employers is "So what happened at company X? You were fired, right?"

I've been through what the author is describing, but in an on-site office
position. It's horrid. They're exactly right on how these processes poison all
other interactions. My boss would call me in to ask if I was going to the
company picnic, but the history meant that every "Hey, can you see me in my
office real quick?" was a gut-wrenching terror moment, certain that I was
getting fired or told off again, or something.

~~~
bitshepherd
It's easier to deal with than you think. Don't outright admit to a firing when
the question comes up. I'm not saying make something up on the fly, because
they'll smell the bullshit, but think of how you can spin your termination in
a positive light. Leaving because a project was completed/cancelled or company
priorities changed is generally seen positively, even if the truth is you were
fired from one of those jobs for being incompatible with the rigors of the
role.

If you're just coming out of a firing, the worst thing you can do is have a
mea culpa moment of clarity when you're negotiating for your bottom line.
You'll get the old standard, "thanks for your time", and away they go to the
next person, who may have also been fired, but bent the truth in their favor
to get the job.

------
qaq
OK I've being working remotely for close to 10 years, most places were very
flexible about hours and taking time during the work day for family things
etc. But one things none was ever flexible about is remote employees dropping
off com. channels for days. I think that is clear abuse of trust and the main
fear why so few jobs are remote in the first place.

~~~
andreasgonewild
That would depend on the level of trust and whatever agreements you made.
There are jobs like that, some people aren't into owning slaves but still need
outside expertise. Which is nice, since some of us are more into living than
being slaves.

~~~
qaq
Sure they are called consulting does not have much to do with the article
though. Comparing slavery to having a super flexible very high paying job with
only hard requirement being timely communication just shows how much some of
us in tech are detached from reality.

------
curtis
I feel like many of the commenters here are missing the point of the post.

> _My takeaway from pondering this today is pretty straightforward:_

> _Talk to your people. Don’t wait. Do it now, and never stop. If they are
> meeting expectations, thank them regularly. If they aren’t meeting your
> needs or the needs of others in the company, tell them now. Don’t wait until
> you find yourself identifying “patterns”._

and then a little later:

> _If you can identify an incompatibility like this early enough, it doesn’t
> even have to be rancorous. Incompatibility happens. Nobody needs to feel
> like a failure over it._

When the author is relating his own experience, he's not saying there was no
problem to be addressed. What he's saying is he thinks that situation (and
many others like it in our industry) can be handled better, and he wraps up
the post by taking about what some of those ways might be.

~~~
hosh
Agreed. I am learning something called "crucial conversations" right now.
These are conversations where opinions vary, stakes are high, and emotions run
strong. People have an aversion to having these conversations. It usually ends
in silence or violence.

The book I am drawing this from claims that handling it is a skill that is
teachable and learnable. I have been trying to apply what little I have
learned so far and it had been working way better than what I have been using.

------
empath75
If you get to the point that you're on a personal improvement plan, you should
immediately look for other work. There are no circumstances in which it will
turn around.

~~~
crusso
_There are no circumstances in which it will turn around_

Note that you used the passive voice, as though the circumstances are
completely out of the employee's control.

~~~
Sir_Substance
>Note that you used the passive voice, as though the circumstances are
completely out of the employee's control.

If you've been put on a PIP, it means your employer has decided if your work
doesn't get better, they're going to fire you.

Provided you haven't been phoning it in, this means you have to give an
unsustainable amount in order to reach what they want from you. Seeing as how
that's unsustainable, you're going to fail eventually.

These processes aren't really designed to help rectify the issue, they're
designed to cover the companies arse against union action.

~~~
crusso
_if your work doesn 't get better, they're going to fire you_

How is that completely out of the employee's control?

 _Provided you haven 't been phoning it in_

And maybe they have, which means they can do something about it.

~~~
Sir_Substance
>How is that completely out of the employee's control?

Employers often ask too much of their employees. It's why unions exist.

------
paulsutter
When an employee isn't working out, it's almost always because the role is a
bad fit and not because they have deficiencies as an engineer or as a person.

