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Advice to new managers: don't joke about firing people

• benjaminva 6y ago
  Employees who can't take a good joke about being fired should probably be fired, they are not chill enough...joking obviosuly ;-)
  • TheCoelacanth 6y ago
    People in power who don't understand that they shouldn't joke about abusing their power, probably shouldn't be in power.
    • subhro 6y ago
      True that, a hundred times over.
• kemiller2002 6y ago
  This is sound advice. You have a significant amount of control over people's lives as a manager, and that should be treated with a level of respect. You have no idea how people feel, and it is quite possible that someone you manage doesn't know where they stand with you. At times that is more than enough to cause them stress and even convince them to look elsewhere. Work is stressful enough, and you don't need to add to it. I should also note. If you're a manager, your job is to do things that make you uncomfortable. If you can't handle sitting there and telling them you're letting them go in person, it's probably not the path for you. Have the decency to look someone in the eye. Don't pass it off to HR, because that's more convenient.
  • dudul 6y ago
    Do you have significant amount of control? Maybe I've been lucky to be part of mostly healthy organizations, but even managers have to justify/explain decisions. Either be for termination, compensation adjustment, reassigning to a different team, etc. I always had to document and explain why I thought an employee deserved a raise, or should not get a bonus, etc. Even as a director with ~20 reports I don't have unlimited firing power and I still need to regroup with HR when it comes to that. Yes, of course you have some control, but it's not unchecked.
    • toyg 6y ago
      You know that, but your underlings really don't. Yeah you can try telling them you're very constrained, but they'll think you're just passing the buck (which a lot of managers do, "it's out of my hands" etc etc). And I'm sure you can still influence things like who goes on holiday when, and stuff like that.
    • groby_b 6y ago
      But your people don't see the checks in action. For all they know, you've passed those already. The main thing is, there is a power differential, and "firing" jokes are, at their core, saying "I have power over you". It's just not that funny. And for new managers who feel compelled to make them, "why does my power make me giddy" is a good introspective question to ask. No, that doesn't imply they are bad people. New power does things to everybody's mood. But asking the question helps remind yourself. (For an entire framework to keep that impulse in check, servant leadership works pretty well, IME)
    • rco8786 6y ago
      Yea of course but the employee generally has no visibility into those processes, especially when it comes to job termination.
    • munchbunny 6y ago
      I always had to document and explain why I thought an employee deserved a raise, or should not get a bonus, etc. Even as a director with ~20 reports I don't have unlimited firing power and I still need to regroup with HR when it comes to that. Having that system in place isn't enough. You need that system to have teeth, and you need to have someone with as much power as you who will review your decisions and play devil's advocate. In many teams I've seen with documentation and HR hurdles, they're not real hurdles, they're just there so that there's a paper trail at all. That's because: 1. Most people in the company including the manager's boss and possibly even most teammates of the employee don't see enough of the employee's work, so it's often the manager's word vs. employee's. A bad manager will exploit that, intentionally or unintentionally. 2. When in doubt, the management hierarchy tends to side with the manager on things, because they by default trust the manager more than the employee and their view of the facts of the situation usually comes from the manager. A bad manager will intentionally or unintentionally editorialize the facts on their way up the hierarchy. 3. HR tends to avoid making waves. The only time I've seen HR (excuse the metaphor) plant the flag on the hill they intend to die on, it's because the person being fired or managed out was a protected class of worker. I have never seen HR push back just because the manager had insufficient reasons or suspect reasoning. A bad manager will just shove decisions through HR, intentionally or unintentionally. In all of those places, there were systems in place where managers had to document those decisions, but there wasn't real accountability, so the systems were nominal at best.
  • bananamerica 6y ago
    Minor fix for clarity: > If you're a manager, part of your job is to do things that make you uncomfortable
  • imsofuture 6y ago
    If you're a manager, your job is to do things that make you uncomfortable. Yep, one thing I noticed when I moved into a management role, was that the things that would make you move along as an employee, are the things it's now your job to fix or deal with. Maybe this is obvious, but there's kind of a visceral shift in perception that goes along with it.
    • Aeolun 6y ago
      Jup, I'm not empowered to do anything myself, so I have to rely on you. If you as my manager are not able to do anything either, we're part of a sick organization, and the only thing to do is leave.
      • loopz 6y ago
        As your circle expand, it is impossible not to notice the walls and blockers that are endemic. If one doesn't see this, it's often because that person is in their own little bubble, and not doing much to improve the organization either. Often, it takes both employees and managers to really make the shifts, over many many years. By the time it happens, the individual contributions are mostly forgotten or employee left long ago.
  • korijn 6y ago
    > If you can't handle sitting there and telling them you're letting them go in person, it's probably not the path for you I do think this is something you can learn. Having a good mentor/coach helps. I had a hard time with this personally, but after all these years I've seen almost every seat be replaced (more than once, too) and I've gotten used to it. You have to become more consciously aware that a business relationship is a separate thing from a friendly/family relationship.
  • A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
    Agreed. Long time ago I had a manager, who was using his firing history as a motivational tool. He would walk somewhere behind you and tell someone else a story that was supposed to partially mirror a story about you. Very subtle. He also loved bad jokes, but he was smart enough not to joke about firing people.
    • throwanem 6y ago
      There's nothing subtle about that kind of behavior. Contemptible, yes, but not subtle.
      • perl4ever 6y ago
        You could call it transparency. It's vastly better to have someone make you aware of what's up than blindside you or gaslight you by giving contradictory information/demands.
        • Grimm1 6y ago
          Or you know, have a meeting where your manager directly discusses the issue with you like an adult.
          • throwanem 6y ago
            Yeah, exactly. It's pretty wild to see "transparency" invoked in the context of literally talking behind someone's back.
            • Grimm1 6y ago
              Yeah I did a double take there. I personally believe that someone with that management methodology is entirely unfit for their position.
            • perl4ever 6y ago
              "Literally" talking behind someone's back, as you put it, is not talking behind someone's back, in the normal sense. So what's wild about calling it transparent?
  • momokoko 6y ago
    > is quite possible that someone you manage doesn't know where they stand with you Higher level performers tend to disproportionately believe then need to improve so they tend to take group jokes or threats of termination much more seriously than underperformers. Be very very careful making groups statements and jokes about performance and firings. It’s a fast track to losing high performers who leave because they start to believe they are not wanted and not doing a good job.
    • TheBlight 6y ago
      Do you have a citation for this phenomenon you claim wrt higher level performers?
      • throwaway3563 6y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome "... five subgroups this syndrome often falls into. - The perfectionist - The superwoman/man - The natural genius - The soloist - The expert"
        • P-ala-din 6y ago
          "While early research focused on the prevalence among high-achieving women, impostor syndrome has been recognized to affect both men and women equally." "The researchers concluded that the women who participated in this study experienced impostor phenomenon more so than the men who participated." am I misparsing this sentence? how can both be true?
          • dragonwriter 6y ago
            The first is characterizing a broad collection of research findings since the early identification of the phenomenon, the other the particular survey.
            • P-ala-din 6y ago
  • asdfman123 6y ago
    I've discovered when there's a power dynamic going on between two people, it's usually not a very good idea to pretend like that doesn't exist -- despite the fact that it is my natural inclination to joke about it and downplay it. Instead, I find it's better to be kind, take things seriously and treat people with respect. Yes, the power dynamic exists. Yes, I believe it's somewhat unfair and I wish society wasn't structured that way. But make up for it by being kind, being direct and treating people fairly. Otherwise, it just comes across as an inability to accept responsibility, and if someone with power over you doesn't seem predictable it just feels scary and unstable. Or worse, you'll give people the impression that you're actively taking pleasure in toying with them.
    • Kaze404 6y ago
      I agree with this. I recently had an honestly disastrous experience at a job because we tried to pretend that power dynamic doesn't exist. My boss (the CTO) considered me a friend and vice versa, but that made every work interaction so awkward (for me at least) because I could never tell whether we were talking as friends, teammates or employer-employee. I attribute this as both of us being incredibly young (lower 20s) and naive, but we still hold a lot of respect for each other now that I'm not working there anymore.
      • goatinaboat 6y ago
        I could never tell whether we were talking as friends, teammates or employer-employee There’s an old saying, if your boss if your friend, he’s either a bad boss or a bad friend.
        • jessaustin 6y ago
          It might work the other way too? Either a bad employee or a bad friend? Or maybe it would be both?
