5 ms·

Ok, that's nice. I'm sure some people do it carelessly but lets at least be honest and acknowledge that many also do it deliberately. It's an easy and cowardly

by zcw100 5y ago

Ok, that's nice. I'm sure some people do it carelessly but lets at least be honest and acknowledge that many also do it deliberately. It's an easy and cowardly way to assert your dominance. If you get called out on it, and you won't, you'll just say you were joking. When you're not called out on it it's a easy way of reminding people that you can do it. Maybe not now but maybe in the future when you're not feeling so generous. I remember a job interview where the interviewer launched into a story, unprompted, about firing someone. Didn't express any regrets or sympathy for the person. That interview was over that second. Maybe that person was the most deserving person in the world to get fired but just the fact that he thought it was something to be discussed with an interviewee spoke volumes.

giorgioz 5y ago
I have been mentioning in interviews that I had to fire an employee. It was very hard for me to fire the person and I really do not wish to have to repeat that experience so I try to warn the candidates. Backstory: Our company is fully remote. One of the clause on the contract of each employee is no moonlighting. They are not allowed to work on anything else professionally. They can work on personal software project if they notify me in advance. This is because in a fully remote companies there are not office hours and it's very hard to define what's work and what's not. Employee Alice worked for us 3 months. She was not very responsive but her work was a 7/10. One day I found Alice was actually part of an agency and she was actually a Project Manager delegating all her work to other people. I noticed this because she had a MacBook but screenshots of her work were on Windows. When confronted she straight out denied the whole thing. After finding many more evidence she finally admitted she had delegated work to some "friend". I fired her with her pleading it was all a big misurderstanding. It was terrible, I felt so bad because even though I had found a lot of physical proof of her deception she was still playing the card of "please no really it's a misunderstanding". I doubted myself a lot fearing I had indeed fired an innocent person just being paranoid. Now when I hire new employees I underline the NO MOONLIGHT policy and tell them I had to fire an employee in the past. It was ugly and I wish to not have to redo that. I'm a single founder software engineer growing a team and having to deal with management for the first time. I'm unsure of most of my decisions. If you have some advice that you can give me in a kind fashion without making me feel even more inadequate that I already do it might help me become a better manager.
- jon-wood 5y ago
  Since you've explicitly asked for advice, the only way to assess remote employees is by what they're delivering. If you employ them for 40 hours a week, but they can deliver what you're asking in 5 and still be responsive when needed, is there really a problem? If they're also doing another job on the side, but it isn't impacting their delivery of the work you're asking for, that shouldn't be a problem. By doing away with a (largely unenforceable) policy of no moonlighting you also avoid the problem of having to fire people for breaching it. I'm borderline on whether Alice here was even at fault. She is likely in breach of her contract for several other things, I assume there's a routine NDA in place which probably means that she shouldn't be sharing confidential company information with outside parties, but if not and she was getting work delivered is it really a problem if she did so by being good at project management rather than software development?
  - Zanneth 5y ago
    It's a really unethical thing to do, and you don't want unethical people working at your company.
  - giorgioz 5y ago
    >assess remote employees is by what they're delivering I agree but that is easier said than done. Software is very intangible and creative and I do not have experience in managing other developers. One of my employees is a university dropout with 3 years working experience from a developing country and is the only developer other than me. I have no clue what's the amount of code he's suppose to deliver. I have very little metrics of reference to work with.
- corobo 5y ago
  If you want that much control over your employees you're going to get employees that allow you to take that much control over them. It's the new "pay peanuts, get monkeys" No moonlighting, screenshots, this quote "This is because in a fully remote companies there are not office hours and it's very hard to define what's work and what's not" Someone good enough to do exactly what you need is not the sort of person that only does exactly what you need. You're only interviewing people that didn't rule you out

by zcw100 5y ago

giorgioz 5y ago

I have been mentioning in interviews that I had to fire an employee. It was very hard for me to fire the person and I really do not wish to have to repeat that experience so I try to warn the candidates. Backstory: Our company is fully remote. One of the clause on the contract of each employee is no moonlighting. They are not allowed to work on anything else professionally. They can work on personal software project if they notify me in advance. This is because in a fully remote companies there are not office hours and it's very hard to define what's work and what's not. Employee Alice worked for us 3 months. She was not very responsive but her work was a 7/10. One day I found Alice was actually part of an agency and she was actually a Project Manager delegating all her work to other people. I noticed this because she had a MacBook but screenshots of her work were on Windows. When confronted she straight out denied the whole thing. After finding many more evidence she finally admitted she had delegated work to some "friend". I fired her with her pleading it was all a big misurderstanding. It was terrible, I felt so bad because even though I had found a lot of physical proof of her deception she was still playing the card of "please no really it's a misunderstanding". I doubted myself a lot fearing I had indeed fired an innocent person just being paranoid. Now when I hire new employees I underline the NO MOONLIGHT policy and tell them I had to fire an employee in the past. It was ugly and I wish to not have to redo that. I'm a single founder software engineer growing a team and having to deal with management for the first time. I'm unsure of most of my decisions. If you have some advice that you can give me in a kind fashion without making me feel even more inadequate that I already do it might help me become a better manager.

jon-wood 5y ago
Since you've explicitly asked for advice, the only way to assess remote employees is by what they're delivering. If you employ them for 40 hours a week, but they can deliver what you're asking in 5 and still be responsive when needed, is there really a problem? If they're also doing another job on the side, but it isn't impacting their delivery of the work you're asking for, that shouldn't be a problem. By doing away with a (largely unenforceable) policy of no moonlighting you also avoid the problem of having to fire people for breaching it. I'm borderline on whether Alice here was even at fault. She is likely in breach of her contract for several other things, I assume there's a routine NDA in place which probably means that she shouldn't be sharing confidential company information with outside parties, but if not and she was getting work delivered is it really a problem if she did so by being good at project management rather than software development?
- Zanneth 5y ago
  It's a really unethical thing to do, and you don't want unethical people working at your company.
- giorgioz 5y ago
  >assess remote employees is by what they're delivering I agree but that is easier said than done. Software is very intangible and creative and I do not have experience in managing other developers. One of my employees is a university dropout with 3 years working experience from a developing country and is the only developer other than me. I have no clue what's the amount of code he's suppose to deliver. I have very little metrics of reference to work with.
corobo 5y ago
If you want that much control over your employees you're going to get employees that allow you to take that much control over them. It's the new "pay peanuts, get monkeys" No moonlighting, screenshots, this quote "This is because in a fully remote companies there are not office hours and it's very hard to define what's work and what's not" Someone good enough to do exactly what you need is not the sort of person that only does exactly what you need. You're only interviewing people that didn't rule you out