5 ms·

My best employee quit because I wouldn’t let her go to college graduation

88 points by glogla 10y ago

Amiga64 10y ago
That's nothing, when my dad died my boss complained vigorously when I wanted to take 3 days off as my dad lived a thousand miles from my workplace. I told him that I was going even if he fired me, he did'nt but I quit a couple of months later and never looked back. (Norway)
pi088 10y ago
That was one of the worst example of human relationship I've read from a supposed civilised environment. It's probably a bait article, but dear god how can someone have their head up their ass so hard that the anus became their mouth?
thomasruns 10y ago
Yeah.. 0% chance of this being real.
projct 10y ago
I've had people do worse shit than this to me.
Vanit 10y ago
I don't understand how a manager wrote that letter and thought, "this is okay".
- sverige 10y ago
  And if I'm her manager's manager, two points: 1. I have failed to train the manager properly, and need to consider whether that's because I'm a bad manager or the environment is such that it's time to leave; and 2. If I have spent some effort with my team and this manager to prevent such idiocy, the manager who made the decision needs to be either demoted or fired. This is a more common scenario in customer service than it should be. The fact that seniority was the only criteria is an indicator that it's not a good environment. The fact that this manager thinks she needs to lecture the woman who quit on "professionalism" (especially for the reasons stated) is an indication that it's a terrible environment. But I'm inclined to believe this is someone trolling "ask a manager." In what customer service job does someone with six years' tenure have lowest seniority?
- onli 10y ago
  Me neither. I can't even believe it is true. It is too obvious that the manager is wrong, no one in his right mind could think to be in the right after such behaviour, especially not after the introspective necessary to writing it up. Add in the caveat of the switch for concert tickets, that's just ridiculous. I don't know the site this is on. Is it a reliable one? If not, I bet this is a marketing stunt.
  - rubber_duck 10y ago
    Either marketing, a troll, or the employee that quit looking for pats on the back by writing their version of the story from the perspective of the manager.
  - Xylakant 10y ago
    I absolutely believe it. I've seen managers do similar things, even crossing the lines into illegal areas. Managers that grew up with the company, starting when it was small, maybe even owning parts of it sometimes think that the company is family and that everybody needs to be as emotionally attached to the company as they are. Unlimited unpaid overtime, working for month without a single day of are just normal and obvious to them, it's all family. Leaving the company is a personal insult - since we're all family. You don't leave the family, do you?
  - coroxout 10y ago
    As a semi-regular reader, I would say that the site author is absolutely reliable and writes pretty good columns both there and for other sites, but there have definitely been troll/joke letters in the past which have been gone up (a couple of borderline believable letters revealed by over-the-top follow-ups, etc). I'm not 100% sure that this is one, though - there are some red flags but I've definitely had managers I could imagine doing this. And I can see the point in printing the letter even if you think it's not real but that someone out there might do the same thing for real.
- ben_jones 10y ago
  This is just a case of "shitty person acting shitty" and unfortunately in this scenario that shitty person was in a position of leadership. It's tempting to try to learn from these stories but often it is a complex environment-driven issue that will not translate 1:1 to our own lives. The simplest advice that I always try to remember when reading stories like this is just to be kind to other people. If you do that 9 times out of 10 it'll come out ok.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- prof_hobart 10y ago
  It's so ignorant and full of "I'm doing something stupid, but the employee was brilliant" comments that I can only assume it was actually written by the employee herself trying to pretend-rationalise her manager's behaviour.
- sgk284 10y ago
  It comes off as something that was fabricated and would be forwarded in a chain e-mail to get a rise out of people. There are way too many details that only serve to agitate the reader (the concert tickets, other employees being helped out by their friends but she doesn't have any, foster homes, and so on). The whole thing is fiction, plain and simple.
ArkyBeagle 10y ago
Heh. Concert tickets yes, graduation no. Because there was "cost involved". Hey, I got fired for taking off to get married on a Saturday one time.
abannin 10y ago
The best managers learn what is important to their employees and figure out how to deliver it. Those employees will pay you back many times over. Invest in others, and they will invest in you.
mobiuscog 10y ago
The difference between management and control is often lost.
Cenk 10y ago
And to assume that her being raised in foster care has anything to do with this shows such prejudice. Good on her for quitting! I’m sure she won’t have any trouble finding a new job.