        • mark-r 6y ago
          A couple of weeks ago my family binge-watched "The Office". That show demonstrates the truth of that saying very well.
  • fossuser 6y ago
    I think it's good advice because the prediction of the social situation around becoming a manager is accurate (and often not discussed at all). It is awkward for people to go from not being a manager to being a manager among their peers. In new social situations I think that 'awkwardness' is actually uncertainty about how to behave because you haven't been in that position before. A lot of social skills seem to be based on accurate models/predictions of what to do in certain situations in order to bond with people. When you're suddenly a manager the old tools don't work as well and people try to generate that camaraderie with humor, but for the reasons listed in the article this can be particularly bad if done poorly. Other jokes I've noticed in addition to the firing thing, are annoying humble brag comments like, "Can you believe X important person wanted to talk to me about this thing?". I think they're trying to signal that they don't think they're important, but the obvious context just comes across as bragging. I think people get more respect when they just recognize the role they're in and are more confident about it (but that probably comes with experience of navigating that social situation). A good lead will explain these things directly to a new manager because the social bits are not obvious and are uncomfortable. This is even more important in fields where the baseline social skills may be not quite at par anyway. One advantage is that if you have knowledge of this, and you can model the way others think about it - you can actually be a force to make people more comfortable than they'd otherwise be. Encouraging them to ask questions by asking yourself in front of them when you don't know something. Suggesting they go home early if something is bothering them and that you do it too. Reassuring them if they're doing a good job or if something they're working on is particularly tricky etc. A good manager can do a lot to make someone feel safe/secure and make them happy, which is often a prerequisite for them to be a strong member of the team and stay for a long time.
  • llimos 6y ago
    I had a manager do this to me once. In a situation where I knew for sure he was joking. I was top of the department, and it wasn't even in the context of having done anything wrong. He had just been given some new responsibilities, and I asked him what he was planning to change, and he said, totally jokingly, 'well, today is your last day.' And I knew 100% it was a joke, and I still felt a horrible sinking feeling for a fraction of a second that was enough for me to promise myself that, should I ever be a manager, I would never ever do that to anyone. Fast forward a couple of years, I'm a manager in a different company, the company wants to move everyone over to a different legal entity by firing and then rehiring them. Totally innocuous. Remembering the above conversation and self-promise, I planned very carefully how to tell my team and in which order to say the words, and... someone interrupted with a question and I managed to cause exactly that moment of panic I'd been trying to avoid. You win some, you lose some...but at least I wasn't doing it as a joke.
    • nyokodo 6y ago
      I understand that sometimes the topic of a conversation can't be revealed beforehand. However, I wish more managers would give some kind of indication beforehand about how anxious one should be about it because for many people the worst-case scenario is the default presumption.
      • llimos 6y ago
        Totally agree, and I actually did do that! I started by saying, 'There is absolutely nothing to worry about, everything is totally fine' - but of course nothing worries people like being told there is nothing to worry about :) I had a great relationship with my team and no-one held it against me, it's just that moment of emotional response that gives a shock until the rational mind kicks in.
      • toomanybeersies 6y ago
        I think it's best to keep the notice for that kind of meeting as short as possible. My work cut our hours by 20%, and we were given notice about the meeting only a couple of hours beforehand. It would be cruel to schedule that kind of meeting for several days in time, leaving your staff in purgatory, wondering if they should get a head start on looking for a new job.
  • jessaustin 6y ago
    Have the decency to look someone in the eye. This is true even if you're not firing somebody. In my first "real" job, I didn't report directly to the guy who negotiated pay. Maybe that was a little weird, but it could have worked. Except, the way he would discuss raises was to wait until some afternoon I was really busy with actual work, and then sneak into my office and blurt "your-raise-this-year-is-$10-congratulations-it-was-good-to-talk-with-you-I'll-be-pretty-busy-for-the-next-few-weeks-ok-bye!" He was literally gone before I had the presence of mind to greet him. This is the same guy who would insist on all sorts of procedures if anyone (e.g. my manager's manager) wanted to meet with him. Geoff, wow, what a tool.
  • petrocrat 6y ago
    I have definitely started a job search after a superior joked about us being "replaceable". It wasn't even directed at me particularly, but there was a chance it was in reference to either the departments performance in general or possibly financial constraints of the department. The risk analysis on that from an employee perspective is a no-brainer: start making contingency plans.
  • ChuckMcM 6y ago
    It is sound advice and it is difficult if you're friends with people where you had an easy camaraderie before the promotion. I have had this bite me a couple of times with people for whom I felt I knew really well and was really comfortable with joking about pretty much anything. Only to find out later that the joke was anything but. The hard and fast rule has to be both don't joke about firing and don't talk to someone else's direct reports about the performance of their manager.
• bzb3 6y ago
  Someone who can't take a joke like the one that's mentioned in the article is liable to be problematic in some other capacity anyway.
  • lwall 6y ago
    Perhaps managers who can't see they're on shaky ground making such a joke are liable to be problematic in some other capacity.
    • bzb3 6y ago
      You are right. Nothing worse than a manager with a sense of humour. That ruins companies.
      • normalnorm 6y ago
        It is more or less universally recognized that jokes are only funny if they are punching upwards. Someone in a position of power making jokes about using that power against someone with less power is more akin to bullying.
        • bzb3 6y ago
          Your manager is not your enemy. Your manager making a joke is not kicking you down, he's trying to breed camaraderie.
          • RankingMember 6y ago
            Yep, nothing like joking about using the power you and no one under you has to end employment to really punch up the ol' team spirit.
          • toyg 6y ago
            This is the mindset that gave Gervais and Merchant plenty of material for The Office. Are you David Brent, by any chance?
• subhro 6y ago
  I am really surprised one has to write a blog post about this. I am not a manager, but here is a question for managers, have you or anyone you know, joked about firing someone? In my opinion, that would be incredibly cruel and stupid.
  • disgruntledphd2 6y ago
    I have had multiple managers make stupid jokes like this. It never gets any better. You appear to have been more fortunate than I.
  • turdnagel 6y ago
    Did you read the article? People make mistakes. They might try to break the tension by cracking a joke without realizing the effect it will have.
    • subhro 6y ago
      Yes I did. The point I was trying to make was, this really shouldn’t come to anyone naturally. It is like writing a blog post about not bullying anyone. People still do it, but I think those people are psychologically unstable, should be isolated and needs help.
      • city41 6y ago
        In the context of one team member gets promoted to manage the rest of the team, I can see how this type of "joke" could happen. If the team was really close and everyone was friends, it's easy to keep the friend mindset and make what you think is just a dumb joke without really thinking it through.
    • x3haloed 6y ago
      Yep. It’s natural. It’s happened to me, and I’ve done it as well. It never bothered me when it happened to me, so I thought it was OK. This is a good reminder to be more careful.
    • blaser-waffle 6y ago
• rsynnott 6y ago
  ... Huh. I would have thought this was too obvious to need saying, really. I'm kind of amazed that anyone would do this.
• lmilcin 6y ago
  Yeah. Also, don't joke about leaving the company. I have been passed over for promotion because of a complete joke remark like that made in presence of a person with whom I did not have very close working relationship. --- Making a joke about firing your subordinate would require perfect understanding of the state of mind of the person you are talking to. As a manager your job is to understand it is not possible to understand exactly how your words are going to be interpreted. Thus, telling a joke about firing your subordinate is a sign of bad judgment at best. Another responsibility of the manager is to ensure his/her team is productive. This can't happen when people feel unsafe about their financial situation. Strike two. There is absolutely nothing good that can come from telling a joke about firing someone. Even if the person you are joking about completely understands you are joking, somebody else might overhear the conversation leading to bad results. Another reason to treat it as a sign of bad judgement. In general, as a manager, never say things that you don't mean. When people know they can depend on every word you say it makes every word this more powerful and better tool to accomplish your goals.
  • woutr_be 6y ago
    > Yeah. Also, don't joke about leaving the company. One of my personal rules is to not even discuss leaving a company with any colleague. It’s far to easy for this information to leak back to your manager. Even if your colleagues had good intentions bring it up, the fact that you didn’t says enough.
• heyflyguy 6y ago
  Great advice, also along those lines are never joking about pay or quality of work. There will come a time when you have to talk about these things and you need the other person to take you very seriously.