That's why performance improvement programs are so degrading and insulting.
The person doesn't need to change, they need to be in a role that's better
suited to their abilities, temperament, or whatever is causing the mismatch.
Often that role is in a different company and if so then great because
everyone is better off and that's a good thing.

------
throwme_1980
I honestly think your employers have been super generous already, one ought to
know what is expected of him/her and realise they shouldn't leave themselves
open to criticism by abusing the trust of the employer, always be in a
positive balance, put in more than you take out and make sure it gets
visibility.

I wouldn't keep someone who is not performing for whatever reason, because by
the time I lose trust in that person, in my mind he's pretty much out of the
door. Because this is business , it's not a charity , one is responsible for
their own life.

As for those who say ' company culture and fairness ' I say your competitors
are already eating your lunch

~~~
mattmanser
If a boat veers off course and you don't touch the tiller, you're a bad
sailor.

If an employee veers off course and you wait until you're ready to terminate
them before you say anything, you're a bad manager.

And it's not always them, it's sometimes you. Have you never thrived under one
manager, been reshuffled and then suffered under another?

~~~
throwme_1980
Mediocrity cannot be remedied, unless you are a big company where you have
dedicated departments to cater for these sort of people ( and by the way, they
aim to accomplish the same outcome, just a little bit slower and more
paperwork). All I am saying is, an employee has no business performing a job
he/she cannot do unless he is a trainee with a good attitude. I leave this
comment section with one last nugget of wisdom :

There are more skilled and deserving individuals looking for jobs that they
can't get because a bad manager is holding on to a mediocre employee.

~~~
s73ver
"Mediocrity cannot be remedied"

Nobody said anything about mediocrity, and nowhere in the story does it say
that quality of work was the reason for the PIP.

------
ryanmarsh
At this point in my career I've realized that if you're told your performance
"needs improvement" and someone isn't assigned to mentor you and help you
perform better then you should start looking for a new job.

Not apprenticing you is like saying "you suck, fix yourself". No. That's not
the culture you want to be a part of.

I've been that guy. There have been times someone helped me and I grew and it
was awesome. There have also been times I wasn't helped and there was a ton of
unnecessary thrashing. It's just bad leadership. My guess is the work
environment is maybe a little toxic in other ways too.

------
tuxxy
When I was 20, I was a lead engineer on a project with an upcoming deadline.
There was a disagreement on how to implement something. As the lead engineer
on the project, it was my job to break these "ties" so to speak, especially in
the wake of a deadline. I thought about and made my decision. When the next
meeting about this disagreement occurred, I informed them of my decision. I
expressed my frustrations in the decision in solidarity with my team (there
was no perfect solution), but said we don't have any more time to budget for
this issue.

I was calm, but assertive. I also express myself whilst talking by using my
hands. Apparently, the older engineer was upset and informed my manager about
my "tone". My manager was in the meeting and disagreed that my tone was bad
and said it was up to me if I wanted to apologize.

So I did. Even though I felt I was perfectly fine, I apologized. The reason
why I did was for team cohesion. If it means that I can work well with that
engineer again and not have them hold something over me, I'll suck up my pride
and apologize for something that I feel I didn't do.

------
blowski
My takeaway from this is that frequent 1 to 1s are a good idea for every
single employee, from the day you start to the day you leave the company.

You need to use them for positive feedback as well as negative, and general
chats about progress and ideas.

~~~
tigershark
They are utterly and completely useless. You should speak with your boss
continuously, regardless of the 1 on 1s. Maybe it's a coincidence but with all
the worst bosses that I had we had 1 on 1s. It's just a way to hide their
incompetence in my opinion.

~~~
Scarblac
What is the difference between a one on one and speaking with your boss? I use
them as synonyms.

