3 ms·

Always remember: as a manager you are still an employee, and you are still required to observe the law. Being a manager does not mean you are correct by defaul

Always remember: as a manager you are still an employee, and you are still required to observe the law. Being a manager does not mean you are correct by default. It does not mean you cannot receive feedback from your managees. Also, a brief refresher: lying about someone is defamation. If you defame people's performance and cause them to lose money you are personally liable for damages. We should sue managers more, when they indulge in bad habits such as lying about performance and making false accusations. Some managers realize that their opinion is authoritative truth and abuse this to fork reality, creating a psychopathic fiction where everything they say is true. We should sue each and every of these entitled tyrants.

bluefirebrand 4y ago
> We should sue managers more. I'm very curious what you think the outcome of this would be.
- 29athrowaway 4y ago
  Break the spirit of people that think lying has no consequences. Teach them a lesson, that they live in a country with people protected by rights.
  - bboygravity 4y ago
    There are A LOT of places in the world where lying is rewarded dearly. Including certain types of businesses in the US where lying a lot is basically a pre-requisite for company survival, growth and employee survival: banking, hedge funds and financial markets. The 2008 derrivatives crash was a concequence of that, the upcoming hyperinflation is a (predictable) consequence of that. More generally: ads lie all the time. Where does your assumption come from that lying has bad consequences for people? I agree with you that lying is not nice and extremely annoying, but in my opinion the level of corruption globally (and in financial markets in the US specifically) shows that lying constantly can have extremely positive outcomes for those who lie and do crime. It doesn't seem to me like law is trying very hard to stop them either.
    - 29athrowaway 4y ago
      False advertisement is illegal. Defrauding investors is illegal. As a society we should punish lying, not reward it or glorify it. There is corruption in politics, academia, institutions of all sorts, such as what led to the 2008 crisis, but our goal should be to make it harder. We should aim for less corruption. If your fantasy is to be one of the bankers that got rich in 2008, my fantasy is to see those bankers in jail.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
arcticbull 4y ago
> We should sue each and every of these entitled tyrants. Probably unionization is a better path.
mjr00 4y ago
> Also, a brief refresher: lying about someone is defamation. If you defame people's performance and cause them to lose money you are personally liable for damages. Genuinely curious: do you have an example of a manager who was personally held financially liable after firing an employee? I couldn't find an example in some brief Googling, but IANAL and I'm curious if this is even a possibility. Even if it is possible, though, it seems... pretty stupid, frankly: you'd get a much higher payout from suing the company rather than the manager directly, and the manager could use corporate policy as a shield. Plus, in most organizations, HR is the one who pulls the trigger, not the manager; so who really fires you? HR could have always vetoed after all, or anyone else further up the management chain. Seems like it'd be very tough to prove that a single direct manager was unilaterally responsible for damages. Anyway, this is why most medium-and-larger organizations now have documented processes with PIPs and such. As long as there's a paper trail, you as an employee don't have much of a chance of winning a lawsuit, even if you feel like you were fired due to your manager being an asshole.
- 29athrowaway 4y ago
  There are limits to the freedom of expression (i.e.: what you can communicate verbally or in writing no matter what the context). Fraud, defamation (libel, slander), perjury, etc. No matter what your position is, you are not free from the consequences of those.
  - mjr00 4y ago
    This doesn't answer my question, and I didn't say anything about "freedom of expression" because it doesn't apply here. Again, do you have a documented instance of an individual manager, preferably at a company larger than ~100 people, getting personally sued after a dismissal of one of their direct reports?
    - 29athrowaway 4y ago
      Claims of defamation are often part of discrimination and wrongful termination suits. Nowadays there are forced arbitration clauses that prevent you from suing your employer in a regular court. Instead, you have to go to a private kangaroo court where they make their own rules, often not published in advance and that can change at any time for any reason.
throwmeaway1212 4y ago
yeap and we should sue individual employees for lying about estimates and delivery dates and making false promises. We should sue when the technical design isn't right and not delivered on time. If you say to a company you can deliver on a date and cause them to lose money you are personally liable for damages. /s
- 29athrowaway 4y ago
  If you say it's an estimate then, it's not exact as per definition. If you are upfront regarding what assumptions were used to build the estimate, even better. It would be different if you signed something, establishing a legally binding contract to deliver something at a given date. Plus, a late delivery is not defamation. What I am talking here is condemning defamation as an accepted way of doing business.
