One of my husband’s coworkers was fired yesterday. Shortly after, his boss sent out an email to the group explaining why she was fired (poor performance). That just seemed unprofessional, because she was no longer able to defend herself. Not only that, but it seemed to be a bit of a threat: Do good, or you’re out of here. (I realize that’s an understood, but the email just came across as sinister.)
Then today the manager was going through her stuff (I’m guessing the stuff she didn’t want to take home), and asking if anyone wanted it. It’s as if she wasn’t a person worthy of respect; just a problem that had to be dealt with.
The manager is a tool. The e-mail should not have been sent for privacy reasons, which is why personnel folders are kepy in a locked filing cabinet and not made available to the staff. If the boss felt compelled to send an e-mail, it should simply have stated “Julie Soandso is no longer with the company. Her client list will be handled by Joe Soandso, or forwarded to a supervisor.”
The office supplies should have been put back in the storage room, left alone on the desk (it would have been picked through eventually), or thrown out without comment.
Is he boss’s supervisor aware of his course of action, re the e-mail and desk antics?
Depending on exactly what the manager said and the wording involved, he could have opened the company up to liability. Yes, it seems a tad unprofessional, not very classy and demonstrates poor judgment.
I don’t know if they’re aware or not. It would be upsetting if they were and didn’t have a problem with it. I’ve always been fond of the classic, “So-and-so has decided to seek external opportunities, effective immediately.” Sure, you know it’s BS, but you know the company at least respects you enough to keep secret the reason for your termination. When our CIO was fired on a Friday afternoon, that’s what the email said.
He’s noticed other unprofessional activities from this manager. Foul language, for one. Neither of us have a problem with the word “fuck,” but we both feel it’s inappropriate in a conservative office setting. Telling him he can download “whatever he wants” to his computer. Fortunately, he knows better than to risk that.
[obligatory Office Space quote]
John C. McGinley as Bob Slydell: We find it’s always better to fire people on a Friday. Studies have statistically shown that there’s less chance of an incident if you do it at the end of the week. [/oOSq]
Saying that she was fired for poor performance is unprofessional. The implied threat that people get canned if they don’t produce is always present.
Giving away the stuff she didn’t want is OK. It is almost traditional to go thru the desks of departed employees where I work and grabbing stuff they left as unwanted.
Telling why a person was let go (fired) from a job to the entire department is, I would think, a violation of the Privacy Act. The manager should not have disclosed that info to the entire group as it is unprofessional, unethical and just plain juvenille. The woman deserves to have her privacy in why she was fired. I agree with Dogzilla that that boss set the company up for a liability issue. Maybe your husband could find someway to let HR or the managers supervisor about what has happened in a way that it would not come back to bite him in the a** (aka revenge from the supervisor). Going through the desk is what most people probably would have done eventually, I would assume.
That happened in an office where I worked once. The boss called us in and told us that “Jay” had been fired; that he hadn’t been up to par, and that he had overstated his experience prior to being hired. Most of us could see it coming. This was before desktop email, though we did have mail on the server in those days.
In all fairness, I don’t think it’s so awful to make such an announcement. Because:
(1) the person will obviously be gone, a topic that would be best explained away quickly. Kind of like bannings here.
(2) those working on projects with the fired person certainly need to know he won’t be there to lend his support, such as it was
(3) being fired for chronic nonperformance is a fairly basic concept that shouldn’t be a threat to anybody.
Not only is the manager’s behavior unprofessional, it also seems completely uinproductive to me.
After all, if the woman was really a poor performer, as the email suggested, then surely her co-workers would already be aware of this. People tend to notice when they have to pick up the slack for an underperformer.
And if the woman was actually a good performer, and was fired for some other reason, the co-workers are probably aware of this too, and aren’t going to respect the manager too much for bullshitting.
There’s been a rash of firings at my workplace lately, with long detailed memos going out about when/why/how. No names are specifically mentioned, but we know who’s been fired and what their positions are so the “privacy” of not naming names is illusory at best. As far as the implied threat–they aren’t even that subtle here. The last e-mail ended with the comment “Sub-par performance and non-compliance will NOT be tolerated. Do your work carefully to avoid joining your former coworkers.” :eek:
I’m torn in my answer. On the one hand, it seems unprofessional, but then on the other hand, if nothing is said, people feel as if management is being unneedfully secretive.