~~~
sverhagen
Managers need to be available when things happen. I mean, they have other
meetings, but during the day they should be able to give or receive
"immediate" feedback; don't wait until the scheduled weekly (if you're that
lucky) one-on-ones. However, if everybody is busy, and there's no immediate
need to walk into each other's (virtual) office, it's good to have the
scheduled interactions, to make sure you're still aligned as well as still
pleasantly interacting as humans. (If the latter wasn't the case in the first
place, maybe... wrong job.)

~~~
rorykoehler
1 on 1s are not for feedback on day to day stuff. They are supposed to cover
the more meta aspects not related directly to delivering on a daily basis. If
your boss is using 1 on 1s to cover operational stuff they're wasting the
opportunity to help improve the team wellbeing and progress.

~~~
sverhagen
I don't think we really had a disagreement, here. Just keep in mind that one-
on-ones vastly differ between companies and managers, among other things in
frequency.

------
Shivetya
I find that PIPs tend to compensate for bad management in general. By that I
mean I know where everyone is on their projects and weekly checkups are a
norm, if not more than once. I know a few people who have been on PIP at work,
I have don't know how many don't complete it but it does tend to correct their
manager as well since HR follows through with insuring that the program is
followed. It is a program, HR has a check list of items that must be met each
week by both manager and employee. This tends to remove some of the stress on
the employee as they do see both sides have to play ball.

that being said there have been a few put on PIP I think would be better
separated. I guess from this standpoint it does serve to protect company
interest.

I do know that working remote introduces all new problems, the hardest I had
to learn was to not let myself be distracted and I actually ended up with a
personal check list that became natural after a time. I now understand how to
make sure those who get more than one WFH effectively use this privileged and
keep it.

~~~
jmull
If you're willing and have the list in convenient form, would you share it?

------
madeofpalk
What an interestingly bizarre article.

What we're all missing is how these things were presented - were the managers
being unreasonable dicks in the way they talked about

"Mismatched expectations" about availability aside, what does the author
expect when they're supposedly letting their team down?

I've had a number of conversations with managers were they've told me I'm
letting them down and I'm always incredibly grateful for them. Sure, they're
sometimes hard to hear, but I would much rather to receive feedback early so I
can act on it and be better at what I do.

Also not to mention how incredibly valuable I find regular peer-review cycles
(last 2 companies I've been to do these every 6 months). They've always found
it super helpful to be told what I should continue doing well and what I need
to improve on. Does everyone want to be the best at what they do?

~~~
mattmanser
That's not what happened though. Obviously we only see one side of it, but
this reads like they suddenly accuse him of being bad, and instead of letting
him self-correct, humiliate him by letting juniors micro-manage him. And gang
up on him, 2 against one.

------
dudul
I'm not sure what this post is complaining about. Whatever is advocated at the
end seems to be exactly what the managers at this company did.

How can the author say that they don't see the point in these plans what it
appears that they were able to correct their behavior and stay at the company
until it went under?

"By the end, they were quite happy with my work." Looks like the author is
building this whole drama out of nothing.

------
unfocused828
(Using an alt account for obvious reasons)

One thing I wish that I had been prepared for out of university is that there
is just a lot less feedback on how good of a job you're doing. Nobody grades
your work and there is a skill to getting specific feedback on your
performance.

Asking "how am I doing?" at a weekly or fortnightly 1-on-1 isn't going to get
you anything useful. You need to ask someone you're working with directly and
frame a question in terms of situation-action-?impact?. So "When you submitted
that PR and I pointed out two cases that I thought could use additional tests,
was that useful?"

