One more mistake and you’re out of here. Said to you in a meeting with your supervisor’s manager and the regional HR manager. What is your response (verbal, action, or ?)
I would like gut-level responses to this scenario. I can post more details if you like.
Many more details, please.
Post my resume at CareerBuilder.com and Monster.com. Take the first job offered that’s comparable to the one I’ve got.
I’d smile and say, “ok,” then let myself get fired so I could get unemployment benefits. Unless you are doing something really obvious to get fired, you can sponge off of them for at least six months.
You did say gut reaction. 
With my current job?
I’d probably laugh real hard.
Then I’d call back the most-recent headhunters; I’ve been getting calls about once a week since I joined this project 7 weeks ago. The people in the team are generally ok, the clients in general are ok (except for the one passive-agressive bulldog who wants the project to fail and who happens to be one of the clients’ owners), but the project itself sucks - too many bad decisions made by people who had no idea.
And I’d come to the SDMB and start asking about South Korea. That’s where the headhunter from last Friday (it’s Tuesday today) wanted me to go.
From home. Not from work.
I would say “Fine then.” and promptly starting looking for work elsewhere.
I’m with Ethilrist. In my opinon, that’s the kind of thing that’s going to stay with you for as long as you remain with the company, so get out of there and start over somewhere else ASAP.
What they said. When it gets to that point – screw up and you’re gone – they’re just covering their asses. They can say they gave you an opportunity to improve, but worded like that, it’s a warning. They want you to quit but they’re not ready to fire you, for whatever reason.
If they valued you as an employee and wanted you to stay, they’d say something like “We’ve noticed a decline in productivity. Is something wrong? How can we help?”
“One more mistake” implies that there have been others, so I should have been expecting this warning – in which case I need to either fix the problem(s) or quit and find a job with lower expectations. If I wasn’t expecting it, I’d take my immediate supervisor aside and ask what just happened. If the answer isn’t satisfactory, I’d start looking for other employment ASAP.
This is a co-worker. Why she repeated her conversation with HR, I have no idea. Wait, no, I do. She’s stupid. :smack: Her resume was a work of art. Not quite bad enough to be terminated for lying, but patently false to those who have to work with her. When we hired her 8 months ago, she knew nothing. She still knows nothing. She does not learn. She has to be taught, over and over and over again. It’s like a real-life Groundhog Day, without Bill Murray and not nearly as entertaining.
First impressions: she barely cleared the background check - it took twice as long as usual. She didn’t show up for the first day of work. Once she did arrive, she twisted everyone’s words around and got us all into trouble, because she couldn’t tell the difference between PTO (Personal Time Off) and OT (overtime). :rolleyes: Oh, and she asked to borrow lunch money. On her first day! :eek: She spent her first week her demanding that she get her benefits immediately. She yelled at everyone, and I do mean everyone, throughout our region about anything and everything throughout her first month.
It only got worse from there. She mangles names badly and complains about all the foreign names. She’s been in Silicon Valley for 20 years, she should be used to them by now. :rolleyes: Her spelling and grammar is atrocious (a serious flaw in an administrative assistant). Her behaviour is mind-boggling. She’s been known to barge into catered meetings and demand food from the attendees. At her first potluck here, she took all the food and demanded foil paper to take it all home! :eek: Admittedly, that’s just bad form, but it’s an example of the way she behaves in all things.
Her 90 day probationary period was extended to 120 days. For reasons known only to management, they kept her on afterwards. She succeeded in ruining her executive’s chance for promotion, due to her antics that she did in his name that were explicitly against his instructions and that made him look like an asshole.
What else? Oh, yes, she’s a born-again Christian and brags constantly about how many people her prayers have saved. Our other co-worker, Janet, is also a born-again Christian and Nancy asked/told her, “Since we’re both Christians, you’d tell me if my job is in trouble, right?” :rolleyes: Poor Janet has to “help” Nancy do everything, i.e. do Nancy’s job, because Nancy’s afraid of me, the pagan infidel dyke.
I could go on and on, but this isn’t the Pit, so I guess I should stop now. I do apologize for all the smilies, but you just can’t, there’s just no way to describe her without them, really. This is how people react to Nancy: 
:eek: :mad: :smack: :dubious: :rolleyes: :wally 
Repeat daily.
*All names changed to protect the guilty and innocent alike.
It means that you’ll be out of that job soon, so start making your exit on your own terms, rather than theirs. If you want to collect unemployment, go head and screw up on purpose to get fired. If that doesn’t sit well with you, ask how to document your performance so that you and your employer will each be playing by the same rules and you’ll know how to avoid another mistake… that is, until you find other employment.
Either way, step up your job search (from home). It’s a lot easier to find a job when you’re already employed.
Ahhh, that puts a new light on it.
Well then, Jahdra, take comfort in the fact that she’ll be out on her ass in a matter of weeks.
I’m guessing you’re not asking to help her save her job, but to find out if there’s anything you can do to help speed the process. 
Sure there is. Assign her stuff she’s bound to screw up.
If her spelling and grammar are atrocious, make sure she has to proofread some important proposal or document. Then take her version, proofread it again, and document how many mistakes she made.
Make her the point of contact for people with funny sounding names. As soon as one complains, document it.
If she barges into catered meetings and wants food, make sure she knows about that lunch in the CEO’s office with the important client.
And above all, document, document, document.
My gut reaction, after reading how your co-worker has been since day one (or day two, I guess, since she didn’t show up on day one), is that your company seriously needs to grow a pair and fire her and employees like her.
I’d challenge them: “I’m sorry; what are these mistakes you think I’ve made?” Hopefully I can turn things around, but in any case, I’d start jobhunting immediately.
As with others: if I were in this situation, I would start planning my escape route. (Assuming I hadn’t started that already.)
Probably not wise to suggest it to your colleague, though; telling her she ought to leave the company is the sort of thing that could be misinterpreted. You don’t want her accusing you of creating a hostile workplace environment or something.
“Just bad form”? In my book, that’s insanely rude.
I’m with featherlou. Someone needs to step up and fire her.
Yep. Both of these. In addition, after hearing the mistakes, I’d see if there were rock-solid evidence I could gather that they were wrong. Productivity metrics or something.
But yeah I’d start looking for another job on my lunch hour.
I don’t know what the co-worker should have done on being told that she was out if she made one more mistake.
I do know that you should take every opportunity to find out which executive she has on film and try to remove the photos from her possession.
Extending a trial period from 90 to 120 days for someone who should have been fired the morning she failed to show up?
A complete screw-up who is still there after 240 days?
There is someone in management who is playing guardian angel–or featherlou is right and you have some of the most cowardly managers on the planet.