A year ago a VP fired a manager. Upper management simply told everyone that he would be leaving. People felt betrayed that no one would give them the courtesy of an explanation for his absence. Management was trying to protect his privacy. If they had told us the details, I’m sure people would have thought it was unprofessional. It is a tough thing.
Going through her stuff was unproffesional however.
For a manager to tell people that an employee was terminated for a crappy job is extremely unprofessional. And doing it in an e-mail creates a permanent record (which you might want to keep, by the way - just in case), which is even worse for many companies. What a shit head.
As for going through her stuff and asking if anyone wants it, I don’t see that as that big a deal; however, it does seem a bit…for lack of a better word, indiscrete.
As a slight hijack, the last time someone was fired at the company I worked at previously, my manager took all of us out to drinks to celebrate. No one had like him, but it seemed horrible to celebrate someone else’s demise. Given that I was taking over that individual’s duties, I felt extremely uncomfortable. Just because I didn’t like the guy doesn’t mean I’d like to dance on his grave, so to speak.
The standard somebody just got axed message here is: “Effective immediately Soandso is no longer employed with the company.”
If someone is resigning: “Soandso has elected to resign effective suchandsuch date. We wish Soandso all the best in his or her future endeavors.”
I think it’s best to let others know when somebody is no longer there or is planning to leave.
To say that Soandso is terminated for poor performance (or whatever) is IMHO very unprofessional, not to mention putting the company at a risk for liability down the line.
Vulturing left over office stuff is a time honored tradition, so I got no problem with that.
overlyverbose I have been known to hum a couple of choruses of “Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead” when a less than desireable co-worker is gone, but going out to celebrate as an office, Yikes! That guy must have been some kind of piece of work.
Unprofessional and there is no need. Everyone knows the code:
After 25 years of service, Soandso has decided to retire. We wish him the best. (translation, he retired)
After 10 years of service, Soandso has decided to pursue other opportunities. His last day will be June 18th. He will be sorely missed and we wish him the best (translation, found another job - but not with a competitor, gave notice)
Soandso has decided to pursue other opportunities. Effective immediately, Whatshisface will be responsible for Widget Marketing until a replacement is found. (either we canned soandso, or he is going to a competetor. People who know Soandso will be able to keep the gossip chain informed of which).
When we do lay offs, we don’t release anything at all. They just are gone…and the gossip chain has to put pieces together.
We just recently had a tech fired for excessive absenteeism, and there was no official announcement of any type. I happened to be looking over the new schedule (we just hired a lot of people and a lot of others are changing their hours), trying to figure out who I was working with and when and noticed that she wasn’t on the schedule. I pointed this out to my supervisor, thinking she’d made a mistake, and she told me that the person in question was “off the schedule.” I thought that was a pretty good way to put it, because when a full-time employee suddenly and without warning goes off the schedule in a fairly small workplace, there aren’t that many possible explanations. If she’d quit or gotten sick or injured, they would have just said “She quit,” or “She’s on sick leave,” so that leaves her getting canned.
And it may have been unprofessional of me, but the next day I cleaned out her locker and appropriated it for my own use. Hey, there aren’t enough to go around as it is; no sense in letting one sit there full of a former employee’s stuff.
We have had employees escorted out in handcuffs and have said nothing but “chose to persue other career options.” Well, it’s the truth. Grist for the rumor mill for a while, then people move on.
I think going through her stuff and asking if anyone wanted any of it was sort of the icing on the cake. Otherwise it wouldn’t have bothered him. I don’t think it was office supplies, since those belong to the company anyway. I think it was stuff like specialty tea bags that she left. I don’t know; I think I would’ve waited a few days to take the sting out of it.
I dunno, it makes sense to me. Consider the alternative- management doesn’t give a reason, and next thing you know the rumor mill has her fired for making a pass at a married coworker or something.
What would Cecil do? Oooh, I know… when somebody gets banned the mods tell us why!