  - throwmeaway1212 4y ago
    So that means direct reports/ICs can be held liable if they write harsh 360 reviews of their managers? or when they talk to other people about their manager in critical ways? You seem to hate managers, whatever experience(s) that you had must have been pretty bad, I don't think what you are proposing is an answer or makes much sense or would have any impact. I truly hope you, in time, reach a healthier place.
    - 29athrowaway 4y ago
      If you defame someone in writing, that's libel. If you can prove: 1) a false statement purporting to be fact 2) publication or communication of that statement to a third person 3) fault amounting to, at least, negligence 4) damages You can sue the person. I don't hate managers per-se. I simply hate the subset of managers that abuse their position to defame others.
      - PeterisP 4y ago
        Proving this is a very high bar to meet for performance reviews. Most formal performance reviews will be on a carefully worded standard form where literally nothing the manager selects can be libel, and even for informal references, most criticism (even if unwarranted!) is not libel. If a form asks "How satisfied are you with 29athrowaway's performance this year? " then answering "1/10" is opinion, not fact, and also likely to be true opinion. A written statement "29athrowaway has absolutely not met my expectations this year" is very difficult to be proven false, it's plausible that these expectations indeed were not met. "29athrowaway has never ever done anything right since they were born" is rhetorical hyperbole and generally not treated as libel despite being technically not true. "I think 29athrowaway should be fired" is not purporting to be fact. "29athrowaway was rude to customers three times in the last week" is extremely hard to prove as false even if it is pulled out of thin air; even if you have all the interactions recorded, there's probably something which can interpreted that way. "29athrowaway did not fulfill their tasks in project XYZ" is a tricky one (and so most formal performance review forms will never include statements worded like that, at least if they're approved by HR/legal), but depends mostly on how well documented the assignments were, and if they can somehow be stretched to assert that you performed only 99% of them, that's not really libel.
alex_lav 4y ago
> Being a manager does not mean you are correct by default. It means the company you're working for is giving you the autonomy to decide paths forward for yourself and those that report to you. "Correct" is not binary. > Also, a brief refresher: lying about someone is defamation. If you believe something, is it a lie? If you get fired because your manager _believes_ you're bad at your job, even if you believe you aren't, who's lying? Are there any lies? > We should sue managers more, when they indulge in bad habits such as lying about performance and making false accusations. This feels like you're speaking from a very specific position (ie, on the wrong end of perceived lies about performance). "Performance" is subjective (and is usually defined by one's manager). I was going to go on but honestly this post feels very very....I don't really know, delusional? By this same logic a manager can (and should) sue an employee over workplace performance. The whole concept is just ridiculous (and as another person claiming to be a lawyer said below, just plain stupid).
- 29athrowaway 4y ago
  If you are a serious manager, you should be able to articulate your opinion regarding someone's performance in terms of qualifications, experience, role fit, hard skills, soft skills, specific situations, etc. It's not just an intuition, feeling or belief. It's management, not astrology. If you have not met a person and "believe" they have bad performance, that's discrimination. If you make up or mischaracterize situations as a part of your evaluation, that's defamation. Your employer has degrees of freedom with regards to setting up a path to you, sure. But that employer operates in a territory where there's legislation, which will often include defamation laws. Your employer cannot do whatever they want.
  - alex_lav 4y ago
    These are just more non sequiturs though. Vague platitudes that avoid actually meaningfully discussing what you're suggesting. > It's not just an intuition, feeling or belief. It's management, not astrology. Facts aren't intuition, feeling or belief but their perception _can be_. Being late to work every day for a month _can be_ firable, or not. > If you have not met a person and "believe" they have bad performance, If you haven't met a person but have observed their behavior, it's literally not discrimination. > If you make up or mischaracterize situations as a part of your evaluation, that's defamation. If you mischaracterize your manager as making things up, that's also defamation, no? > But that employer operates in a territory where there's legislation, which will often include defamation laws. Your employer cannot do whatever they want. And as I pointed out in the previous post, this goes bidirectionally (and functionally means nothing).

bluefirebrand 4y ago

> We should sue managers more. I'm very curious what you think the outcome of this would be.

