Is it normal to be dismissed from a job for no reason?

In My Humble Opinion
101

I guess to answer that question, I’ll paste the initial e-mail I wrote to my boss, to which the reply was posted earlier.

**As for professional advice, I would want to avoid whatever it was that motivated my dismissal. Company restructuring generally isn’t targeted to one individual, and to the best of my knowledge in [company name] history, I am the sole recipient. So I feel like whatever happened, I need to fix it, but without any actionable feedback to back up the decision, I’m sort of at a loss. My conversations with friends haven’t really yielded any insight.

I understand that dismissals are sensitive, so the ‘party line’ tends to be pretty vague for liability reasons, and being that it likely wasn’t your initiative, you can’t speak on behalf of others… so maybe I need something a little more informal. What’s in it for you? Nothing … This is a tough sell.

I’m also asking because a “Confirmation of Employment” is not something I can give to an employer without it raising some red flags in the hiring process. The more I look at the letter, the more I think it’s something a prospective employer might cock an eyebrow at. I imagine they would be asking, “Why not just give a letter of recommendation?” Sometimes, hiring companies simply want to know if your dismissal was voluntary. It’s easier than diving into the weeds.

I’m not trying to push you into a reference if that’s not something you’re comfortable with. I would be just as happy with some candid advice. I know that there are areas of professionalism that I need to work on - but I would just as soon hear it from someone closer to the source than guess at the motivation of others. There’s lots of general advice out there, but you know my situation from a manager’s perspective, so I would find your insight really valuable. **

To give a bit of perspective, there were two people in my role when it was restructured. I was targeted for dismissal, while he was allowed to stay on for months with no designated role. I don’t want to gossip, but this dude wanders in around 10am every morning, and while he is a loveable goof (super nice guy), has zero self confidence and requires hand-holding to accomplish even the simplest of tasks. I on the other hand was given a massive project with almost no oversight, that spanned 3 different departments and when I requested a bit of help, they cancelled it… which prompted them to dismiss me rather than confront me about their decision.

102

Yeah.

103

Seriously, you can pick me apart if you want. I know the visceral reaction here will be to attack. I’m no stranger to internet hatorade. I’m asking for you to put the brakes on that for a second and look at what I’m asking vs. what I received.

This assumption that I know what I did wrong is fine - I am not perfect. I’m sure if you drilled down you could justify a dismissal for anyone at any job at any time… It’s highly subjective. I’m asking for specific feedback. I know exactly why they don’t want to give it to me, but I’m asking for it nonetheless.

104

Let it go Syne. People get laid off all the time for a number of reasons. The company doesn’t owe you an explanation and frankly you’re losing face by continuing to pursue this.

You’ll never get an answer from them and it doesn’t matter.

Move on.

105

Frankly, little of that is my job as a manager, nor something I have time for. Sorry, I’m not your life coach. Someone else in your life should be mentioning you stink. If you haven’t figured out you are a racist by now, its not my problem except that you are currently MY liability. Ineptitude, I’m not here to teach you to be productive - you get ramp up time and taught the procedures we use. If we introduce a new technology, you get time to learn it. Still inept after a reasonable amount of time - you can’t waste my time or your coworkers having someone coach you - we don’t have time for that nonsense.

This is the workplace, not grade school. I hire professionals, if you are inept, you aren’t.

Oh, and workplace romances. Yeah, that was stupid. If you are looking at how to be a better employee next time, don’t do that at work. From a management perspective, it has very little upside and a big potential downside (from disrupting the workplace when two coworkers are too busy canoodling to get things done and everyone else starts bitching to the lawsuit when she breaks up with him and he starts stalking her at work). Also, by the way, not professional. The day I want to suspect two coworkers are dating is the day I’m asked to change the HR paperwork from single to married.

106

Again, he gave you a reason. Position eliminated. This isn’t hatorade - it’s reality. I reiterate - what reason can they give that you would be satisfied with? Make one up, I’m curious what you’re thinking here.

If I got an email like that…No way in hell I’m responding. At most I’ll forward it to HR. I would consider blocking the address.

As an anecdote - if there was a person that I wanted to let go but realities of the situation made that difficult, a RIF is much easier than discipline. Moving them to a project and then canceling the project some time later is a good strategic way to execute the RIF.

107

RIF?

108

An earlier poster posted this, which I would tend to agree with.

The problem with what you said, is I think you could use your reasoning to justify an extremely passive management style, where you avoid employee confrontation at all costs. Part of a manager’s job is to set expectation for those he/she is overseeing and feedback is part of that process.

If you don’t enjoy the ‘people’ aspect of being a manager, then I would suggest moving into a more administrative role. While I appreciated my manager didn’t micromanage my tasks, he also did absolutely nothing to oversee my work or set expectations. My project was pretty much driven 100% by me, and if I’m being perfectly honest, the only reason it failed was lack of political will at the senior levels. My manager didn’t know enough about my work to stand up for me, and it resulted in a poisonous narrative… and I wasn’t part of the discussion.

In the future if I’m ever given such a large project to drive, I will either ask for the agency to execute it on my own, or request support at the business level to avoid this happening again.

109

Very often that’s the case with projects. If they don’t really want to do them, but can’t manage the political clout to kill them outright, they give them to someone, let it passively fail, then send that someone out the door with the project. Its project scapegoating, happens all the time.