------
tiredwired
It's important to know what parameters they use to determine who or what needs
improvement. There have been times when a manager told me there was a problem
and it turned out he had inaccurate information. The manager was looking at
the wrong version, branch or had 3rd hand information. Managers have claimed
to be unaware of what I was working on even with daily standups, task tracking
and working a few desks away. Some managers are terrible.

~~~
collyw
In my work it's nearly impossible to meet requirements or deadlines, because
requirements documents are non existing, and deadlines are pulled out of thin
air by non technical management. Fortunately they haven't complained about our
performance.

------
mc32
>"I realize if this is the most humiliating thing I’ve had to deal, this puts
me in a fairly privileged category"

Not necessarily.

Jay-Z once said, having grown up in the projects, dealing dope as well as
getting shot at, etc. none of that had been the most difficult thing in his
life. The most difficult thing in his life was dealing with personal turmoil
in his marriage.

People need to drop that thought that if you have money you are "privileged"
and therefore any issue that affects them mentally are really non-issues in
comparison.

>"it is difficult to see how these “personal improvement programs” for a
disappointing employee can ever be a constructive force. At best they seem
misguided. At worst they appear to be a cynical HR ploy to save face before
terminating an employee."

That is for sure. If your boss were to ever lose faith in your ability, seek
reassignment. There is little chance of recovery --and the cost of recovery,
where possible is too great. There will be eternal doubt in their mind. It's
the nature of the mind.

------
fizixer
Slightly off-topic anecdote:

I've been having conversations with a really smart friend of mine (PhD in one
of the sciences, and fairly good with programming) who decided to repurpose
himself as a software guy, got a job a couple years ago at one of the tech
giants (not the big four though).

Everytime I talk to him, he expresses annoyance that his team and lead are
dogmatic about CS principles and want him to modify his programming practices.
To give a few examples, he thinks being against using goto in C/C++ is
dogmatic, and that there is no need to develop a testing framework until the
software is developed, among a bunch of other things. All this while he piled
on at the rate of about 1000 lines a month into the codebase (he started this
project from scratch, surprise surprise).

I have been trying to convince him of the need to develop software engineering
skills and that it's more about lessons learned from history than being
dogmatic about anything.

Recently he started expressing interest in climbing the corporate ladder and
becoming a manager or something. Good for him, I didn't point out anything,
but to me, he felt like one of those types who are more interested in their
career bottomline than in developing good principles and practices of the work
they do (something that disappointed me coming from him based on the person I
knew for many years).

Just recently I heard he got awarded for the software he developed. (For
context, the company is a tech giant but not mainly-software. I was very
surprised to find out that they don't have an internal document or guide on
coding conventions, hence a developer gets to do whatever he/she likes).

Point of the story? not much except that it's another data point supporting my
cynicism towards short-termist and superficial attitude of majority of people,
especially those involved in the corporate culture.

Because I can see where this is going. This guy would want to become some kind
of manager as soon as he can, and hand over the development to someone else.
If that someone else has good software engineering skills, he/she would be
able to poke many holes in this codebase, and/or would be put in charge of
fixing the bugs (likely due to bad quality and hasty implementation of the
code). This will delay and slow down the progress of the project, because
fixing those bugs would involve fixing the quality of the code through heavy
refactoring, etc. And then this same manager would get to claim "When I was
developing, the project's pace was great, and now you guys have started
slacking off and creating lots of bugs".

~~~
jstimpfle
> he thinks being against using goto in C/C++ is dogmatic, and that there is
> no need to develop a testing framework until the software is developed

The important thing missing here - context. There are perfectly valid
situations where your friend could be right.

> he felt like one of those types who are more interested in their career
> bottomline than in developing good principles and practices of the work they
> do (something that disappointed me coming from him based on the person I
> knew for many years).

Maybe he wants to become a manager with good developped principles?

Of course you know your friend much better than we do. It's hard for outsiders
to judge the situation.

~~~
fizixer
> There are perfectly valid situations where your friend could be right.

I didn't say he thinks banning goto is dogmatic (and I never heard him say
that his team completely disallows any use of it). You could be against goto
and still be okay with its occasional use.

He seemed to be of the opinion that there is no reason to be against goto in
the first place, because he never felt goto's use hurting his productivity.
(and his use of goto, the way he explained it, definitely was more complicated
than the rare cases where I think you could let it slide, e.g., the way it's
used in the linux kernel code to get to the bottom of a function in case of
failure, etc).

And why should we be against goto in the first place? Unfortunately, you
cannot answer this question in one sentence, or a paragraph. "Go To Statement
Considered Harmful" is not a theorem that has a proof. You have to read about
it, and ideally, you have to experience what spaghetti code feels like, and
what a goto-free codebase feels like. If you're not willing to take such a
dive, you would never find out the answer. And if you have opinions in favor
of goto without taking such a dive, don't be surprised if I lower my opinion
about you as a scientist/engineer.

> Maybe he wants to become a manager with good developped principles?

And call me a negative nancy but your chances of developing good practices
have diminished if your bad coding practices are reinforced through internal
awards and the like. And I have no doubt his contributions may have felt
significant to the higher ups enough to decide this deserves an award. But
only in the short term. If this code gives problems in the next quarter or
something, do they go back and review if the hasty implementation in the last
quarter and liberal use of goto had anything to do with it? Likely not if your
company doesn't even have a coding-conventions document.

