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It paints me in a bad light, I know, but sure... why not? For background, suffice it to say that the manager in this story, who was my boss at all times except

It paints me in a bad light, I know, but sure... why not? For background, suffice it to say that the manager in this story, who was my boss at all times except my time with the migration project I mentioned, was not well liked, and for good reason. This is a man who micromanaged absolutely everyone and everything, was insulting (called me and my "whole generation" - I was 23 at the time - a bunch of slackers, told me I was "getting too big for my britches" when I made a fairly innocuous suggestion, and repeatedly talked about other employees behind their backs), and seemed to only care about making himself look good. Anyway, my firing: I had been working on a fairly high profile assignment, lots of pressure, etc. and had worked on my own time until 4am the previous day. I was running on maybe 3 hours of sleep, so I was more on edge than usual. I mentioned this extra work to the boss, and asked if I could go home at 4pm that day (1.5hr early). Anyway, the day progresses and I was finally able to finish my tests, get peer reviews done (a story unto itself), and passed my work off to be installed my the clients production control team right at 4pm, so I had to wait to confirm they hadn't screwed up the install - a very real concern, btw. Anyway, around 4:30 the boss calls, asking me about a "post-implementation review" (something was installed and had run for the first time, so the programmer needs to confirm initial results) that I was supposed to do a few days earlier. Genuine mea culpa here, as I had just plain forgotten about it and didn't realize it was even installed yet, and had been distracted by the "OMG GET IT DONE NOW" assignment being installed in this story. He told me that since I was "overbudget" (I had logged about 54 hours on a 50 hour estimate), I was not to charge any more time to that ticket. This essentially means "work for free." He also told me to have it done by 9am the next morning, so my choice was either stay late or come in early and work, so I told him since I was already staying late waiting for prod control, I'd do it right then. So, my install was completed a few minutes later, so I spent 10-20 minutes confirming the install before starting the requested post-implementation review. This review, btw, was estimated as an hour of work, for good reason. I had to go through a week or so of production runs to try to find data that had actually ran through the logic I changed. I hadn't actually found any runs through my changes by 5:30, when the boss left for the day. He stopped by my desk on the way out, and "joked" > What are you still doing here? Didn't you ask to leave early today? I explained, calmly at first but steadily angering, that I had wanted to leave early but since he had told me to get this thing done by the morning, not to charge time for it, etc. I was stuck here. He told me to just go home and do it in the morning, but I explained that if I have to work extra hours for free, I should do it at night so I don't fuck up my billable hours for the next day and be forced to stay late to make that day balance. There was a bit of back and forth, but I ended up visibly angry and yelling a bit. He told me, forcefully, "go home." I left, choosing to take the stairs to try to burn off steam, but the anger overflowed and I yelled "Stupid fucking piece of shit job" about a floor and a half down. I went home, beat the shit out of a couch pillow, and broke down crying. The next day, I went in and started to work on that same post-implementation review, and the boss came over and took me to a conference room. My new project manager, first day on the job, was there already. They told me I was suspended for three days, and they took my badge, etc. On my way out, I passed my HR rep, which made me think she was supposed to be there for the meeting, but who knows. I went home and wrote my side of the story to that same HR manager. I got a response that afternoon (around 5pm) thanking me for my side, and giving me a formal letter of suspension. I heard reports from a friend that my phone was disconnected around 2pm that day, so clearly I was fired before I got the letter of "suspension." This was even confirmed by another friend who talked to a guy in IT who said that same HR woman called them to terminate my accounts around 2pm the day I was suspended. She apparently called back a few minutes after it was done, panicking, saying she had only meant to suspend me. I still think I was accidentally fired, then actually fired to cover for it. Anyway, that's the story. AMA.

lotusleaf1987 16y ago
At least you're honest, I honestly think bad managers and bad working environments have a way of breaking even the best individuals. At a certain point everyone snaps or breaks.
- AgentConundrum 16y ago
  Yeah, I definitely have to take my portion of the blame (I wasn't exactly a model employee, at least when I was working for that manager), but I really do think that manager and the environment he cultivated really affected me. I had actually been on a couple of two-week stress leaves about six months prior to my leaving the company. I used to dream about leaving that job, and I guess I just finally reacted in a way that got me out of it, even if it wasn't ideal. After I lost the job, my girlfriend explained that "for as much as you bitched about that job, you were never actually going to quit." and she was absolutely right. The fear of quitting and having to find a new job was too much for me. I've been out of a job for a bit more than a year now. I see ads all the time that maybe I could do, but I don't always apply because I don't feel qualified for them. It's really starting to get to me.
  - rokhayakebe 16y ago
    I've been out of a job... So what projects are you working/have you worked on?
    - AgentConundrum 16y ago
      At the moment, I have a website that I'm working on. I'm generally terrified of speaking publicly about it, since I'm taking my time with it, and anyone here would consider it a weekend project. Since it's the first major project I've undertaken, I'm absolutely paralyzed by design considerations, etc. since privately I'm quite the perfectionist. When I'm working for someone else, I know I don't have the luxury of being a perfectionist, so I've learned to make the necessary tradeoffs, but privately it doesn't work that way. I want to be able to leverage this project to get a proper job ("hey look at this! I've shipped something!"), so that just drives my paranoia into overdrive. Literally hours spent messing about with colours ("Is this yellow ok, or should it be more muted?"), rather than coding an extra feature. The colour point is rather moot anyway, since I've got a touch of ye olde colourblindness. I think I should set a target - I'll have it online by... the end of next week! We'll see how I do. The rest of my, shall we say, "vacation" has been spent a) terrified that I'll never get a job again: I'd spent three years in COBOL-land and any pretense of actual skill had long since rusted over. I had pretty much no inclination to code anything after work, since the job sapped my energy so well. Even before that job, I still didn't think I was really any good. A programmer-turned-sysadmin friend of mine from college seems to think I'm good. When he moved to England, he said something about maybe recommending me for the job he was leaving. When I expressed these concerns, he said I was smart and could pick things up fast, had faith in me, etc. Unfortunately, my self-esteem sucks, and it's reflected in the projects I start. I tried to teach myself C#, Java, some python.. but I got so caught up in the details that I didn't get anywhere. I wasn't creative enough to come up with a solid "use it in anger" project, so I'd just give up. Now, I've got the aforementioned web project, and I'm teaching myself PHP to get it done, but I still feel like a pretender. b) RSI. I had started seriously learning from UNSW's YouTube videos, and was reading lots of books, taking notes, etc. when my arm was engulfed in pain. For a couple months, I didn't type much, didn't do much.. I was convinced I was royally screwed and would never be able to code again... at age 25. The pain has mostly gone - I've typed this whole thing without pain - but it does come back from time to time, though the same friend I mentioned earlier is convinced it's psychosomatic at this point. He's probably right, to be honest. c) Job offer. I signed a conditional offer back in February, to do a job horribly similar to my last job. I figured I could take that job and use the money from it to take courses, etc. I thought the structure would help me maintain enough inertia. Instead, the job fell through when that company didn't get the contract they were hiring for. It took until June to get that notice. I'd used it as an excuse for being lazy during that time, thinking the problem was solved when it wasn't. Incidentally, the RSI started about the same time the job fell through, thus strengthening the case for the RSI being psychosomatic. Sorry for ranting, but when I started writing this, I got self-conscious about how lazy/incompetent/whatever I am, and I think I'm being defensive when it isn't necessarily called for. I just.. I don't think things are actually going to work out, and it occasionally makes me contemplate suicide. I need to catch a break, but I haven't earned it yet. /rant