29athrowaway 4y ago
Break the spirit of people that think lying has no consequences. Teach them a lesson, that they live in a country with people protected by rights.
- bboygravity 4y ago
  There are A LOT of places in the world where lying is rewarded dearly. Including certain types of businesses in the US where lying a lot is basically a pre-requisite for company survival, growth and employee survival: banking, hedge funds and financial markets. The 2008 derrivatives crash was a concequence of that, the upcoming hyperinflation is a (predictable) consequence of that. More generally: ads lie all the time. Where does your assumption come from that lying has bad consequences for people? I agree with you that lying is not nice and extremely annoying, but in my opinion the level of corruption globally (and in financial markets in the US specifically) shows that lying constantly can have extremely positive outcomes for those who lie and do crime. It doesn't seem to me like law is trying very hard to stop them either.
  - 29athrowaway 4y ago
    False advertisement is illegal. Defrauding investors is illegal. As a society we should punish lying, not reward it or glorify it. There is corruption in politics, academia, institutions of all sorts, such as what led to the 2008 crisis, but our goal should be to make it harder. We should aim for less corruption. If your fantasy is to be one of the bankers that got rich in 2008, my fantasy is to see those bankers in jail.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

arcticbull 4y ago

> We should sue each and every of these entitled tyrants. Probably unionization is a better path.

mjr00 4y ago

> Also, a brief refresher: lying about someone is defamation. If you defame people's performance and cause them to lose money you are personally liable for damages. Genuinely curious: do you have an example of a manager who was personally held financially liable after firing an employee? I couldn't find an example in some brief Googling, but IANAL and I'm curious if this is even a possibility. Even if it is possible, though, it seems... pretty stupid, frankly: you'd get a much higher payout from suing the company rather than the manager directly, and the manager could use corporate policy as a shield. Plus, in most organizations, HR is the one who pulls the trigger, not the manager; so who really fires you? HR could have always vetoed after all, or anyone else further up the management chain. Seems like it'd be very tough to prove that a single direct manager was unilaterally responsible for damages. Anyway, this is why most medium-and-larger organizations now have documented processes with PIPs and such. As long as there's a paper trail, you as an employee don't have much of a chance of winning a lawsuit, even if you feel like you were fired due to your manager being an asshole.

29athrowaway 4y ago
There are limits to the freedom of expression (i.e.: what you can communicate verbally or in writing no matter what the context). Fraud, defamation (libel, slander), perjury, etc. No matter what your position is, you are not free from the consequences of those.
- mjr00 4y ago
  This doesn't answer my question, and I didn't say anything about "freedom of expression" because it doesn't apply here. Again, do you have a documented instance of an individual manager, preferably at a company larger than ~100 people, getting personally sued after a dismissal of one of their direct reports?
  - 29athrowaway 4y ago
    Claims of defamation are often part of discrimination and wrongful termination suits. Nowadays there are forced arbitration clauses that prevent you from suing your employer in a regular court. Instead, you have to go to a private kangaroo court where they make their own rules, often not published in advance and that can change at any time for any reason.

throwmeaway1212 4y ago

yeap and we should sue individual employees for lying about estimates and delivery dates and making false promises. We should sue when the technical design isn't right and not delivered on time. If you say to a company you can deliver on a date and cause them to lose money you are personally liable for damages. /s