Is it good management?..its the way things are done.

110

Hi Syne,

Thank you for your wonderfully written e-mail. As mentioned, your dismissal wasn’t performance related. I actually think your project had the potential to be quite valuable. However, as you know, there’s a 70-year-old woman who is the sister-in-law of the Operations Director, and your work would have essentially put her out of a job.

So instead of engaging in any sort of conflict resolution or backing up your work, I allowed her voice to negatively speak for the work that you did, which as you know, and she knew, was far too in-depth for her to understand. I was worried that if I backed you up, I would compromise my job, so I hid in the corner like a bitch while she came to her own ‘70-year-old community college graduate’ conclusions about your highly technical $300,000 project.

In the future, I will grow a pair and try to actually manage the people under me, instead of hanging them out to dry.

111

I worked it out, and the project cost the company about $300,000. They sent me to the UK for a week to train, then sent me to a conference in Vegas for a week. They also had a consultant help me out for 7 business days at over $2,000/day. Then they paid my salary, and bought the software which wasn’t cheap.

All this to let it passively fail?

I think they maybe thought they should get a better ROI for the money they spent, but didn’t realize that all the training in the world wasn’t going to convince that stubborn harpy to let me launch it. I was ready and willing, but kept getting excuses about why we had to put it off. It was at the point where I was begging for meetings and getting the cold shoulder. I would have loved to present my work, but they were hell bent on pissing away money.

112

I wonder if they tried getting her to chase a laser pointer.

113

You cannot be serious.

114

I agree 100% with this. The group I’m in suffers from a mix of personality traits that doesn’t just impede progress but causes management burnout. We’ve been through five directors in the last 10 years largely because of this (some of the directors have had their own personality issues too). These are government employees so there is no quick relief available through firing.

For instance, in meetings, it’s almost impossible to make a statement about anything without provoking a pedantic debate that adds another 15-20 minutes onto the discussion and makes you want to tear your hair out. There are one too many detail-oriented contrarians who seek ego gratification through disagreement, as though it’s a habit like nail biting. This breeds conflict, passive aggression, and tattle-tale behavior.

There are also people who are weak in technical areas that they should not be weak in, and that causes it’s own monumental frustrations. But at least these types don’t tempt me to violence.

115

The thing that grated me is when weak technical people get a voice in technical areas. Their opinions are almost always informed by their bias, or their hand-selected group of political sympathizers. That is not an acceptable alternative to an informed opinion.

116

If what you have posted in this thread is a true reflection of what happened at your company, it seems obvious to me why you were let go.

You pissed off of threatened the wrong people and badly handled the fallout.

No employer with half s brain would explicitly tell you that straight out and your hounding them for information would only confirm that they made the right decision.

117

OP, my advice to you is the same that I give whenever guys complain about receiving a romantic rejection for reasons not made explicitly clear by their love interest:

Sometimes a person is rejected because they are the type of person who would persistently demand a reason for being rejected. It’s a blunt truth, but it’s simple. For one thing, being completely blindsided by this could mean you have a lot of social blind spots. Blind spots that could be hurting your workmanship and ability to play well with others. And secondly, demanding someone provide you info above and beyond what they are required reveals a certain amount of self-entitlement and stubbornness that might make people tense around you.

If you’re honest with yourself, you’ll admit you are more interested in making your boss feel guilty and uncomfortable than you are in uncovering some unknown truth. It doesn’t sound like you and he had a relationship built on mutual respect. That’s hardly uncommon (personally, the less I have to talk to my boss, the more productive I am), but this is probably why you were chosen to be let go as opposed to someone else.

You need closure. We can all relate to that. You are not going to get it from your boss or anyone else at that place. If you want to improve, you’ll need to put away the defensiveness, look at how you may have contributed to this outcome, and vow to do better next time. It’s okay. You’ll get another chance. This isn’t the end.

118

Well, you sure are accomplishing a lot with that strategy. It’s not, apparently, making you feel better. You aren’t getting more information. You’re undoubtedly increasing your chances of getting a “would not rehire” on your HR file (which is a question people will ask and is a question even risk averse HR types will quite often answer). Though honestly you probably have one by now.

Based on this thread, you know why they fired you, you know why they don’t want to say, and you still think you can force them to say it. That will never happen, it would do you no good if it did, you wouldn’t be able to sue even if they admitted they hated you, and you are continuing to demonstrate unprofessional behavior and a lack of proper boundaries.

Yes, you will chalk this up to the haters, but maybe someone in the thread can phrase it some brilliant way that will get through.

119

Truth be told, I did find while my boss was affable and very hands-off, that I really didn’t get to know him very well at all. We would sometimes go weeks without talking, and when we did talk it was just me telling him what I was working on. He never once tried to direct my hand. Our chit chat was almost always superficial and I found he was always pretty guarded. He guarded himself, and he guarded the opinions of his superiors. I guess I always thought that my manager was my advocate. His job was to look out for me, and my job was to do work that reflected well on him. Apparently this quid pro quo was not the type of relationship he was looking for.

Part of me wants him to feel guilty, that’s true. I want him to acknowledge that he played a part in getting me fired, through his passive complicity… but for the most part, I really do just want closure.

120

Reduction in Force