lotusleaf1987 16y ago

At least you're honest, I honestly think bad managers and bad working environments have a way of breaking even the best individuals. At a certain point everyone snaps or breaks.

AgentConundrum 16y ago
Yeah, I definitely have to take my portion of the blame (I wasn't exactly a model employee, at least when I was working for that manager), but I really do think that manager and the environment he cultivated really affected me. I had actually been on a couple of two-week stress leaves about six months prior to my leaving the company. I used to dream about leaving that job, and I guess I just finally reacted in a way that got me out of it, even if it wasn't ideal. After I lost the job, my girlfriend explained that "for as much as you bitched about that job, you were never actually going to quit." and she was absolutely right. The fear of quitting and having to find a new job was too much for me. I've been out of a job for a bit more than a year now. I see ads all the time that maybe I could do, but I don't always apply because I don't feel qualified for them. It's really starting to get to me.
- rokhayakebe 16y ago
  I've been out of a job... So what projects are you working/have you worked on?
  - AgentConundrum 16y ago
    At the moment, I have a website that I'm working on. I'm generally terrified of speaking publicly about it, since I'm taking my time with it, and anyone here would consider it a weekend project. Since it's the first major project I've undertaken, I'm absolutely paralyzed by design considerations, etc. since privately I'm quite the perfectionist. When I'm working for someone else, I know I don't have the luxury of being a perfectionist, so I've learned to make the necessary tradeoffs, but privately it doesn't work that way. I want to be able to leverage this project to get a proper job ("hey look at this! I've shipped something!"), so that just drives my paranoia into overdrive. Literally hours spent messing about with colours ("Is this yellow ok, or should it be more muted?"), rather than coding an extra feature. The colour point is rather moot anyway, since I've got a touch of ye olde colourblindness. I think I should set a target - I'll have it online by... the end of next week! We'll see how I do. The rest of my, shall we say, "vacation" has been spent a) terrified that I'll never get a job again: I'd spent three years in COBOL-land and any pretense of actual skill had long since rusted over. I had pretty much no inclination to code anything after work, since the job sapped my energy so well. Even before that job, I still didn't think I was really any good. A programmer-turned-sysadmin friend of mine from college seems to think I'm good. When he moved to England, he said something about maybe recommending me for the job he was leaving. When I expressed these concerns, he said I was smart and could pick things up fast, had faith in me, etc. Unfortunately, my self-esteem sucks, and it's reflected in the projects I start. I tried to teach myself C#, Java, some python.. but I got so caught up in the details that I didn't get anywhere. I wasn't creative enough to come up with a solid "use it in anger" project, so I'd just give up. Now, I've got the aforementioned web project, and I'm teaching myself PHP to get it done, but I still feel like a pretender. b) RSI. I had started seriously learning from UNSW's YouTube videos, and was reading lots of books, taking notes, etc. when my arm was engulfed in pain. For a couple months, I didn't type much, didn't do much.. I was convinced I was royally screwed and would never be able to code again... at age 25. The pain has mostly gone - I've typed this whole thing without pain - but it does come back from time to time, though the same friend I mentioned earlier is convinced it's psychosomatic at this point. He's probably right, to be honest. c) Job offer. I signed a conditional offer back in February, to do a job horribly similar to my last job. I figured I could take that job and use the money from it to take courses, etc. I thought the structure would help me maintain enough inertia. Instead, the job fell through when that company didn't get the contract they were hiring for. It took until June to get that notice. I'd used it as an excuse for being lazy during that time, thinking the problem was solved when it wasn't. Incidentally, the RSI started about the same time the job fell through, thus strengthening the case for the RSI being psychosomatic. Sorry for ranting, but when I started writing this, I got self-conscious about how lazy/incompetent/whatever I am, and I think I'm being defensive when it isn't necessarily called for. I just.. I don't think things are actually going to work out, and it occasionally makes me contemplate suicide. I need to catch a break, but I haven't earned it yet. /rant