winteriscoming 10y ago
Is this for real - a manager writing a letter to a third party just so that the employee knows she made a "mistake" when clearly almost everyone would see who's at fault? I can imagine that there would be such managers but I find it hard to imagine that someone would write a letter saying he/she did such a thing.
richev 10y ago
Shame on the manager: 1. For treating the employee like that 2. For building a team in a way that prevented such a request from being accommodated 3. For still thinking that the "problem" here is with the employee who quit
joonhocho 10y ago
That manager should be demoted for losing the best employee and obvious horrible management. If I were the manager, I would come in on that day and do the customer service.
MichaelBurge 10y ago
It sounds like they took the wrong message away from a 'Pets or Cattle?' talk.
hoodoof 10y ago
This is a "Dear Abby" column - it's fiction.
ritchiem 10y ago
Sorry this has a smell to it. Best employee by far that works for you for six years and is the most junior in the office? She should have quit long ago.
- raverbashing 10y ago
  I think it means this: "Best employee": the one that will cater to every demand of the boss "Six years": she was the one that put up with most of the BS because she was studying Once she graduated, putting up with this situation wasn't necessary anymore
DanielDent 10y ago
When capitalism is functioning correctly, both sides of a trade benefit. When a negotiation fails, it's not unusual for the purchaser (or employer in this case) to be more upset than the seller. If she's a quality employee that just graduated college, it stands to reason she'll be able to find more gainful employment... But one has to wonder if this is just an elaborate troll.
pingou 10y ago
It's an obvious joke, isn't it, why is everybody falling for it? Plus it says she's the employee with the lowest seniority, but worked 6 years there, that's hardly believable, the whole thing is hardly believable.
- carlmcqueen 10y ago
  I started my career on the phones, while six year seniority isn't actually that rare it would be very rare for that to be lowest seniority. Additionally it felt like a twist, I was waiting for this to be a mid-manager issue, where the mid manager didn't have the power to give the permission, not that they just decided to deny the two hour gap themselves and wanted them to apologize and come back.
- ac29 10y ago
  If you read more stories on that site, you'll see that they all have a remarkably consistent writing style, which suggests they are, at best, heavily edited. Its not beyond belief that some, even many, of them are completely fabricated.
- jupiter2 10y ago
  > employee with the lowest seniority, but worked 6 years there, that's hardly believable That was my gut reaction too. It's essentially a call center. Also, I have a hard time believing that the type of person/manager that would handle a situation in such an inhumane manner (the sociopathic boss) would paint themselves in such an obvious bad light. Two different personality types. It would have been slightly more believable if the girl (orphan?, dozens of foster homes, homeless, best employee by far, graduates against all odds by working nights, made-for-tv Lifetime Sepcial...) had written it.
- fizx 10y ago
  This story is screaming "no one wrote in this month so I had to make something up."
- soft_dev_person 10y ago
  The cynic in me is divided on the issue. There are certainly trolls out there who could conjure such a story just for the heck of it, but I also believe there are people out there who would do this for real. Also, some companies don't hire very often, so the seniority part is not the biggest red flag. The fact that a concert was concidered more important than a graduation ceremony "because cost" might be the biggest red flag for me.
bunni 10y ago
Nothing in that letter is believable. It's too perfect a troll. Viral marketing.
- rubber_duck 10y ago
  Surprised how effective it is and the responses it's getting here. This place used to have a lot of smart people and entrepreneurial people - now it's turning in to another 9-5 tech forum
  - chjohasbrouck 10y ago
    If it's posted on HN and getting upvoted to the front page, I think people tend to assume a certain level of credibility based on that alone. If you assume that about this story, it's pretty shocking and worthy of some discussion, so you might upvote it. I thought it was real for the first few paragraphs and my jaw was on the floor. It's a pretty obvious fake though.
    - rubber_duck 10y ago
      >If it's posted on HN and getting upvoted to the front page, I think people tend to assume a certain level of credibility based on that alone. Yea that's my problem - this used to be true - but not recently - now it's like reddit without the memes.
      - Jaruzel 10y ago
        Then do something about it. Submit some quality stories. That said, I do struggle to understand how some stuff whooshes to the front page, and other equally interesting stuff just gets ignored...
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
CPLX 10y ago
