4 ms·

Why would anyone give this advice? It seems relevant to getting a tech job. If one is looking for a job, chances are that things have changed since the last ti

Why would anyone give this advice? It seems relevant to getting a tech job. If one is looking for a job, chances are that things have changed since the last time they looked for a job, which on an average for most people these days is every 2-5 years. This is not limited to engineering or tech, and extends to most specialized jobs in most industries. Can we stop handing out this advice and encourage everyone to stand up for their rights instead? In the right context absolutely. In general, its possibly a bad idea. You could always balance it out and educate the folks about the rights of an employer If you were on my team, I would not expect you to sacrifice any of your rights. But if you kept falling behind your peers, to the determent of the team's performance, at some point you would be put on a performance plan. The unfortunate thing about performance plans is that by the time its enforced things are close to unrecoverable. And if you did find yourself failing, I hope someone tells you that: The technology industry is an extremely fast-moving one. Many technologies used today didn't even exist/were popular a decade ago; in 2009, mobile app development and blockchain were pretty much unheard of. Engineers constantly need to upgrade their skills to stay relevant to the demands of the job market. Because, I will not.

fogetti 7y ago
I don't know what is a performance plan. Can you elaborate? I have never worked in a company where there was such a plan. Is this public to employees or you just simply whip everyone until they work themselves to death without telling them the reasoning? Also I assume you are in the US. In most European countries you can absolutely do nothing about someone who works full time on your team unless they let's say causes you financial losses or punch you in the face, so you can basically shove up your plan to your bottom part in other cases.
- bushido 7y ago
  Performance plans, or performance improvement plans, are extremely verbose formal documents that are used as a last step to tie up all legal requirements before terminating an employee. These are most commonly used in countries outside US. Most of the US follows At-will employment[0], so generally no performance plans are necessary. This is not public. We've only used it twice, one person was suspected of misappropriation of funds (and later proven), and one that's currently in motion is an employee that misrepresented their technical knowledge i.e. cannot write code, convinced other employees to do 90% of their contributions. I get that there is this impression of the US whipping everyone until they work themselves to death. Anecdotal, but I've never really experienced that. If anything, the folk in the US like being busy, and workplaces (at least in tech) are overly happy, in something that reminds me of a cult. I have lived an worked in 5 countries in 3 continents and worked with people living in many more countries. In my own observations, the US colleagues have usually exhibited the highest level of happiness/satisfaction. They also tend to find their next jobs the quickest. And are paid the highest. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment
  - fogetti 7y ago
    Thanks for the info. Interesting. But I assume this (i.e. the plan) is something that the employee can choose not to sign if it was not in the original contract and the law doesn't require him to do so. At least I wouldn't sign anything like that. And if he doesn't sign it then you can try firing him. Which might or might not be legal (which usually a court decides). At least that's how it works in those countries I worked in. It's also not rare and it's actually on the news all the time all around in Europe and Japan that a company fires someone whom later the company is forced to hire back by court ruling.

fogetti 7y ago

I don't know what is a performance plan. Can you elaborate? I have never worked in a company where there was such a plan. Is this public to employees or you just simply whip everyone until they work themselves to death without telling them the reasoning? Also I assume you are in the US. In most European countries you can absolutely do nothing about someone who works full time on your team unless they let's say causes you financial losses or punch you in the face, so you can basically shove up your plan to your bottom part in other cases.

bushido 7y ago
Performance plans, or performance improvement plans, are extremely verbose formal documents that are used as a last step to tie up all legal requirements before terminating an employee. These are most commonly used in countries outside US. Most of the US follows At-will employment[0], so generally no performance plans are necessary. This is not public. We've only used it twice, one person was suspected of misappropriation of funds (and later proven), and one that's currently in motion is an employee that misrepresented their technical knowledge i.e. cannot write code, convinced other employees to do 90% of their contributions. I get that there is this impression of the US whipping everyone until they work themselves to death. Anecdotal, but I've never really experienced that. If anything, the folk in the US like being busy, and workplaces (at least in tech) are overly happy, in something that reminds me of a cult. I have lived an worked in 5 countries in 3 continents and worked with people living in many more countries. In my own observations, the US colleagues have usually exhibited the highest level of happiness/satisfaction. They also tend to find their next jobs the quickest. And are paid the highest. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment
- fogetti 7y ago
  Thanks for the info. Interesting. But I assume this (i.e. the plan) is something that the employee can choose not to sign if it was not in the original contract and the law doesn't require him to do so. At least I wouldn't sign anything like that. And if he doesn't sign it then you can try firing him. Which might or might not be legal (which usually a court decides). At least that's how it works in those countries I worked in. It's also not rare and it's actually on the news all the time all around in Europe and Japan that a company fires someone whom later the company is forced to hire back by court ruling.