• lis 6y ago
  This is along the lines of "Ha, taking half the day off, are we?" when somebody leaves a little bit earlier than usual. It sounds like (just) a bad joke, but it has severe consequences for your working relationship. I get that it's tempting to make jokes when you start managing for your old team members. Just accept the fact that you've switched positions and that your relationship will change. It will only make it more awkward if you don't.
  • gowld 6y ago
    One of the few memories I have of my old job was my grandmanager saying "leaving early today?" As I passed them in the hall at 5pm.
    • daenz 6y ago
      It's such a loaded question because any simple answer implies you acknowledge that 5pm is early. Gross. I hope you told them you value a healthy work life balance and left anyways. If a place fires you for that, you're better off not working there, barring exceptional circumstances.
    • Hamuko 6y ago
      I remember the CEO asking me that question. However, the context was that I was walking towards the parking lot at 14:00. And so was he.
    • blowfish721 6y ago
      At my current position it's quite usual for my manager to ask why I'm still at the office when it's 3:30PM on a friday. One of the reasons I'm still working where I am.
      • mc32 6y ago
        If I were manager I would not even imply that I’m time aware either way, unless there is an ongoing issue (someone staying too late often), (or someone who is not putting in an effort). Otherwise why even bring up your consciousness of time? It signals you’re tracking it one way or another. Edit: for addressing burnout, overwork, etc., for me personally I would start with bringing up the issue in team meetings. Do we have enough resources, does anyone feel they’ve got too many tasks; remind everyone (no singling out) that we’re not here to be superheroes, we’re here to work in exchange for compensation and that you need a good work-life balance in order to perform well at work. If it continues to be an issue after several proclamations, then I could address individuals one on one.
• daniel-thompson 6y ago
  In general, internally-directed sarcasm is not a trait that people greatly respect in leaders.
• imsofuture 6y ago
  An experienced CEO joined a mid-sized company that I worked at a few years. His opening line, in his first all hands was a joke about firing the people who were a few minutes late to the call. It was obviously a joke, but you really can't make a worse impression and he was gone within a year.
  • why-el 6y ago
    Are you sure this is not David Brent from The Office?
    • DoofusOfDeath 6y ago
      Or Robert California?
  • jbay808 6y ago
    I thought these people are paid multiple millions because they're supposed to be "top talent"?
    • afterburner 6y ago
      Top con man talent maybe.
    • papito 6y ago
      They are paid millions because once you win the birth lottery, and if you are tall and loud enough, failing upwards becomes the default that is very hard to beat, even if you try. And it's really, really hard to learn from your mistakes unless someone calls you out on your shit, which almost never happens to these people.
      • deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    • jmchuster 6y ago
      If the CEO came in and was amazing, then she/he'd get paid the same amount. I mean, it's the exact same with engineers. They get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars because they're "top talent", but experience and resume does not necessarily a good engineer make. You interview and make a guess, but it's not like the best engineers always get paid the most and the worst get paid the least. They all get paid roughly the same. The only difference is that bad engineers generally don't get fired at the rate that bad CEOs do. But I guess that's because the scale of impact is a lot less, and they're not so easy to identify and blame.
• sudhirj 6y ago
  The basic rule of comedy, or making jokes, which is amateur comedy, is that you always punch up. It’s funny when you say “ha! you’re fired!” to your boss, but never when you say it to someone you can actually fire. Same reason why parents (should) never joke about punishment or disciplinary action with their kids - when you have power and authority you also have a responsibility not to belittle it. People will take your power over them only as seriously as you take your responsibility towards them.
  • gowld 6y ago
    A US President once gave a speech joking about assassinating the Jonas Brothers with a predator drone to protect his daughter from dating them. https://abcnews.go.com/WN/president-obama-tells-joke-jonas-brothers-draws-criticism/story?id=10548687 https://abcnews.go.com/WN/president-obama-tells-joke-jonas-b... (Not singling out that President, but the incident was shocking.)
    • jdhawk 6y ago
      ....at the White House Correspondent's Association Dinner, which is known for bad jokes?
      • Hamuko 6y ago
        I don't think the issue is that it wasn't recognised as a joke. It was clearly a joke. It's more about what the topic of the joke was. Think of holocaust jokes.
    • sudhirj 6y ago
      Yeah, not funny because Presidents can, and often do, kill people with drone strikes. It would have been funny if he pointed the joke at a hurricane or shook his fist at God while saying it. If he wanted to make a dad joke he could have said he had a shotgun or would box them or challenge them to a duel or something. That implication of superiority with balance can be funny, like Mike Tyson joking that he was going to kick your ass if dated his kids. Enough of a flex, but the balance is maintained because if you train hard enough or knew enough kung fu maybe you could take him. Joking about firing people and calling a drone strike on them are not funny if you can actually do it but they can't do it back to you.
• dudul 6y ago
  It is good advice, but it is not very common for newly promoted managers to have full hiring/firing power.
  • Insanity 6y ago
    This could be extended to "not make jokes about someones work / work status when you're their manager" .
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• Hamuko 6y ago
  I imagine this is less of a thing in countries where you need just cause to fire people.
  • TomMarius 6y ago
    No, they coerce you into leaving yourself in these countries.
• fennecfoxen 6y ago
  I've had a manager who made it work. It was deliberately a running joke, it was one of a family of running jokes with similar delivery techniques, it was never aimed at any new hires, and most of this manager's direct reports "fired" him as well, on a regular basis. It is reasonable to regard even this particular situation with caution, but I mention it anyway, to highlight the patterns that did make it work, that you can regard the absence of these patterns in your own situation.
• DevX101 6y ago
  While we're on this topic, managers don't invite your direct reports for one-on-one meeting out of the blue with no agenda. I've heard multiple people tell me they assume they're about to be fired.
  • Hamuko 6y ago
    I once had this happen to me. My manager asked me to stay behind after a meeting. Can't really remember the exact way that I reacted, but I imagine that I at least looked befuddled. My manager quickly added "Oh don't worry, it's nothing bad." Turns out that it was a promotion.
  • greenshackle2 6y ago
    This goes for HR too. HR at an old job invited me and a colleague to a meeting with a nondescript title. I thought my colleague must have some issue with me. But no, they wanted us to draw our vision for the company with colorful markers.
    • olau 6y ago
      Haha, reading this made my day.
      • greenshackle2 6y ago
        You have to imagine the scene. I walk to the meeting. Sweaty palms. I re-play every interaction I've had with that colleague in my head, trying to think of what I could have done that offended her. I can't think of anything, which is somehow worse, because I have no idea what I'm walking into. Then HR rep shows up with a box of markers, paper, and are like, "we're doing drawings!" and I'm just like, "we're what now". After talking to her, my colleague also thought she was in trouble somehow.
  • Aeolun 6y ago
    Conversely, I've had a total of two employees request a one on one meeting with me directly, and it was always because they were about to resign :(
• Insanity 6y ago
  People must have had some bad managers if this needed saying. You'd never joke about someones work or work status, this seems obvious to me. Sad that it's not. :/
• jerf 6y ago
  Similarly, marriage protip: Don't joke about divorces. Even if you think your partner can handle it. Mine can and we still don't do it, as policy. It's a known policy, too; we mentioned it to each other before (briefly, a long time ago, not as some big event). This is certainly far from "the one key to a happy marriage!", but it's a brick in the house. It generally fits into the larger social IQ element of thinking about the worst way someone may take something you communicate. This is a particularly easy place to see how you may have felt it was a light-hearted joke, but someone else could easily take it entirely seriously, or as a passive-aggressive "ha ha only serious".
  • BMorearty 6y ago
    Absolutely right. In my marriage we never sat down and talked about not joking about divorce, but after 25 years it's evident we both know that's the rule.
  • tinyhouse 6y ago
    You mean not to joke about it in front of other people? I agree of course. But between you two? seriously... A married couple should be able to talk freely, including about things they don't like. No need to create policies in advance like it's a work relationship between employee/manager. I would worry if my married life looked like a work relationship.
    • graeme 6y ago
      This is the sort of comment you should only confidently make if you’re in a happy marriage that has survived at least ten years. Ideally more. If not, you’re speaking in a domain in which you have no experience. Or rather, it’s unclear whether any experience you do have shows expertise. Certain people are more prone to cause divorce than others, and it is dangerous to take advice from the wrong person in this respect.