I feel like every year people let their guard down more and more to obvious internet trolling and made up stories, when it should be the other way around. cf: reddit.com
tachion 10y ago
My partner, a developer, got fired (well, the job offer was retracted after a very well performed internship) for kindly questioning two points of the contract: one about unlimited unpaid overtime, and second one about losing all intellectual rights to ANYTHING done/written/created ANYTIME and ANYWHERE (including things not related to company's business and/or technology in own spare time, holidays and so on). I told her it is actually better this way, to have an early eject from bad company, than to sink in, get involved and invested just to realise its a bad place to be, but despite that, she took a bad hit. Such things sucks a lot. (London)
- joshavant 10y ago
  IANAL, but, for the _California_ readers, I'm fairly certain a contract with a clause like 'losing all intellectual rights to ANYTHING done/written/created ANYTIME and ANYWHERE' will NEVER hold up in California court, assuming said projects are done with the employee's own time + materials. ...Which is also a strong reason why you should always avoid using/making/doing anything personal on your employer's laptop/equipment.
  - bmarkovic 10y ago
    Neither would it hold up anywhere in continental Europe but I've heard some inconclusive things about UK in this regard. Well that's common law for you. As much as lawmaker is incompetent he is no competition to a brain dead judge. Still the behaviour of the company after she raised concern clearly shows she is better off not working there.
  - trowawee 10y ago
    Yeah, but it's easier (and much, much cheaper) to say "This'll never hold up in court!" than it is to actually prove that it won't hold up in court, which is what most of these companies are ultimately counting on.
- Mr_P 10y ago
  > one about unlimited unpaid overtime Am I misunderstanding something, or isn't this the definition of a salaried position? > second one about losing all intellectual rights to ANYTHING done/written/created ANYTIME and ANYWHERE (including things not related to company's business and/or technology in own spare time, holidays and so on). This also seems extremely standard (at least it's in every employment contract from the big tech companies), and probably exists more so to protect the company from extreme circumstances than anything else (although I am not a lawyer).
rollulus 10y ago
TL;DR: I treated my best employee like shit, after being a good worker for years she quit and now I'm considering to tell her how to behave. I hope this is fiction.
crypt1d 10y ago
This really puts into perspective how out of touch some people are. I am shocked by the lack of empathy and how conceited this guy is.
neximo64 10y ago
I find it difficult to believe this is actually true. Perhaps it is something to get the site traffic.
- shocks 10y ago
  People don't just lie on the internet neximo64...
erikb 10y ago
I would also consider it a joke if I wouldn't have experienced and been a manager like that before. Even if it's a fake story, the way to use logic to get to an illogical conclusion is very common (and human). And it's really really tough to let go of this kind of conclusion.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
petegrif 10y ago
If true, this boss is a staggering douchebag who deserves the toxic work environment he/she has been supporting.
Steer 10y ago
Regardless if this is a made-up story or not I think there are a few lessons here: 1. Exceptions are hard. While I don't believe in rules that can never be broken/circumvented in these types of situations you, as a manager, need to be aware that one exception will lead to having to make more exceptions. That is, to me, one of the skills of a good manager, being able to make exceptions when needed and give a good argument for not giving exceptions when not possible. 2. Empathy is critical. A manager without empathy (in the sense of being able to understand something from the other person's point-of-view) is generally not a good manager of people. The manager that is asking the question did obviously not understand how important the graduation was to the employee. 3. Don't rationalise punishment (meaning, calling the person afterwards just to make sure they understand how wrong they are and how right you are) with concern in your own mind. A good manager needs to examine and understand their own motivations for doing something. 4. Don't be afraid to admit your own mistakes as a manager. I'm pretty sure you can salvage this situation by meeting with the person, apologizing and probably giving them a well-deserved raise (since it was your best employee). You do not lose by doing that, it is not a competition. 5. Don't foster a culture where people will not help each other out. I find it very strange that a person that is a very good employee and that has helped other people numerous times (according to the question) has such a hard time finding someone to help them out. It could be because of the employee of course, but she should have been recognized in front of the team for her willingness to help out long before this.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
gtf21 10y ago
I'm clearly not the only one who thinks this is satire / fiction.