~~~
sbov
I think it's pretty simple to make the case for goto, or any construct, being
harmful in a work environment. Code is ultimately social, and if your
colleagues find it difficult to read or use, then by definition it is harmful.

For another example, I love functional programming, but my colleagues hate it.
It is, by definition, harmful for me to use at work.

------
elmerland
I'm confused about this article. On the one side I agree with his point on
constant and timely feedback. On the other side I disagree with his dismissal
of yearly reviews and weekly meetings.

You need these more formal environments to quantify the performance over a
longer period of time. In doing so you can correct for biases, and get
feedback not just from the manager but from everyone you work with.
Additionally you can aggregate the data company wide to see patterns and
hopefully try something new. I'm sure plenty of people do it wrong and that
might be a different conversation.

Maybe what the performance improvement was missing was a human touch. Giving
feedback without caring for the person can feel cold and calculating.

~~~
CydeWeys
It's also not clear to me how pay-for-performance and promote-for-performance
is supposed to work without some kind of systematized performance review
system. And I will say that, at least in my personal experience, pay-and-
promote-for-performance is _hugely_ important in getting the most out of your
software engineers.

~~~
walshemj
Performance based pay and the whole hr infrastructure around it is designed to
lower the pay quanta it has < 1% to do with rewarding performance.

~~~
CydeWeys
Why do you say that? And what exactly do you mean by "pay quanta"? Rewarding
and incentivizing high performance seems to obviously be in the business's
best interest, so why do you say they don't focus on it, even for the
companies that do it explicitly for that reason? Are you claiming they're
lying as to their motivations?

~~~
walshemj
quanta is hr speak for the increase in pay budget and yes in practice PRP is
used to depress pay

------
unfocused828
As someone on a PIP who is quite sure the problem is on my side, not the
company's, I wish there were mentors that a software engineer could hire to
help you figure out how to debug problems with his/her job performance.

------
nerdponx
I've been this person. I was not only somewhat surprised, I also felt
betrayed. It was apparent that complaints had been building for some time, but
I heard very little of those complaints in the form of direct feedback. It was
only in hindsight that I realized my coworkers had been subtly dropping hints
for a while.

It sucked. Then again, I actually did kind of suck at my job, too. So maybe
the real lesson here is that sucking at your job sucks, not just for you, but
for your managers and coworkers too (albeit for different reasons).

~~~
mulmen
Sounds like your manager dropped the ball. Management makes the big bucks to
avoid these situations, not pass blame to the people they fail. Firing an
employee should reflect at least as badly on management as it does on the
employee. Why did they hire you in the first place? Are their hiring policies
broken? Why are you expected to read minds?

~~~
nerdponx
I've asked myself similar questions, and it's good to hear that they aren't
unreasonable ones.

Readers might be interested to know that I actually made it through the PIP
period and kept my job. When a wave of layoffs came, however, I was let go. I
am sure that having been on the PIP contributed to their decision to cut me.

------
hosh
I wrote this on a thread off of the original blog post from Coraline. I
mentioned the content of a book called "Corporate Confidential" in which a
former HR professional talks about how corporations uses performance reviews
as a means to legally fire someone because they cannot fire someone for the
real reason. I said it was cynical though others viewed it otherwise.