      • zeroonetwothree 6y ago
        I’ve been married 15 years and we joke about divorce sometimes (as well as lots of other ‘sensitive’ topics). YMMV
• clairity 6y ago
  > "They try to break the tension with self deprecation and poking fun at the newfound responsibility. That 'haha I’m the bureaucrat now what a joke this is' attitude" this bit is more insightful than the title. there was even a friends (and many others) episode about this. the power imbalance is a real concern, and makes the concerns and empathies complicated, but as with all relational issues, it goes both ways. be understanding both ways. be resilient both ways. it doesn't mean cut off and throw away a piece of your soul to fit the ideal of corporate sterility.
• idoby 6y ago
  So much drama. If a manager in your org can fire good-standing employees on a whim without scrutiny from the rest of the org, quit now. In any other org, go ahead and joke with your buddies, people need the icebreakers. Just maybe not more than once.
• agensaequivocum 6y ago
  Seems pretty self-evident. Reminds me of that office episode where Michael pretends to fire Pam and she reacts as any normal person would expect.
• tobyhinloopen 6y ago
  Also, don’t talk shit about my colleagues behind their back.
• KingOfCoders 6y ago
  If you had to fire individuals in the past or 80% of your department due to economic reasons (what to tell people if they ask 'why me?') then you wouldn't joke about it. It's not fun. Obviously not for the person 'fired' but also not for a manager - at least not for me.
• binarytox1n 6y ago
  I agree with the sentiment wholeheartedly - It’s easy for technical people promoted to a people management role not to realize that their words now have a significantly greater affect on morale. The author did a good job expanding on situations that are now not funny, but here’s another one that I see all the time: Butts in seats. As a manager, anything you say about the clock, the vacancy ratio of an employees chair, anything about time management really is not a joke. It is making the employee feel as though the work they do is not valued and that you expect them to be meat decorations prettying up an office chair. I used to think that when I was promoted I could still be “one of the guys” - and I try hard to get quality time with the team, joke around, etc - but over time it’s become clear that I can never escape the new context in which my words and actions are perceived. I can no longer shit on bad code like I used to - I now need to discover how we ended up with the deficiency, plan to correct it, and assure the rest of the engineers that we do have high quality standards we need to live up to.
  • groby_b 6y ago
    Yep. And it only gets worse as your scope grows. There comes a point where you'll say something like "Huh, that looks interesting, I wonder what would happen if X", just because you still have some engineering thinking left in you, and three weeks later you'll get word that somebody spun up a working group to investigate X. If you ever wondered why manager emails to a large team always look super-formal? We've touched that particular live wire, and would rather not do that again.
    • JoshTriplett 6y ago
      > There comes a point where you'll say something like "Huh, that looks interesting, I wonder what would happen if X", just because you still have some engineering thinking left in you, and three weeks later you'll get word that somebody spun up a working group to investigate X. This is somewhat avoidable. You can communicate this to your team. You can make it clear you invite feedback and corrections, and demonstrating that in practice by responding well when people take you up on that. You can ask questions in a way that invites answers. You can make your relative level of expertise clear in an area when you ask questions. And on the occasions when this still happens, sometimes it'll be because your musings sparked an idea in someone, and they thought it was a good idea to investigate X.
• cosmodisk 6y ago
  This is a good advice. I did this a few times(everyone involved understand the situations as jokes and had a good laugh+ it's England,so insta-fired almost doesn't exist), however what's funny for one,is outright scarry to another. I had enough situations where people screw up and think they'll be fired, while nobody is even remotely considering it, so it's better to avoid those kind of jokes altogether. A good rule is that religion, politics, immigration,and the work itself should be left out from any professional setting.
• kryogen1c 6y ago
  This misses the larger lesson: separate your personal and professional interactions, especially with people at different levels of responsibility. Its a hallmark of a junior manager, someone who doesn't know where the line for their authority is. its trying to coax your subordinates into giving you power over them - but you already have it. its a form of cowardice, of uncomfortability. the opposite of this is the manager who gives all their power to THEIR manager, ie "idk man, this doesnt make any sense to me either but thats the way corporate wants it done." well if all you are is a mouthpiece for corporate, then what good are you?
• wallflower 6y ago
  You are not truly a manager until you lay-off or fire someone “face to face“. I knew a manager who would not do the difficult task of laying off someone. I kind of lost respect for them.
• chooseaname 6y ago
  > When people get promoted to manager their former peers become direct reports. It’s awkward. This is why in, for example, retail, you will see people promoted, but to another location.
• esotericn 6y ago
  The reverse situation is interesting. "I mean, you could just sack me if it goes wrong" is a personal go-to. Built an emergency fund at age 20 and stopped giving a fuck, it's just business. Obligatory "I'm not American, we don't die on the street if we break our leg whilst unemployed here" I guess. I find dark humour amusing in general because it's just like, yeah, you actually could wake up tomorrow with a brick in the back of your head. Live as if it matters today. Important now more than ever.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
• VikingCoder 6y ago
  Band of Brothers: "Never put yourself in a position where you can take from these men." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyLHIobW0HQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyLHIobW0HQ
• DecoPerson 6y ago
  I grew up believing having thick skin was really important. I took this to heart, and now nothing phases me (and I’ve been in a variety of nasty situations that confirmed this). I realize this is not the norm, but I wish it was. Avoiding trigger words and peoples’ sensitivities is frustrating and further complicates complex discussions. I’m not saying we should be robots. I still have feelings. If someone I love shows me that I’ve let them down, I feel absolutely terrible. Thick skin + freedom of speech (but not freedom of information or freedom to shout) + people being generally genuinely respectful (as in tough-love) = a pretty good civilization in my eyes Buuut I accept we live in a world with sensitive people and as such must continue to be considerate of their feelings. At least it’s not illegal to trigger people!
  • gowld 6y ago
    Thick skin is a fantastic skill to develop in yourself and others. Amusing yourself by testing how thick other people's skin is not. Legal doesn't equal good.
  • wobbly_bush 6y ago
    > Avoiding trigger words and peoples’ sensitivities is frustrating and further complicates complex discussions I wonder if that is a result of believing having a thick skin is important and anything otherwise is now found frustrating.
  • salehenrahman 6y ago
    I'm not sure if you are generally lamenting about people's sensitivities, or you are just dismissing jokes about firing as "not a big deal", and that "people should get over it". Let me repeat what the author of the article posted: DO NOT joke about firing people. You don't need to have a thin skin to take comments about firing seriously. When a manager said that they'd fire you, it's only smart to begin looking for work elsewhere. The moment they said that, it's the moment that they have demonstrated the following: - your employment status is precarious, under that manager (yes, employment is generally precarious, but at a company with a good culture, it's the company's financials that predicates your employment status, not financials plus your manager) - your manager has demonstrated that their power has gone to their head, potentially leading to bad decisions under their management - assuming they were joking about firing you in the first place, your manager's words regarding anything related to your job function cannot be generally taken seriously This is not a thin skin issue. This is a bad manager issue. Start looking for work elsewhere.
• spcebar 6y ago
  The April fool's joke at my last job was, "we got bought, so, move to Colorado or lose your job!" Hilarious.
  • Hamuko 6y ago
    Because of the COVID-19 situation, HR asked people if they were willing to take a voluntary pay cut this year. Unfortunately it was very badly timed as they decided to ask it on April first.
• bergstromm466 6y ago
  Advice to New Policemen: Don't Joke About Shooting People Reminds me of Manwhohasitall https://twitter.com/manwhohasitall/status/1259015496302645249 https://twitter.com/manwhohasitall/status/125901549630264524...
• nojito 6y ago
  Flip side is also true. Joking about quitting is a terrible thing to do.
  • Kronen 6y ago
    Not when you can get a better job in another place
• mtippett 6y ago
  Absolutely, it's a power play and innappropriate. I worked for a manager that would use "I exited his ass" as a badge of pride. That shows no respect for the person, and it also shows no due diligence and hiring, mentoring or coaching that individual. We all have our own particular biases in how we measure our own personal success, and as leaders we also apply our biases to how we interpret other's success. As a leader who has control of someone's livelihood, you should ensure a tempered layering of (1) expectations, (2) feedback, (3) understanding, and (4) mutual understanding of fit. No one should be surprised that they are getting fired or getting on a performance plan. The silent behavior is a tell, but it is ultimately unfair to the employee. Bad hires do happen, but it's usually pretty clear and pretty mutual when that happens.
