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I've always thought such policy heavy handed and unfair. This article proves that's not the case. I've heard vague stories of someone doing a malicious delete o

I've always thought such policy heavy handed and unfair. This article proves that's not the case. I've heard vague stories of someone doing a malicious delete on the way out, but never seen it myself.

devmor 3y ago
Things like the occurrence in this article only occur because job termination is so heavy handed here. When people are immediately cut off from their income source without warning, in a society with very little social safety net, they get angry and do drastic things. In many, many other countries, letting someone go is a long process that involves a lot of time for both parties to shore things up and be prepared to move on without incident.
- suprjami 3y ago
  That isn't true. Here in Australia the typical notice period is two weeks. That means if you want to leave, you write a resignation letter and you have time to hand over like you said. However the employer might also walk you out of the building and continue to pay you for two weeks. I've seen this happen here. In some companies it depends on the job you're resigning from. I happen to know my position at my company has the former sort of relaxed notice period, but other positions have the latter sort of strict notice period. It's very strange.
AmVess 3y ago
Yes. Some people can become very difficult when they've just lost their job. This is the primary reason why firings are done via e-mail so people can flip out and lose their cool at home.
turtledragonfly 3y ago
I don't think the article proves that. I think these policies can be a bit of a McNamara fallacy[1]. When things go wrong, the benefits of aggressive termination are clear. But when things don't go wrong (vast majority of time), the alternative's benefits are not so clear — employees have more time to hand-off their work, document things that are in their head, better good-will towards the company and its management, etc. So, because one approach has a clear, measurable benefit (avoid some disasters), and the other approach has un-clear hard-to-measure ones, people sometimes dismiss the hard-to-measure side as unimportant. That's the fallacy. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy

devmor 3y ago

Things like the occurrence in this article only occur because job termination is so heavy handed here. When people are immediately cut off from their income source without warning, in a society with very little social safety net, they get angry and do drastic things. In many, many other countries, letting someone go is a long process that involves a lot of time for both parties to shore things up and be prepared to move on without incident.

suprjami 3y ago
That isn't true. Here in Australia the typical notice period is two weeks. That means if you want to leave, you write a resignation letter and you have time to hand over like you said. However the employer might also walk you out of the building and continue to pay you for two weeks. I've seen this happen here. In some companies it depends on the job you're resigning from. I happen to know my position at my company has the former sort of relaxed notice period, but other positions have the latter sort of strict notice period. It's very strange.

AmVess 3y ago

Yes. Some people can become very difficult when they've just lost their job. This is the primary reason why firings are done via e-mail so people can flip out and lose their cool at home.

turtledragonfly 3y ago

I don't think the article proves that. I think these policies can be a bit of a McNamara fallacy[1]. When things go wrong, the benefits of aggressive termination are clear. But when things don't go wrong (vast majority of time), the alternative's benefits are not so clear — employees have more time to hand-off their work, document things that are in their head, better good-will towards the company and its management, etc. So, because one approach has a clear, measurable benefit (avoid some disasters), and the other approach has un-clear hard-to-measure ones, people sometimes dismiss the hard-to-measure side as unimportant. That's the fallacy. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy