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His boss fired him and told him why? Never do that. When firing someone in an at-will state, just do it and explain nothing. Explanations can easily lead to la

• md224 13y ago
  Unrelated to the validity of this advice: it's kind of sad that our society has evolved legal structures that make it prohibitively risky to tell another human being why you're taking an action against them. Hmm... what if you could have an employee sign a release as a precondition of being told why they were fired?
  • cheald 13y ago
    Then you'd have them sign it before you fire them for a bullshit, actually-worthy-of-a-lawsuit reason.
    • Thrymr 13y ago
      In which case, the waiver may be invalid anyway, since there are rights that you cannot legally waive.
      • jacques_chester 13y ago
        A lot of waivers and disclaimers have no legal effect, but they deter people who don't know that. Bluffing is part of legal risk management.
  • shubb 13y ago
    I got a CV through the other day from a stranger. The guy had some great experience but the CV was weird. It was 10 pages long for 4 jobs. He listed every course he'd ever been sent on, including health and safety and diversity training ones, and just mixed his degree in somewhere with them. He listed each version of word he'd used (seemly every version released) with equal prominence as Java and SQL. Each time he'd been hired as a temp contractor he wrote his job title as CEO, because he was getting paid via his company. My boss laughed at it and told me to bin it. He needed to know what was wrong, or he'd stay unemployed (which was a shame for a guy with some great skills). I agonized for about a day and finally sent him some tips from my personal email, but I'm sure we could get sued if the strangeness was due to a disability. Something wrong there.
    • 7Figures2Commas 13y ago
      I'm curious about your comment "but I'm sure we could get sued if the strangeness was due to a disability." If the possibility that the candidate's "strangeness" was due to some sort of disability crossed your mind, how did you justify putting your employer at risk of a lawsuit by communicating with the candidate, particularly when your superior had directed you to ignore his submission?
      • Retric 13y ago
        Doing the right thing is worth taking a little risk. As a side note, some people send out a crap resume while on unemployment so they don't get interviews. In theory you need to look for work, but if you have a fair amount of savings and want to spend the summer surfing then it's a 'safe' way around the rules.
        • 7Figures2Commas 13y ago
          > Doing the right thing is worth taking a little risk. I won't disagree outright with that, but what is "the right thing" here? The threat of litigation is incredibly real when it comes to employment issues. Even the most proactive employers (those that attempt to follow the law and keep meticulous records) face lawsuits from employees, former employees and job applicants. The potential damages can be significant (particularly for certain causes of action) and even small and seemingly baseless claims can easily result in five figures worth of attorney's fees (or more). Here, despite apparently having some idea that his actions could expose his employer to a lawsuit, an employee decided that his employer should take on legal risk despite the fact that his supervisor effectively told him to proceed in a manner that would reduce risk substantially. If as a result of this employee's actions, the company was unable to pay someone's salary, or had to allocate money from expansion to legal expenses, would you still suggest that the employee did "the right thing"?
          • tomrod 13y ago
            Yes. Ethics are often at odds with legality.
  • redthrowaway 13y ago
    It is a sad statement, made all the more so when you have an experience that bucks the trend. A year or so ago, I was applying for an internship at a small, local web dev shop that had some pretty cool projects in their portfolio. As the second interview was wrapping up, I had the impression that I wouldn't get the job. My default reaction would have been to simply ride out the rest of the interview, grab a coffee then move on, but for some reason I decided to ask them what their thoughts about me and my suitability for the position were. And they told me. They said that they would be completely candid, and asked if I wanted to proceed. I said of course. They then laid out all the areas that I had impressed them, as well as those that were red flags to them. Some of those were technical, and some were more about their general impression of me and my passion for the work. Ultimately, I didn't get the job. I did, however, get to spend 20 minutes digging into depth on what potential employers viewed as my weaknesses and how I could go about addressing them, and that was perhaps even more valuable. They certainly weren't obliged to offer that advice, and I can't imagine they got much from it. Were we not all straight, white men in our mid 20s, I imagine they could have opened themselves up to a discrimination lawsuit. But, at the end of the day, they went out of their way to help me out and the advice stuck. I'll forever be grateful for that.
  • Spooky23 13y ago
    Well, we have laws in place to protect people against discrimination. Unfortunately, when people's backs are to the wall and they lose their jobs, some like to make up all sorts of things to make a few bucks.
  • lostlogin 13y ago
    Not all societies do this. New Zealand seems to be headed to a blame based system, but our healthcare system, while far from perfect has a fairly good part called the accident compensation corporation. It's no fault, pays out for accidents, prevents lawsuits and helps get to the bottom of issues constructively, without a defensive mask. It has had rough times of late unfortunately.