• Kronen 6y ago
  This is another example of the trend in the 21st Century, people being so easily offended.
  • dvtrn 6y ago
    That's really what you took from this? Is it possible in your mind there may be some usefulness from the admonition to new managers in the blog post in treating people with bare minimum decency in not joking about firing them, even if one were to frame it differently, or is this what you've decided is the only possible takeaway here? That people are easily offended? I'm not offended by the comment, just kind of amused someone went this far out of their way to miss the point.
    • Kronen 6y ago
      What you need to understand is that cultures are different, if I have a manager that doesn't get close to employees being friendly and joking even with black humour my co-workers are going to talk behind saying he is dull and unfriendly. But probably you are american and you don't even get irony nor sarcasm, you see, a joke ;) And my point still stands, in 21st century people is getting so easily offended like if we are all now mentally weaker.
      • dvtrn 6y ago
        I understand quite well the nuances that exist from one culture to the next, but I still feel the need to stand by my point and agree with the author: if you're a manager, maybe don't joke around about terminating people from their jobs-even in jest we don't know what mental faculties that kind of "joke" will activate in the recipients mind and it's best to just eschew these comments altogether because it's just prudent and decent behavior for someone looked to as a leader, and leaders don't actively or deliberately make commentary that stigmatize those under their ward. So on the one hand, sure, cultures are different between workplaces and industries, on the other hand, I really don't need anyone making smarmy assessment about my nationality or making insinuations about people of my nationality and our ability to comprehend irony and sarcasm to empathetically intuit the point made in the article.
• alexandercrohde 6y ago
  I think a good parallel would be how would you feel as a manager if your employee jokes about quitting to go get more money somewhere else?
  • amznthrowaway5 6y ago
    That's not a good parallel at all, the manager still has the real power and can fire/PIP the employee for making that joke.
• wayoutthere 6y ago
  How about we extend this to sarcasm in general. It’s super easy to not understand when to take sarcasm seriously, especially if you have team members on the autism spectrum. Furthermore, sarcasm is often rooted in negative feelings about yourself or others. It’s just generally a poor communication tool, which is tolerable if you’re a worker making gallows humor with other workers, but way too easily misunderstood if you’re not on the bottom of the hierarchy.
• lizardmancan 6y ago
  good point. In NL some still have the fantastic labor protection from the 80's. With everyone except those employees it is not funny.
• elchin 6y ago
  Leadership Strategy and Tactics by Jocko Willink has a great chapter about how to act when you became a manager of your former peers. Joking around is definitely not the way to go to establish yourself as a leader.
• KineticLensman 6y ago
  The joking dynamic depends a lot on whether we are talking about technical leadership versus line management, a distinction that occurs in some matrix-structured organisations. I.e., where people are grouped into resource teams for admin reasons and are separately deployed to projects. So an individual will generally have at least two people who can ‘tell them what to do’, namely his line manager (who might hassle them to complete training, performance reviews, etc) and the tech lead of the project(s) to which they are assigned. Before retiring I was a tech lead for multiple projects over three decades, so was used to having a ‘leader’ relationship with many of my colleagues, some of whom were good friends. But for a two year period I took up line management responsibilities for the resource team of grey beards I belonged to. This was much, much more stressful than the tech leading. Not because of having to fire them but because I was now the corporate voice who had to explain why they weren’t getting a good pay rise, again. Most of them knew it was my role and not me so didn’t take it personally but in one case it completely destroyed a friendship with one of my team who was particularly bitter about certain issues. In terms of ‘joking about firing people’ – my close friends in the group and I evolved a protocol whereby conversation that took place on our regular lunchtime walks was deemed to be ‘normal me’ speaking as opposed to ‘management-me’, and where I could share jokes. The only exception to this stays-in-Vegas rule was with one guy who was a known joker: I made a ‘management sign’ that had ‘No!’ printed on one side and ‘Stop!’ on the other. This was used fairly often and was viewed positively, especially when the individual concerned was being particularly distracting in the open plan office. It also humanised the management role, especially with my friends who knew that I was not a corporate clone.
• OliverJones 6y ago
  This is REALLY good advice. When you become a manager, you suddenly become all-seeing, all-knowing, and all-powerful about peoples' jobs, pay, bonuses, benefits, time off, assignments, promotions, all that stuff. You're actually not all-seeing, all-knowing, and all-powerful. You're only part of a management team. But you will NEVER convince your direct reports you're not. Even if you just started being a manager today. Therefore: * DO NOT JOKE, ever, even once, about anyone's job, pay, bonus, time off, or other terms of employment. Or your own. * DO NOT MAKE PROMISES about people's pay, etc, unless you ALREADY KNOW you can keep them. Do not EVER say "I will give you a promotion / raise / bonus / award." Only say, "Hey, you got a raise! Good work." * do not even say "I'll try to get you a raise" because then if you can't deliver, the person will always wonder why you didn't do it. Even if what you said wasn't a promise, it sounds like one. People pay a lot of attention to things their managers say, and they NEVER FORGET things that threaten them or promise them something. Peoples' terms of employment are an irony-free and snark-free zone.
  • Hamuko 6y ago
    >do not even say "I'll try to get you a raise" because then if you can't deliver, the person will always wonder why you didn't do it. Even if what you said wasn't a promise, it sounds like one. But I don't really need to wonder why I didn't get a raise even if my direct manager tried to get me one and it's quite simple: upper management doesn't appreciate my work as much as my direct manager does.
• rsweeney21 6y ago
  I know the tech community likes to hate on company policies and bureaucracy, but this is exactly why you need SOME rules - to protect employees from bad managers. If you have a process in place that managers must follow in order to terminate an employee, employees don't have to be afraid of tasteless jokes about firing. If there is a process that involves the employee (like a PIP), you also don't have to be afraid that you'll be blindsided with a termination. Same thing applies to "unlimited" vacation. I know this is an unpopular opinion, but when you get rid of your vacation policy, you are transferring all handling of time-off to your front line managers. My experience with unlimited vacation at Netflix was poor because I had a manager that made little comments here and there that made me feel guilty about taking time off. If I had days off that I accrued then I would know exactly what I'm entitled to take. I wrote a blog post about why we got rid of our unlimited vacation policy at our company. https://www.facetdev.com/blog/posts/why-we-ditched-our-unlimited-vacation-plan/ https://www.facetdev.com/blog/posts/why-we-ditched-our-unlim...
  • MAGZine 6y ago
    Pardon me saying so, though the base vacation policy seems middling in generosity. It strikes me that maybe the unlimited policy didn't work for facet because of that. essentially: including company holidays in PTO calculation is lame. It's essentially forced PTO, not vacation. I'd consider your vacation policy to be about three weeks, not five, which is "just ok." It's enough for a two-week vacation and some time off for christmas. If your unlimited vacation policy expectation was actually three weeks of vacation, then I could see why it didn't really work for you. Overall, I think metered is better than unmetered if enough volume is given. I don't know how hard Facet negotiates on extra PTO, but from the baseline offering, I think I could take more in unlimited systems.
    • rsweeney21 6y ago
      I agree that 3 weeks of vacation isn't leading the industry by any means. Like I mention in the blog post, we are a small bootstrapped company. It's the best we think we can offer right now because we aren't subsidized by VC money.
  • 6y ago
• Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  Oof; while not a manager, I have made the joke to various people who were peers in terms of job description, but I had been at the company for years while they had only been there for months. They took it as intended though, I've always been the clown type.
• phibz 6y ago
  Listen to your team and be their advocate.
• tinyhouse 6y ago
  Another advice - don't criticize your employee in front of others. Whatever you have to say leave to 1:1. I once had a manager who criticized employees in stand-ups in front of the team if they didn't finish something they were supposed to.
• ok_coo 6y ago
  Don't joke about firing people. Don't joke about using a certain tech or infrastructure because it lets you hire cheaper people. Don't joke about people's housing or what car they own. Don't joke about how people don't have options to go work somewhere else. Don't say to your employee, "let's meet first thing on Monday morning" on a Friday afternoon without being explicit that it's nothing dire. Don't. You have enormous power over people's lives. Act like it.
• LordFast 6y ago
  Uhh, isn't this dead obvious?
• uberdru 6y ago
  Another one is never fire anyone who is not on a CAP plan of some sort. Unless of course, they do the bad stuff. That way everyone who is not on a CAP plan knows that they are doing fine, and don't suffer the anxiety that arises from inevitable ambiguity.