This past week, our small team had brought in an executive coach that works
with the material from Crucial Conversations. A wiki summary was circulated
around. When I read it, I knew it applied to what was going on with our team
as well as personal relationships. Crucial conversations are moments when
opinions vary, the stakes are high, and emotions run strong. Being able to
have crucial conversations and handle them well allows someone to be
effective, influential, and helps out the team and community tremendously. The
follow-on book is called Crucial Accountability, which teaches how to deal
with people who breaks promises and violates expectations.

So I stand by what I said about the cynical view of "Corporate Confidential".
Using performance reviews to legally fire someone might sound like a case of
corporate greed and that is true to some extent. In addition, I think people
are -not- having those crucial conversations. It is easier to plot a way to
ease someone out than to have the crucial conversation about what is really
going on. Taking that frame with Coraline's story: if seems to me neither
Corolaine, nor the github manager was able to have crucial conversations. In
some ways, Coraline admitted to it in her blog post.

On a larger scale: Github had had various controversies. I wonder how much of
that came from not handling crucial conversations? People hold their silence
until they can't take it any more and it goes from silence to violence. Very
pubilcly.

These crucial conversations isn't just about managers being able to take to
employees and holding them accountable. It is also about employees being able
to talk to managers and holding them accountable too. It is about speaking
your truth -- adding meaning into the shared pool -- while still having mutual
respect and keeping a friend.

It is something I am deep diving now. I'm tired of the merry-go-rounds where
nothing seems to move forward, both in my professional and personal
relationships. The little bit I am grasping from this seems to be working.

~~~
TheRealDunkirk
My biggest takeaway from Crucial Conversations is that you have to be watching
out for when a conversation _turns_ crucial. This can sneak up on you,
especially in business. If you're having an argument with your significant
other, it's usually obvious, because of the emotions involved. But we tend to
let things slide with our colleagues, and people are _usually_ more reserved.
If you miss it, then it has to come back, and it always comes back harder. If
you can recognize when a (ongoing) conversation (first) turns critical, and
handle it appropriately at the time, it can prevent needing to be on a PIP.

Of course, some managers and reports are never going to get along well, and
you may just be in the crosshairs of ambitious jerk with a personal vendetta
for a perceived slight.

Ah, but I digress.

------
kafkaesq
Anytime they say that -- what they really mean is that they only way for you
to "improve" is to GTFO.

Another (not so gentle reminder) to follow this poster's advice, and make sure
to always have a decent emergency fund saved up, at all times.

So that when something like this does happen -- and it has happened to nearly
all the best people I know, at one point or another, that they are told, in
one way or another (either directly, in "secret code", aka PIP): "Look, we
don't think this is working out" \-- you can be prepared to say the natural,
adult, self-assured thing: "Well, I'm sorry to hear that. Do you want me to
agree to separate from you, or do you want to separate from me -- and if so,
on what terms"?

Because really, no one has time for soul-killing head games like PIP.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14776772](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14776772)

------
mnm1
I disagree on the yearly reviews. I find that only companies that had them
gave yearly raises. So while I don't particularly like the idea of being
reviewed, you're going to be informally anyway, so you might as well get a
raise for it. A lot of people, myself included, have a very difficult time
approaching the topic of raises and other salary negotiations and a set,
yearly review helps alleviate that. And if the company is going to give a
yearly raise, whether there is an official review process or not, you can bet
money that anyone getting a raise has been 'reviewed,' even if only in the
boss's mind.

------
notadoc
Everyone "needs improvement"

Yes, even if you're the top performer or you think you're the smartest person
on your team.

~~~
walshemj
yep give me any employee and any company's performance management system and I
could have them on a pip inside of 9 months

~~~
tome
Ah, Cardinal Richelieu. Thanks for stopping by.

------
lr4444lr
The problem with posts like this is that we only get one side of the story.
Bottom line, _everyone_ \- up to your top performer - "needs improvement", so
the phrase is meaningless. The world isn't static, and if your employees don't
demonstrate a reasonable interest in continual improvement, it's a bad sign.
If am employee is operating unsatisfactorily now, objective benchmarks and
timelines need to be set, not weekly meetings, unless the employee is asking
for that level of feedback.

