4 ms·

Sheesh, sure hope you don't look like your managers ex girlfriend, old mean boss, or high school bully. How do they control for bold, flagarant racism?

jedberg 4y ago
They don't. Managers have ultimate discretion on hiring and firing. The control is that when a manager seems to be abusing that privilege, they get fired by their manager. It usually ends up being pretty obvious, and the rest of us would call it out. Especially when they were firing good people for no reason. In fact, sometimes those fired people would be invited back after the bad manager was fired.
- fartcannon 4y ago
  What if they and their manager share the same prejudices? I guess at the end of the day it's no different than any other employer. Just novel to see it bragged about. Would be interesting to see some diversity stats. Cool that it can and apparently has been reversed, though. That shows character.
- lupire 4y ago
  Would be, or have been?
  - jedberg 4y ago
    They were invited back after getting fired.
    - nowherebeen 4y ago
      Would they need to go through the entire interview process again? It would seem fair to just give them their old job back since they already did it.
      - jedberg 4y ago
        It wasn't a regular occurrence, managers didn't really abuse it. The one time I saw it happen directly, the people were invited back to take their old job under the new manager, who now had to backfill the positions, without an interview.
- vmception 4y ago
  what exactly was the generous severance package during the time of that culture doc?
  - jedberg 4y ago
    It depended on how long you had been at the company. I don't remember the formula but it was enough that you didn't feel bad about getting fired.
- dekhn 4y ago
  are you serious- I mean, are you talking from experience? You'd fire a person because of a single manager, then fire the manager, and invite back the person who was originally fired? Maybe you like your employer, but let me tell you: that's sociopathic. It's deeply disrespectful to long-term individual contributors to treat them that way, and if this is in any way representative of the company's leadership's philosophy, then they are bad people who should not be hiring. Oh wait, they're firing. Not hiring.
  - __blockcipher__ 4y ago
    Where did you get that absurd interpretation? They’re saying: a good IC gets fired by a bad manager. Later bad manager gets fired by their manager (we’ll call them good manager). Good manager then goes back and asks good IC if they want their job back.
    - dekhn 4y ago
      Yes, that was my interpretation. I don't understand what you think is absurd about that being sociopathic. Typically, to fire somebody, the manager has to convince at least one or two other people, typically outside of their department, through an extended period that is inspected by multiple different people. This exists to protect employees from vicious, vindictive and arbitrary leaders.
      - __blockcipher__ 4y ago
        Okay, may have been my bad but it sounded like you thought that the same manager who fired the IC also was the one to offer to re-hire or something. Although your clarification about a firing theoretically needing approval from higher up sheds some light on that. To your point, in general if you leave a place due to a bad manager (or get fired) and some kind of reform happens and you get invited back, usually the best move is not to come back. The organization already showed it was willing to toss you away at least once. That being said Netflix is probably a bit of an exception because it’s explicitly where you go to work if you want to work with people who are all insanely competent and hardworking and where performance is actually a core focus. Also I still don’t quite understand the sociopathy element. It doesn’t seem sociopathic to say “hey we got rid of the toxic manager, want your old job back?” although like I said it’s still generally a bad idea to actually take the job back
- lumost 4y ago
  Beyond a certain point talent is perception, managers have a huge influence on perception. Move a huge metric? Only matters if people care about the metric. Unblock a hundred engineers? Only matters if it’s deemed complex. Harsh performance cultures favor the perception game over time.
samhw 4y ago
If it's 'bold and flagrant', then probably "don't hire them" would be a pretty good rule.
- fartcannon 4y ago
  You're right, I meant to suggest it was strong, but bubbling under the surface, not that they were wearing a clan hat to work.
  - samhw 4y ago
    Haha, fair enough. > not that they were wearing a clan hat to work If so, I'd go with "refer them to Uber or Coinbase" perhaps..

jedberg 4y ago

They don't. Managers have ultimate discretion on hiring and firing. The control is that when a manager seems to be abusing that privilege, they get fired by their manager. It usually ends up being pretty obvious, and the rest of us would call it out. Especially when they were firing good people for no reason. In fact, sometimes those fired people would be invited back after the bad manager was fired.

fartcannon 4y ago
What if they and their manager share the same prejudices? I guess at the end of the day it's no different than any other employer. Just novel to see it bragged about. Would be interesting to see some diversity stats. Cool that it can and apparently has been reversed, though. That shows character.
lupire 4y ago
Would be, or have been?
- jedberg 4y ago
  They were invited back after getting fired.
  - nowherebeen 4y ago
    Would they need to go through the entire interview process again? It would seem fair to just give them their old job back since they already did it.
    - jedberg 4y ago
      It wasn't a regular occurrence, managers didn't really abuse it. The one time I saw it happen directly, the people were invited back to take their old job under the new manager, who now had to backfill the positions, without an interview.
vmception 4y ago
what exactly was the generous severance package during the time of that culture doc?
- jedberg 4y ago
  It depended on how long you had been at the company. I don't remember the formula but it was enough that you didn't feel bad about getting fired.
dekhn 4y ago
are you serious- I mean, are you talking from experience? You'd fire a person because of a single manager, then fire the manager, and invite back the person who was originally fired? Maybe you like your employer, but let me tell you: that's sociopathic. It's deeply disrespectful to long-term individual contributors to treat them that way, and if this is in any way representative of the company's leadership's philosophy, then they are bad people who should not be hiring. Oh wait, they're firing. Not hiring.
- __blockcipher__ 4y ago
  Where did you get that absurd interpretation? They’re saying: a good IC gets fired by a bad manager. Later bad manager gets fired by their manager (we’ll call them good manager). Good manager then goes back and asks good IC if they want their job back.
  - dekhn 4y ago
    Yes, that was my interpretation. I don't understand what you think is absurd about that being sociopathic. Typically, to fire somebody, the manager has to convince at least one or two other people, typically outside of their department, through an extended period that is inspected by multiple different people. This exists to protect employees from vicious, vindictive and arbitrary leaders.
    - __blockcipher__ 4y ago
      Okay, may have been my bad but it sounded like you thought that the same manager who fired the IC also was the one to offer to re-hire or something. Although your clarification about a firing theoretically needing approval from higher up sheds some light on that. To your point, in general if you leave a place due to a bad manager (or get fired) and some kind of reform happens and you get invited back, usually the best move is not to come back. The organization already showed it was willing to toss you away at least once. That being said Netflix is probably a bit of an exception because it’s explicitly where you go to work if you want to work with people who are all insanely competent and hardworking and where performance is actually a core focus. Also I still don’t quite understand the sociopathy element. It doesn’t seem sociopathic to say “hey we got rid of the toxic manager, want your old job back?” although like I said it’s still generally a bad idea to actually take the job back
lumost 4y ago
Beyond a certain point talent is perception, managers have a huge influence on perception. Move a huge metric? Only matters if people care about the metric. Unblock a hundred engineers? Only matters if it’s deemed complex. Harsh performance cultures favor the perception game over time.

samhw 4y ago

If it's 'bold and flagrant', then probably "don't hire them" would be a pretty good rule.

fartcannon 4y ago
You're right, I meant to suggest it was strong, but bubbling under the surface, not that they were wearing a clan hat to work.
- samhw 4y ago
  Haha, fair enough. > not that they were wearing a clan hat to work If so, I'd go with "refer them to Uber or Coinbase" perhaps..