• Non24Throw 6y ago
  Early in my career, a manager once had me repeat to him that I would be terminated if I failed to do X, like I was a 5-year-old. X was referring to a technical implementation detail that he had zero understanding of. He read something in a blog post I guess. My reaction was to act like it was a fun joke or something. But inside, I absolutely loathed him every second of every day until I quit, and now I take great satisfaction knowing that I’ve surpassed him and would never do a thing to help his stagnating career. (In other words, I’m holding an extremely petty and lasting grudge.) But my point is, he probably thought I was fine with all his joking. I always laughed. To expand on the article’s point, I think the biggest thing young managers don’t understand is that people are going to be insincere to you as a basic showing of respect and a basic desire for career preservation. They’re going to smile and appear to enjoy you and laugh at your jokes and seem ok with everything, much moreso than they otherwise would. So don’t make the mistake of using their reactions to define your boundaries of what’s acceptable or what’s funny, because it’s not a typical relationship, and you will invariably believe that you are funnier than you are and that a wider range of unacceptable behaviors are acceptable.
  • mjayhn 6y ago
    > To expand on the article’s point, I think the biggest thing young managers don’t understand is that people are going to be insincere to you as a basic showing of respect and a basic desire for career preservation. They’re going to smile and appear to enjoy you and laugh at your jokes and seem ok with everything, much moreso than they otherwise would. I know it's hard and it took me until my 30s with a long career behind me but I really wish people would be more vocal about their issues to their managers, even if it's about their management style or them burning people out, etc. There is a huge chance that you're not the only one with those feelings and there might be people newer to the team or career that are afraid of speaking up for things that they really truly disagree with, or just the people who get anxious with confrontation.
    • Non24Throw 6y ago
      Your perception of the risks associated with providing that feedback isn’t the same as everyone else’s. When you’re young, and especially if you come from a lower income background (where authority is treated as an absolute, and abuse of authority is generally more common and accepted), it can seem very risky and feel very unacceptable to give this kind of feedback to your manager. It’s easy for me to agree with you now, but there are very different feelings about this across different backgrounds and cultures, and there are plenty of managers who would react harshly to this.
• sdoowpilihp 6y ago
  This is great advice. It is cast in the first sentence as narrow advice, and in some ways it is. In the last paragraph though, it is illustrated that the advice generalizes incredibly well, and that's the part that sticks with me. Recognize the power your words carry, be empathetic to how those affect people.
• massaman 6y ago
  Never joke about firing people. It's much better to joke about running out of funding. Knowing that everyone will lose their jobs together builds a sense of community and shared mission.
• iguanayou 6y ago
  Right out of the Michael Scott playbook https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAxtVMuDYD8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAxtVMuDYD8
• dfxm12 6y ago
  Another thing: don't compare people in your team to recently let-go people. As a survivor after a series of lay-offs, I took over a project from someone who was recently laid off (let's call him Joe), got asked a really vague question about it and responded, IMO reasonably, that clarification was needed. All I got back was "That's a Joe-type of answer" (emphasis theirs). I don't think it was funny, and it certainly didn't help my understanding of the problem. I brought this up in a meeting and was accused of being "too snippy lately" shortly after. It's the type of thing where if didn't already have 5 years of enjoying my role, I'd probably be looking for a new one.
  • hu3 6y ago
    You're not alone. I'd be quite unconformable to hear that. Sorry that you have to experience such awkward conversation and be called "too snippy" after complaining about it on top of that.
• zeruch 6y ago
  This is sound advice...almost to the point of staggeringly obvious.
• steelframe 6y ago
  I've always had a really dry sense of humor. When I moved into a management role, my director took me aside and said something to the effect of, "I have a dry sense of humor too. When I started managing people I had to build a filter between the jokes that pop into my head and the words that escape my mouth." This was from my first year of managing when I had one screw-up that led people who overheard the interaction to report it. The joke was something like, "Oh hey, the start time for our meeting has already passed, and here we are still working. Why do you hate meeting with me?" In hindsight, it's now obvious to me that when there's a power differential, the other person can easily be left wondering, "Does my boss really think I don't like him? Oh my god, I can't ever be late to another meeting with him again!" I'm now years down the road from that, and I cringe at some of the things I said when I was new to the role. I'm glad I've had time to learn some lessons in communication as a manager before COVID-19, because now that interactions have been scoped down to text chats, emails, and occasional video calls, people have to make inferences from a much smaller set of signals. I'm having to work twice as hard to be very direct and clear about what I want people to understand, and I have to go out of my way to deliberately ensure that interactions, both one-on-one and as a group, happen as frequently as is necessary to maintain the health of the individuals and of the team.
  • dogman144 6y ago
    Good example of how one can grow into a leadership role. About 99% of the basic skills required to lead can be taught or learned.
  • rurp 6y ago
    > now that interactions have been scoped down to text chats, emails, and occasional video calls, people have to make inferences from a much smaller set of signals. This was one of the biggest adjustments to working remote for me. When I started my first remote job I was a little insecure about my technical skills and it stressed me out not having those soft signals to gauge how well I was performing and what managers and coworkers thought of me. For any managers of remote teams reading this, I recommend making a point of giving regular feedback to new team members. When working in-person it's much easier for people to pick up a general sense of what others think they are doing well or poorly at.
• deleted 6y ago
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• vvanders 6y ago
  Oh haha, memories. We had a co-founder who pulled an "April 2nd" joke about 1/3 of the team being let go because of a non-poaching agreement between their old publisher and the studio. Kept it going for about 15 minutes until he finally let on that it was a joke. They got him back pretty good, stuck an annoy-a-tron in his office for ~6 months. We'd all deny hearing it when it chirped in meetings or during standup.
  • throwaway9482 6y ago
    Ok that sounds like a really funny company to work at
    • dang 6y ago
      Could you please stop creating accounts for every few comments you post? We ban accounts that do that. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0&query=by:dang%20community%20identity https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
• tomrod 6y ago
  JFC... Yeah, don't joke about structural things as a manager.
• AdrianB1 6y ago
  Never joke about firing people, but don't hesitate to do it. That is the complete advice. Joking about firing people never brought anything good; firing people when needed, that is essential for organizations. There is a lengthy explanation in this: "Why our generals were more successful in World War II than in Korea, Vietnam or Iraq/Afghanistan" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxZWxxZ2JGE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxZWxxZ2JGE)
• mathattack 6y ago
  Yes. Same thing about joking about people’s future raises. There’s an enormous power imbalance in managing people.
• whywhywhywhy 6y ago
  If you're an executive don't joke "That's why they pay me the big bucks".
• RobPfeifer 6y ago
  Definitely don’t joke about it - but people should be aware that poor performance or behavior won’t be tolerated. The best employees generally appreciate that meritocracy is taken seriously. Along those lines, advice to new managers: you should let people go if there isn’t a good mutual fit.
• deleted 6y ago
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• ashtonkem 6y ago
  I find that there are two aspects of good management that aren’t talked about enough. First, power. Managers have explicit and implicit power, and you should understand both. Joking about firing someone is an abuse of your explicit power, but you should also be careful about excessive use of your ability to issue direct orders. Similarly, be aware how the implicit power of a manager affects conversations, and do little things like vote last to give others a chance to speak before they know where you’ve landed. Secondly, good management is a lot of emotional labor. A portion of the emotional well being of your team is your problem, especially around things related to work itself. If managing is emotional labor, then do try to not make your job harder by freaking your directs out.
• deleted 6y ago
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• Carpetsmoker 6y ago
  I find the responses to this interesting; several mangers have made some jokes like this over the years (it was even something of a running joke with my last one) and I never felt threatened. Perhaps because in my country you have employment protection laws so you can't just terminate someone's employment, which is rather different from many US states.
• snovv_crash 6y ago
  Something along similar lines I've heard is "nobody's quit because our tooling is bad, so I don't think we should improve our tooling".
• renewiltord 6y ago
  This feels like the sort of idiot behaviour that makes sense where you don't need to bother correcting it because it's just an indicator that you're also going to get a cluster of other associated behaviours. It's better they just do this and you take the red flag and go somewhere else.