88 points by glogla 10y ago

That's nothing, when my dad died my boss complained vigorously when I wanted to take 3 days off as my dad lived a thousand miles from my workplace. I told him that I was going even if he fired me, he did'nt but I quit a couple of months later and never looked back. (Norway)

pi088 10y ago

That was one of the worst example of human relationship I've read from a supposed civilised environment. It's probably a bait article, but dear god how can someone have their head up their ass so hard that the anus became their mouth?

thomasruns 10y ago

Yeah.. 0% chance of this being real.

projct 10y ago

I've had people do worse shit than this to me.

Vanit 10y ago

I don't understand how a manager wrote that letter and thought, "this is okay".

sverige 10y ago
And if I'm her manager's manager, two points: 1. I have failed to train the manager properly, and need to consider whether that's because I'm a bad manager or the environment is such that it's time to leave; and 2. If I have spent some effort with my team and this manager to prevent such idiocy, the manager who made the decision needs to be either demoted or fired. This is a more common scenario in customer service than it should be. The fact that seniority was the only criteria is an indicator that it's not a good environment. The fact that this manager thinks she needs to lecture the woman who quit on "professionalism" (especially for the reasons stated) is an indication that it's a terrible environment. But I'm inclined to believe this is someone trolling "ask a manager." In what customer service job does someone with six years' tenure have lowest seniority?
onli 10y ago
Me neither. I can't even believe it is true. It is too obvious that the manager is wrong, no one in his right mind could think to be in the right after such behaviour, especially not after the introspective necessary to writing it up. Add in the caveat of the switch for concert tickets, that's just ridiculous. I don't know the site this is on. Is it a reliable one? If not, I bet this is a marketing stunt.
- rubber_duck 10y ago
  Either marketing, a troll, or the employee that quit looking for pats on the back by writing their version of the story from the perspective of the manager.
- Xylakant 10y ago
  I absolutely believe it. I've seen managers do similar things, even crossing the lines into illegal areas. Managers that grew up with the company, starting when it was small, maybe even owning parts of it sometimes think that the company is family and that everybody needs to be as emotionally attached to the company as they are. Unlimited unpaid overtime, working for month without a single day of are just normal and obvious to them, it's all family. Leaving the company is a personal insult - since we're all family. You don't leave the family, do you?
- coroxout 10y ago
  As a semi-regular reader, I would say that the site author is absolutely reliable and writes pretty good columns both there and for other sites, but there have definitely been troll/joke letters in the past which have been gone up (a couple of borderline believable letters revealed by over-the-top follow-ups, etc). I'm not 100% sure that this is one, though - there are some red flags but I've definitely had managers I could imagine doing this. And I can see the point in printing the letter even if you think it's not real but that someone out there might do the same thing for real.
ben_jones 10y ago
This is just a case of "shitty person acting shitty" and unfortunately in this scenario that shitty person was in a position of leadership. It's tempting to try to learn from these stories but often it is a complex environment-driven issue that will not translate 1:1 to our own lives. The simplest advice that I always try to remember when reading stories like this is just to be kind to other people. If you do that 9 times out of 10 it'll come out ok.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
prof_hobart 10y ago
It's so ignorant and full of "I'm doing something stupid, but the employee was brilliant" comments that I can only assume it was actually written by the employee herself trying to pretend-rationalise her manager's behaviour.
sgk284 10y ago
It comes off as something that was fabricated and would be forwarded in a chain e-mail to get a rise out of people. There are way too many details that only serve to agitate the reader (the concert tickets, other employees being helped out by their friends but she doesn't have any, foster homes, and so on). The whole thing is fiction, plain and simple.

ArkyBeagle 10y ago

Heh. Concert tickets yes, graduation no. Because there was "cost involved". Hey, I got fired for taking off to get married on a Saturday one time.

abannin 10y ago

The best managers learn what is important to their employees and figure out how to deliver it. Those employees will pay you back many times over. Invest in others, and they will invest in you.

mobiuscog 10y ago

The difference between management and control is often lost.