• liquidise 13y ago
  At the fear of being labeled immature/unprofessional: i have found that in many cases i morally owe my employees reasons for their being let go. I have never had to release an engineer on behavioral issues, so i always try to be clear with them about paths to improvement. i'm certain this varies across companies, but in the startups i have worked for i've build very close relationships to many of my coworkers. i like to think there is a mutual trust established in that relationship. Part of that trust includes me looking out for their best interests, which i feel includes explaining to them what their next steps are to further their careers after they depart.
  • cjensen 13y ago
    It's always great if you can tell the employee what they need to do to improve. Do that while they still have a job. Work with them on it more than once. Just don't do that at firing time.
    • HeyLaughingBoy 13y ago
      Exactly. I wonder if some of these places have performance reviews. The first time you find out you're doing a crappy job should never be on the day you're fired!
  • robomartin 13y ago
    The vast majority of the people I've had to fire have been salesmen who simply did not perform. At first I thought we should have a solid agreement with the sales person; one that laid down the expected metrics for the first 90 days and thereafter. My attorney insisted I understand that when you fire anyone in California you must --you must-- say nothing pertaining to the reasons for the firing. I made the mistake of behaving like a human being once and it cost me thousands.
    • jtheory 13y ago
      Can you share more details of the story? I've been assuming this rule exists mostly to avoid the danger that you might accidentally phrase the reason for termination such that it could be treated as discriminatory... but this really sounds like the problem is deeper than that.
• AliEzer 13y ago
  So in the US you don't have to give explanations? Damn that sucks for the ex-employee. In France you have to write a report in order to fire someone unless they're in their trial period.
  • cjensen 13y ago
    Which is why people HATE to hire in France: it's so hard to undo a bad hiring decision that no one will take a chance on a candidate who only "might" work out. The right solution, in my opinion, is allow fire-at-will like we do in California, and have thorough unemployment benefits so that it's not worth making a fuss over.
    • frenchman_in_ny 13y ago
      Well, that and the fact that an employer in France pays something of the order of 42% of the employees salary [1] to the government for taxes. The Zappos model [2] of $2,000 bonus for quitting one week in is great, I wish more places would use it. [1] http://hrmagazine.be/fr/newsitem/la-france-au-top-des-cotisations-patronales http://hrmagazine.be/fr/newsitem/la-france-au-top-des-cotisa... [2] http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2008-09-16/why-zappos-offers-new-hires-2-000-to-quitbusinessweek-business-news-stock-market-and-financial-advice http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2008-09-16/why-zappos-of...
    • perlgeek 13y ago
      But that's what the trial period for, isn't it? If you can't figure out in 6 months (typical trial period in Germany) if he's a good fit, you have a problem anyway.
  • jonstewart 13y ago
    It differs by state in the U.S. (business law being left to the states, by and large). California is an "at-will" state, where you can be terminated by a firm with no notice, for no reason. However, California also has strong unemployment insurance regulations, a healthy litigation industry, and corporate laws that tend to shift more liability to employers than employees. I was able to tell an employee I fired that his performance was not up-to-par, but I had pretty substantial written documentation prepared in advance. It is certainly the case in California that you don't give recommendations to ex-employees nor provide unsuccessful job candidates with detailed feedback. Some other states are more employer friendly, and others are less.
• crygin 13y ago
  There's a terrible irony in this as the response to a post which explicitly states: "We all need jobs. We need to be employed. But at the cost of what? Our ethics? Our passions? Those that trust us?"
• opminion 13y ago
  Conversely, all other conditions being equal, employees in an at-will state have more incentives to mislead their management.
• j_baker 13y ago
  You're absolutely right. You should never tell someone you're firing why you're firing them. They should already know that before they've even walked in the room.
• coldtea 13y ago
  >Never do that. When firing someone in an at-will state, just do it and explain nothing. That's what you got from this article? Yay for hypocrisy!
• Renaud 13y ago
  I find it frightening that people's livelihood is subjected to the whims of their boss to such extent. If anything, a justifiable reason as to why you are fired should be mandatory. You don't have to be a 'protected' minority to deserve a fair justification for being fired. I'm all for the right of employers to fire who they want, but we can't expect employees to be responsible for how their actions impact the company and not expect the same in return. He's lucky to have been a self-reliant young entrepreneur with probably other ways to make a livelihood. It could have turned very ugly had he been a father caring for a sick child without other resource than his job, all that because some nitwit didn't like his hairdo. Duties and rights, not just one or the other.
  • ams6110 13y ago
    Should it work both ways then? Should you have to give a justifiable reason to your employer before being permitted to quit your job?
• wdr1 13y ago
  > Never do that. When firing someone in an at-will state, just do it and explain nothing. Explanations can easily lead to lawsuits. It's just not worth the risk. Explain nothing? It may not be worth the risk, but it's a pretty shitty thing to do to another human being.