• akamia 6y ago
  I would add that anyone who is planning on moving into management should also avoid joking like this. I once worked with an engineer who had a lead that would joke all the time about firing him. As a lead he had no authority to fire anyone but it was well known that he wanted to transition into a management position. Within two weeks of the lead actually becoming a manager, the engineer left the company for another job. I remember speaking with the engineer about it after he left and he told me that he knew it was a joke but it still made him slightly uneasy. He wondered whether there was some grain of truth in the jokes. He wanted to make sure that he was leaving on his terms. The take away that I took from that was if you're going to go down the management path, consider everyone a potential direct report and communicate accordingly. The joke that you're making as peers can take on a different meaning the day you become their manager.
• papito 6y ago
  Just new managers?
• afterburner 6y ago
  Don't be an asshole. Don't abuse your power. Seems like it would be obvious, but for many shitty people, the above two things are seen as perks of being a manager. Even more of a problem is people hiring managers sometimes look for those traits on purpose. There are so many shitty managers.
• drekembe 6y ago
  Conversely, do make jokes that lift people up and make them look and feel good.
• austincheney 6y ago
  Perhaps the greatest reason why joking about job security is so bad is that it forces an irreversible wedge between the employee and the employer or team. If a person believes their job is in peril they lose focus of their work and shift focus into matters of personal security. People tend to over emphasize the nature of their employment as a matter of personal identity, accomplishment, and life progress. When those things are in peril they become more important problem to fix than their assigned responsibilities, work/life balance, or even familial relationships which can snowball into further problems. While this is frequently more a matter of personal vanity than finances the problem is still there and it’s socially contagious, which is toxic. Counter intuitively I have found many people are less emotionally troubled about losing their jobs when the harm is purely financial. That isn’t to say it is free of stress, but rather there are fewer panic moments.
  • gwbas1c 6y ago
    > Counter intuitively I have found many people are less emotionally troubled about losing their jobs when the harm is purely financial. That isn’t to say it is free of stress, but rather there are fewer panic moments. Exactly. I was at a job for nine years, ready for a change, and honestly hoping for a severance package. (Finding a good job is time consuming, so I didn't want to do it on the side and surprise the people I worked with for years with two weeks notice.) When the higher up delivered the news to me, I had to reassure him! Fortunately, everything was done with dignity, I had plenty of time to finish my project and transfer knowledge.
• apocalyptic0n3 6y ago
  Even if you're not a manager, do not underestimate your position. I'm on a small team (<10 devs, <50 employees total) and I'm one of the longest tenured employees and wear just about every hat possible at the company. I am not a manager and I report to the same person every other developer does. I also do not have the authority to fire someone and have never once suggested we do it. But I have a heavy influence on the direction of our team and company, am involved in the hiring process, handle most of our development rule and workflow decisions, etc. Just because I can't fire anyone, doesn't mean other people know that. A few years ago, back before I had even half my current responsibilities, I was sitting with one of the other devs trying to figure out a bug that made it into production and they asked "How bad is it?" and I offhandedly/sarcastically said "You're going to need a new job" without even looking at them. At that point, those kinds of things were pretty commonly said by devs to one another. But a few hours later, I got a frantic message on Slack asking if they had been fired. They had apparently spent the last 3 hours in a state of high tension thinking they'd be fired by EOD. At that point, I realized my role was ambiguous enough that I couldn't joke about it anymore. And if you're in a position like me where you have a lot of responsibilities and influence, you need to be aware of how you interact with other teams too. I've had instances where I've gone over to talk to someone in marketing about something and they jokingly ask "What I'd do this time?" and I'll respond with "You're in trouble" and immediately go into what I wanted to talk about, which in most cases is a greeting you'd ignore as obviously ridiculous, especially when followed up with me asking questions about how to best optimize something to help you do your job. But I've had it happen more times than I care to admit where they'll interrupt me a few seconds later and ask if they're going to be fired. Moral of the story: If you are at any elevated position, never joke about someone losing their job. It might seem okay when you're moreorless equals in the hierarchy, but it causes undue amounts of stress for others when you aren't (even when you have no authority over their job). It's just not worth the stress for them and doesn't help your relationship with them either.
• jasonv 6y ago
  Also worth nothing: managers often can't actually fire their direct reports. Managers may have to go up reporting chains and possibly HR for that. It's a terrible joke, nonetheless.
• hashkb 6y ago
  My first job had drunken happy hours complete with fake firings by the Director of Engineering. I thought it was hilarious at the time; now it's just one more thing I wish I hadn't had to unlearn. I definitely regret all of the times I defended this kind of behavior. And then stepping back... it's super common to joke about violence, too.
• john4532452 6y ago
  Another thing every Manager should know about perceived power vs actual power. Considerable managers i have encountered think they are the loyal employees where as programmers are sellout's who switch when the get better offer. This is true to some degree but that does not give more power to the managers.
• Robin_Message 6y ago
  Manager Tools has a great bit of advice from this vein, where they tell new managers to imagine that, when interacting with former peers, they have a post-it note on their foreheads with the words "I can fire you". Gimmicky, but makes the point that the power dynamic has shifted, and it's there even if you try not to recognise it. No affiliation and it is a bit dogmatic, but it's a great podcast: https://www.manager-tools.com/ https://www.manager-tools.com/
• dempedempe 6y ago
  My old manager used to joke about firing someone seemingly every other day. Was really frustrating.
• dogman144 6y ago
  Oh yeah totally agree. Leadership roles mean some tasks become 'only you' tasks. Part of that is a radically changed power dynamic. Asking someone to pick up a coffee for you suddenly isn't just a question they can feel safe saying no to - favors aren't favors anymore. Don't put your direct reports in that position, ever. That Band of Brothers scene w/ Winters and Compton about playing poker with the troops actually covers this idea really well.
• pmichaud 6y ago
  I am going to be contrarian here, because this advice is misleadingly "obvious," and almost everyone is going to reflexively agree with it, because who wants to be the asshole making uncomfortable "jokes" about people's livelihood? But. Counter signaling is a powerful tool in the social toolbox, and it works exactly when uncertainty and discomfort may be present. The problem isn't the counter-signaling, it's the poor social models and actual lack of trust and common knowledge between the people. I think this advice is practical because any given manager is going to create a mediocre-at-best environment, but in my perfect world there would be enough trust and common knowledge about exactly where everyone stands that a joke like this would be a nonissue. That means in my perfect world managers would be better at creating that. The reason I am saying this is that if you go away from this thread with the idea "joking about serious things is bad," then your job is done when you simply don't do the bad thing. But if the lesson is actually "you don't have the skill necessary to create the safety and clarity on your team to make a joke like this and have it be fine" then you have affordance to maybe be better at creating safety and clarity--at least you have a trailhead to start looking.
• robotron 6y ago
  My new manager did this to me recently in a group meeting. Luckily, I have a thick skin and I'm sure he was just awkwardly trying to fit in.
• atum47 6y ago
  that really needs to be advised though? I remember trying to introduce "the office" to my parents and dying of embarrassment cause one of the first jokes is Michael jokingly firing Pam. I was a lot simpler when I watched that show.
• jldugger 6y ago
  My last job featured a chatbot with a !fire <blah> command that will summarily inform the channel that blah has been fired, for the nth time, and manager that commonly used it on people as much as software or servers.
• mwfunk 6y ago
  In a broader sense, humor that punches down never really works, even if the person using it has the best intentions. The examples in the article are useful because they're clearly intended to defuse tension, not to punch down or make anyone feel bad, but it just doesn't work. It's an example of how hard it is to intuitively see things from other people's perspectives. We interpret and judge ourselves from the inside looking out, but we (and some people in particular) look way different from the outside looking in and understanding the difference is a lifelong effort.
• estebarb 6y ago
  Sadly some companies joke with firing people. For example, announcing layoffs soon but delay actual execution by weeks. So people actually resigned by pure stress.
• vulcan01 6y ago
  https://www.npr.org/transcripts/807758704 https://www.npr.org/transcripts/807758704 > demonstrated how people are often oblivious to the power that they have over others Not just managers...
• nraynaud 6y ago
  My rule when I was managing people was a bit wider: no joke about hierarchy at all. We don't ignore that I'm the boss, we can talk about it, but I would never joke about it. And it was sometimes hard.
• downerending 6y ago
  Somewhat related: I had a job once where my manager unintentionally disclosed to me that several of my colleagues didn't like me (unclear whether for valid reasons or not). I quit almost immediately, which came as quite a surprise to him, and I believe he regretted. At another job, I had a manager put a list of (fairly spurious) complaints on paper that went to HR. He seemed rather shocked when I gave notice. If you want to be a good manager, you really have to put yourself in the other guy's shoes and think about how they're going to feel about what you're doing.