Cenk 10y ago

And to assume that her being raised in foster care has anything to do with this shows such prejudice. Good on her for quitting! I’m sure she won’t have any trouble finding a new job.

winteriscoming 10y ago

Is this for real - a manager writing a letter to a third party just so that the employee knows she made a "mistake" when clearly almost everyone would see who's at fault? I can imagine that there would be such managers but I find it hard to imagine that someone would write a letter saying he/she did such a thing.

richev 10y ago

Shame on the manager: 1. For treating the employee like that 2. For building a team in a way that prevented such a request from being accommodated 3. For still thinking that the "problem" here is with the employee who quit

joonhocho 10y ago

That manager should be demoted for losing the best employee and obvious horrible management. If I were the manager, I would come in on that day and do the customer service.

MichaelBurge 10y ago

It sounds like they took the wrong message away from a 'Pets or Cattle?' talk.

hoodoof 10y ago

This is a "Dear Abby" column - it's fiction.

ritchiem 10y ago

Sorry this has a smell to it. Best employee by far that works for you for six years and is the most junior in the office? She should have quit long ago.

raverbashing 10y ago
I think it means this: "Best employee": the one that will cater to every demand of the boss "Six years": she was the one that put up with most of the BS because she was studying Once she graduated, putting up with this situation wasn't necessary anymore

DanielDent 10y ago

When capitalism is functioning correctly, both sides of a trade benefit. When a negotiation fails, it's not unusual for the purchaser (or employer in this case) to be more upset than the seller. If she's a quality employee that just graduated college, it stands to reason she'll be able to find more gainful employment... But one has to wonder if this is just an elaborate troll.

pingou 10y ago

It's an obvious joke, isn't it, why is everybody falling for it? Plus it says she's the employee with the lowest seniority, but worked 6 years there, that's hardly believable, the whole thing is hardly believable.

carlmcqueen 10y ago
I started my career on the phones, while six year seniority isn't actually that rare it would be very rare for that to be lowest seniority. Additionally it felt like a twist, I was waiting for this to be a mid-manager issue, where the mid manager didn't have the power to give the permission, not that they just decided to deny the two hour gap themselves and wanted them to apologize and come back.
ac29 10y ago
If you read more stories on that site, you'll see that they all have a remarkably consistent writing style, which suggests they are, at best, heavily edited. Its not beyond belief that some, even many, of them are completely fabricated.
jupiter2 10y ago
> employee with the lowest seniority, but worked 6 years there, that's hardly believable That was my gut reaction too. It's essentially a call center. Also, I have a hard time believing that the type of person/manager that would handle a situation in such an inhumane manner (the sociopathic boss) would paint themselves in such an obvious bad light. Two different personality types. It would have been slightly more believable if the girl (orphan?, dozens of foster homes, homeless, best employee by far, graduates against all odds by working nights, made-for-tv Lifetime Sepcial...) had written it.
fizx 10y ago
This story is screaming "no one wrote in this month so I had to make something up."
soft_dev_person 10y ago
The cynic in me is divided on the issue. There are certainly trolls out there who could conjure such a story just for the heck of it, but I also believe there are people out there who would do this for real. Also, some companies don't hire very often, so the seniority part is not the biggest red flag. The fact that a concert was concidered more important than a graduation ceremony "because cost" might be the biggest red flag for me.

bunni 10y ago

Nothing in that letter is believable. It's too perfect a troll. Viral marketing.

rubber_duck 10y ago
Surprised how effective it is and the responses it's getting here. This place used to have a lot of smart people and entrepreneurial people - now it's turning in to another 9-5 tech forum
- chjohasbrouck 10y ago
  If it's posted on HN and getting upvoted to the front page, I think people tend to assume a certain level of credibility based on that alone. If you assume that about this story, it's pretty shocking and worthy of some discussion, so you might upvote it. I thought it was real for the first few paragraphs and my jaw was on the floor. It's a pretty obvious fake though.
  - rubber_duck 10y ago
    >If it's posted on HN and getting upvoted to the front page, I think people tend to assume a certain level of credibility based on that alone. Yea that's my problem - this used to be true - but not recently - now it's like reddit without the memes.
    - Jaruzel 10y ago
      Then do something about it. Submit some quality stories. That said, I do struggle to understand how some stuff whooshes to the front page, and other equally interesting stuff just gets ignored...