29athrowaway 4y ago
If you say it's an estimate then, it's not exact as per definition. If you are upfront regarding what assumptions were used to build the estimate, even better. It would be different if you signed something, establishing a legally binding contract to deliver something at a given date. Plus, a late delivery is not defamation. What I am talking here is condemning defamation as an accepted way of doing business.
- throwmeaway1212 4y ago
  So that means direct reports/ICs can be held liable if they write harsh 360 reviews of their managers? or when they talk to other people about their manager in critical ways? You seem to hate managers, whatever experience(s) that you had must have been pretty bad, I don't think what you are proposing is an answer or makes much sense or would have any impact. I truly hope you, in time, reach a healthier place.
  - 29athrowaway 4y ago
    If you defame someone in writing, that's libel. If you can prove: 1) a false statement purporting to be fact 2) publication or communication of that statement to a third person 3) fault amounting to, at least, negligence 4) damages You can sue the person. I don't hate managers per-se. I simply hate the subset of managers that abuse their position to defame others.
    - PeterisP 4y ago
      Proving this is a very high bar to meet for performance reviews. Most formal performance reviews will be on a carefully worded standard form where literally nothing the manager selects can be libel, and even for informal references, most criticism (even if unwarranted!) is not libel. If a form asks "How satisfied are you with 29athrowaway's performance this year? " then answering "1/10" is opinion, not fact, and also likely to be true opinion. A written statement "29athrowaway has absolutely not met my expectations this year" is very difficult to be proven false, it's plausible that these expectations indeed were not met. "29athrowaway has never ever done anything right since they were born" is rhetorical hyperbole and generally not treated as libel despite being technically not true. "I think 29athrowaway should be fired" is not purporting to be fact. "29athrowaway was rude to customers three times in the last week" is extremely hard to prove as false even if it is pulled out of thin air; even if you have all the interactions recorded, there's probably something which can interpreted that way. "29athrowaway did not fulfill their tasks in project XYZ" is a tricky one (and so most formal performance review forms will never include statements worded like that, at least if they're approved by HR/legal), but depends mostly on how well documented the assignments were, and if they can somehow be stretched to assert that you performed only 99% of them, that's not really libel.

alex_lav 4y ago

> Being a manager does not mean you are correct by default. It means the company you're working for is giving you the autonomy to decide paths forward for yourself and those that report to you. "Correct" is not binary. > Also, a brief refresher: lying about someone is defamation. If you believe something, is it a lie? If you get fired because your manager _believes_ you're bad at your job, even if you believe you aren't, who's lying? Are there any lies? > We should sue managers more, when they indulge in bad habits such as lying about performance and making false accusations. This feels like you're speaking from a very specific position (ie, on the wrong end of perceived lies about performance). "Performance" is subjective (and is usually defined by one's manager). I was going to go on but honestly this post feels very very....I don't really know, delusional? By this same logic a manager can (and should) sue an employee over workplace performance. The whole concept is just ridiculous (and as another person claiming to be a lawyer said below, just plain stupid).

29athrowaway 4y ago
If you are a serious manager, you should be able to articulate your opinion regarding someone's performance in terms of qualifications, experience, role fit, hard skills, soft skills, specific situations, etc. It's not just an intuition, feeling or belief. It's management, not astrology. If you have not met a person and "believe" they have bad performance, that's discrimination. If you make up or mischaracterize situations as a part of your evaluation, that's defamation. Your employer has degrees of freedom with regards to setting up a path to you, sure. But that employer operates in a territory where there's legislation, which will often include defamation laws. Your employer cannot do whatever they want.
- alex_lav 4y ago
  These are just more non sequiturs though. Vague platitudes that avoid actually meaningfully discussing what you're suggesting. > It's not just an intuition, feeling or belief. It's management, not astrology. Facts aren't intuition, feeling or belief but their perception _can be_. Being late to work every day for a month _can be_ firable, or not. > If you have not met a person and "believe" they have bad performance, If you haven't met a person but have observed their behavior, it's literally not discrimination. > If you make up or mischaracterize situations as a part of your evaluation, that's defamation. If you mischaracterize your manager as making things up, that's also defamation, no? > But that employer operates in a territory where there's legislation, which will often include defamation laws. Your employer cannot do whatever they want. And as I pointed out in the previous post, this goes bidirectionally (and functionally means nothing).