• pbreit 6y ago
  Two things for everyone to never joke about: firing & divorce.
• khazhoux 6y ago
  As an aside, I think it's best that whenever someone is promoted to manager, they then manage a different team, so that their previous peers are not suddenly their direct reports. It's better for everyone that way. The new manager doesn't have to struggle through authority issues with their previous teammates/friends, and the team isn't disadvantaged by having a new manager in whom they confided info they maybe wouldn't have otherwise shared. Also, on the main topic of the article: personally I seriously limit all my jokes around my team... and also around anyone I could reasonably suspect of moving to my team in the next two years (you gotta always think ahead). IRL most people would describe me as very funny and always joking, and my humor often tends dark. At work, I think a lot of people would describe me as humorless, or amusing at best. This is on purpose. I don't subscribe to the "bring you whole self" theory of modern workplace. I think it's important for the people who entrust their careers in me to see me as serious, thoughtful, and decisive -- not as a goofball whose proudest moments include 40K-upvote memes on reddit!
  • totaldex 6y ago
    While this may fix the issue you pointed out, it gets rid of a crucial benefit of managing a team you're familiar with: context and trust. By the time a manager gets promoted, they often have enough context to functional well at that level. They may have built a network within their organization, have seen the product or technology go through several iterations, and developed a good understanding of how their team members work. In turn, this makes them a better manager. New managers have to work hard to gain these skills, and incur great cost in doing so.
• supratims 6y ago
  Almost every org I have worked for in the last 20 years - (across the globe) - I have heard this from atleast one senior management. In some way or form.
• bob1029 6y ago
  I would stay away from the kinds of places where this conversation even needs to be had in the first place. This type of antagonizing behavior is unprofessional and unsuitable in any industry. This is the sort of thing you should have figured out by the time you got out of college if you were paying attention. On HN, I would much rather see headlines regarding "How I improved the daily grind of my direct reports" rather than what is effectively "please dont set the office on fire, that is naughty".
• tonymet 6y ago
  I would generalize this as don't gossip or speak negatively about other team members. When you talk to your staff, assume that whatever they hear about another dev, they are thinking about themselves. If you say "so and so is slow", they will possibly worry you think that about them. There is room for getting feedback among members. Like "I noticed so and so had challenges shipping X on time, what do you think was the cause?" – this is subject-focused, impersonal and helps with growth
• sys_64738 6y ago
  "With power comes great responsibility"
• a0zU 6y ago
  Does... Does this really need to be said, it seems like a pretty obvious rule to me.
• pininja 6y ago
  The damaging feelings a joke about firing someone can cause complex team dynamics issues. If anyone is unfortunate enough to be in this situation it’s important to recognize its normal to feel <insert any feeling> because feels are always legitimate. If comfortable, you should ask to listen to your peers thoughts and feelings to get a deeper understanding of the jokes effects. Together, you could provide direct feedback to the manager of “when you said <insert joke> that made me feel <inser feeling>. I wish in the future you <insert desired action>”. Hopefully they accept the feedback and you can monitor their actions going forward, if they don’t accept... we don’t have the ability to control people, but you can be on the same page.
• SwiftyBug 6y ago
  Yeah. One manager I worked with used to "joke" like this towards a specific coworker in a weekly basis. It was never funny and she always seemed upset by the "joke". It didn't take long before I found out how red that flag was. Worst manager I've ever had the misfortune to work with. He's been fired recently and I couldn't feel more relieved. Not having him around makes working at our company so much less stressful.
• RIMR 6y ago
  This is why I left my last employer, and they acted absolutely shocked when I referenced it in my exit interview. My manager was absolutely obsessed with KPIs and would every month review our team's numbers. My numbers were always exceptional, and in terms of overall team rankings I was almost always number 1. Regardless, she would find the one metric in which I fell below average (usually only one KPI was below average while the remaining 15 or so KPIs were above average) and tell me that I had to get my act together "if I wanted to keep my job". I once decided respond to and challenge this threat, and she just lectured me about working in an at-will state, and even had the nerve to wink at me before asking me to leave her office. The quote I took away from her reply that day was "you have nothing to worry about as long as you do your job well". It was after this meeting that I began aggressively putting out my resume and applying for jobs. I found a better job with higher pay and better benefits in less than a month. A week after putting in my 2-week notice I had an exit interview in which they asked me why I started looking for new jobs, and why I had never talked to them about my lack of satisfaction working there. They told me it was "very odd" for someone to leave without warning, and said that they regretted that there was never a conversation in which they could have "retained my talent". I told them that being threatened by my manager with termination every month and never once being praised for my high performance had motivated me to find a job that offered better job satisfaction and security. You would have thought I kicked a puppy from the reaction I got from the leaders. My manager immediately started with a "I NEVER threatened to fire you!". The CEO just shook his head. He didn't say much, but I do remember being told "this is a risk you take in the working world" like I was upset about the possibility of being fired rather than the regular verbal threats of it. I countered by explaining that "if you want to keep your job" includes an implicit threat of termination, and that hearing this threat when your numbers are above average is demoralizing and makes it feel impossible to do a satisfactory job in the eyes of management. My manager responded with "I say those things hoping that it will motivate you and the rest of your team into doing a better job! I've always been on your side!". My response was simple: "You did motivate me... To GET a better job. I was already doing a great job, this place just didn't recognize it". That was the end of the exit interview. Two days later, they were begging me to stay for another MONTH because "nobody knows how to do your job". I suppose they should have thought about that before they made my employment a bargaining chip...
• fortyrod 6y ago
  A similar mistake is to include your reports in speculation about potential termination of yourself. Especially if they are "The Talent", and you are not so much. I had a non-technical manager (sales background, and probably not bad at it, actually) who somehow ended up in charge of a crack engineering team as part of a re-org. When things were going badly with upper-management, she'd go with "Our heads are all on the chopping block together! You'd better perform or else!" This happened several times. Meanwhile, we were all thinking "Nope. It's just your head on the chopping block, friend." She was gone in a year. Edit: I should say that the "we" above was the senior engineers. There were some more junior team members who were quite terrified by this speech, until we explained to them how talent (usually) works.
• mark-r 6y ago
  How about "You're lucky I'm a nice guy, someone else might consider that a firing offense." Does that cross the line?
  • TehShrike 6y ago
    Yes, by a long shot
  • bloodorange 6y ago
    That statement still implies something like "a not-so-improbable interpretation of that event might mean you will be fired".
• jmchuster 6y ago
  I'll also add "don't joke about pay". Also, don't even speculate about pay. There are only the hard finalized numbers, and that's it. Anything you suggest will be interpreted as finalized, and they will be very angry when you break this "promise" that you made to them.
• artsyca 6y ago
  No matches for the words 'shirt' or 'tie' or 'dress' in any of the comments. This probably means nothing to anyone here but it used to be auspicious for people promoted into management to actually dress the part not out of prideful superiority but modesty and respect and and acknowledgement of this duty and responsibility. Think of it as a flag in software. A lot of the conversations we have are already on the wrong level when it's a manager in jeans looking like it's his day off but what would anyone know about this when comfort reigns supreme and we're all at best only half invested in anything we do professionally. If you plan to down vote this rather than doing it in the silent way, put a reasoning for your action or move on.
• mesozoic 6y ago
  If Michael Scott was known for it you probably shouldn't do it.
• micheljansen 6y ago
  This also holds true for the more general case: be very very careful with jokes, especially sarcastic ones, whenever there is any kind of power differential. The response really is very different than from an equal peer. Just think how these come across from a colleague or from your boss: "Who created this piece of crap? Haha!" "Well, I guess you will have to wake up earlier to finish it haha" "Calling it a day already today?" "Oh yeah this is pretty much the quality I expect from you haha" Humour can be a very powerful tool in a leader's toolbox but it takes a really really good relationship and a culture of emotional safety to work. When in doubt I'd always play it safe.
• ignoramceisblis 6y ago
  The broader issue is about having respect for others. If we all followed the golden rule, all the time, we could find this planet is a paradise.
• yasinaydin 6y ago
  I just have this joke done to me, at my new company, on my 2nd week, just a while ago. I hid my feelings well, but that second and since then, my bond with my company reduced to half. I don't have much opportunities around because it's a small city and because of COVID, so I kept shut.