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I blame this on the manager as much as the developer. A company I've worked for once had a developer quit very abruptly. He did so immaturely, but it happened

by nilkn 13y ago

I blame this on the manager as much as the developer. A company I've worked for once had a developer quit very abruptly. He did so immaturely, but it happened because his manager was dissatisfied with his performance and instead of offering tips and advice early on when the problem was first observed the manager waited until about eight months had passed and unleashed incredibly harsh criticism on him, basically threatening to fire him without mercy if he didn't improve. The developer felt so bad and embarrassed that he couldn't stand to work there and he just quit without even giving two weeks' notice. I think he was completely caught off guard and went from feeling great in the job to feeling like complete shit. He was allowed for eight months to believe he was doing well, then told that all that work was not appreciated and he'd be fired if he didn't more or less immediately do better.

DavidWoof 13y ago
Well, there's also "I've been here 2 years and it's obvious to everyone that I'm still struggling" and "I think I've become so demoralised and feel so marginalised that I've lost a lot of the fire..." So this dev knows he's been struggling and he knows everyone around him knows it. There's no indication at all that this was a surprise to him or that the problems hadn't been mentioned earlier. It sounds to me that the manager gave him much more time than was really deserved to catch on, and he simply never did. We're both guessing a bit based on incomplete info, but it looks like the message didn't go from "you're doing great" to "you're doing horribly", but rather went from "you're struggling but we're willing to give you time" to "you know, time is almost up". If after two years it's obvious to everyone that you're the weak link, then while training might help a little, you're probably just in the wrong place.

by nilkn 13y ago

DavidWoof 13y ago

Well, there's also "I've been here 2 years and it's obvious to everyone that I'm still struggling" and "I think I've become so demoralised and feel so marginalised that I've lost a lot of the fire..." So this dev knows he's been struggling and he knows everyone around him knows it. There's no indication at all that this was a surprise to him or that the problems hadn't been mentioned earlier. It sounds to me that the manager gave him much more time than was really deserved to catch on, and he simply never did. We're both guessing a bit based on incomplete info, but it looks like the message didn't go from "you're doing great" to "you're doing horribly", but rather went from "you're struggling but we're willing to give you time" to "you know, time is almost up". If after two years it's obvious to everyone that you're the weak link, then while training might help a little, you're probably just in the wrong place.