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

CPLX 10y ago

I feel like every year people let their guard down more and more to obvious internet trolling and made up stories, when it should be the other way around. cf: reddit.com

tachion 10y ago

My partner, a developer, got fired (well, the job offer was retracted after a very well performed internship) for kindly questioning two points of the contract: one about unlimited unpaid overtime, and second one about losing all intellectual rights to ANYTHING done/written/created ANYTIME and ANYWHERE (including things not related to company's business and/or technology in own spare time, holidays and so on). I told her it is actually better this way, to have an early eject from bad company, than to sink in, get involved and invested just to realise its a bad place to be, but despite that, she took a bad hit. Such things sucks a lot. (London)

joshavant 10y ago
IANAL, but, for the _California_ readers, I'm fairly certain a contract with a clause like 'losing all intellectual rights to ANYTHING done/written/created ANYTIME and ANYWHERE' will NEVER hold up in California court, assuming said projects are done with the employee's own time + materials. ...Which is also a strong reason why you should always avoid using/making/doing anything personal on your employer's laptop/equipment.
- bmarkovic 10y ago
  Neither would it hold up anywhere in continental Europe but I've heard some inconclusive things about UK in this regard. Well that's common law for you. As much as lawmaker is incompetent he is no competition to a brain dead judge. Still the behaviour of the company after she raised concern clearly shows she is better off not working there.
- trowawee 10y ago
  Yeah, but it's easier (and much, much cheaper) to say "This'll never hold up in court!" than it is to actually prove that it won't hold up in court, which is what most of these companies are ultimately counting on.
Mr_P 10y ago
> one about unlimited unpaid overtime Am I misunderstanding something, or isn't this the definition of a salaried position? > second one about losing all intellectual rights to ANYTHING done/written/created ANYTIME and ANYWHERE (including things not related to company's business and/or technology in own spare time, holidays and so on). This also seems extremely standard (at least it's in every employment contract from the big tech companies), and probably exists more so to protect the company from extreme circumstances than anything else (although I am not a lawyer).

rollulus 10y ago

TL;DR: I treated my best employee like shit, after being a good worker for years she quit and now I'm considering to tell her how to behave. I hope this is fiction.

crypt1d 10y ago

This really puts into perspective how out of touch some people are. I am shocked by the lack of empathy and how conceited this guy is.

neximo64 10y ago

I find it difficult to believe this is actually true. Perhaps it is something to get the site traffic.

shocks 10y ago
People don't just lie on the internet neximo64...

erikb 10y ago

I would also consider it a joke if I wouldn't have experienced and been a manager like that before. Even if it's a fake story, the way to use logic to get to an illogical conclusion is very common (and human). And it's really really tough to let go of this kind of conclusion.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

petegrif 10y ago

If true, this boss is a staggering douchebag who deserves the toxic work environment he/she has been supporting.

Steer 10y ago

Regardless if this is a made-up story or not I think there are a few lessons here: 1. Exceptions are hard. While I don't believe in rules that can never be broken/circumvented in these types of situations you, as a manager, need to be aware that one exception will lead to having to make more exceptions. That is, to me, one of the skills of a good manager, being able to make exceptions when needed and give a good argument for not giving exceptions when not possible. 2. Empathy is critical. A manager without empathy (in the sense of being able to understand something from the other person's point-of-view) is generally not a good manager of people. The manager that is asking the question did obviously not understand how important the graduation was to the employee. 3. Don't rationalise punishment (meaning, calling the person afterwards just to make sure they understand how wrong they are and how right you are) with concern in your own mind. A good manager needs to examine and understand their own motivations for doing something. 4. Don't be afraid to admit your own mistakes as a manager. I'm pretty sure you can salvage this situation by meeting with the person, apologizing and probably giving them a well-deserved raise (since it was your best employee). You do not lose by doing that, it is not a competition. 5. Don't foster a culture where people will not help each other out. I find it very strange that a person that is a very good employee and that has helped other people numerous times (according to the question) has such a hard time finding someone to help them out. It could be because of the employee of course, but she should have been recognized in front of the team for her willingness to help out long before this.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

gtf21 10y ago

I'm clearly not the only one who thinks this is satire / fiction.