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CEO complaints : employee not motivated after being fired

• danielweber 12y ago
  The headline and the comments prepped me for a major oblivious idiot-storm when I read the article, but this is about a person at least self-aware enough that they botched something up and were asking for something inappropriate. Or maybe this is a commentary on social media -- you don't need to write something every day.
• jzwinck 12y ago
  I just got a voicemail from my boss. Well, soon to be former boss. Not because I couldn't hack it at the job, but the business I was involved with had eroded over the years to the point where there was simply nothing left for me to do. I had finally given up. It wasn't really up to me. I talked with her about it a few times, but she wasn't interested in pursuing the sort of clients I used to work so hard to satisfy. So now my full-time job is finding a new job. I was in an interview when she called. I think this other firm is pretty lame but if I don't find something better soon I'll have to take it, so I'm hustling. Tonight I'm going to polish my CV and email some old contacts. I can call the old boss back tomorrow morning. What is she going to do, fire me again?
  • blacktulip 12y ago
    Be careful she might write a post on LinkedIn complaining how not motivated you are
  • antr 12y ago
    Question: if you didn't get paid for the time between the agreement to leave and the moment you leave, you wouldn't complain because "now my full-time job is finding a new job"?
  • BryanBigs 12y ago
    Nice writing. Somewhat amazed the other comment-folk didn't get what you did here.
    • psycr 12y ago
      Most likely because they didn't read the original text that the article references. Fairly typical for internet comments these days.
      • Kliment 12y ago
        I consider it unsafe to click linkedin links anymore. I clicked through to the comments here because that's the closest I'm willing to get to content posted there.
        • mitochondrion 12y ago
          What makes LinkedIn links unsafe?
          • yebyen 12y ago
            I have read that LinkedIn will actively solicit your information to people that are near you once they find out where you are, and they will actively take steps to continue knowing who you are, even when you actively took steps to prevent them from finding out (like not logging in, and not accepting their cookies.) Also they have been accused of dark patterns before, like that would result in people getting e-mail that purports to be from you, when you think you already unchecked the box and asked not to share your contact list.
    • mathattack 12y ago
      The original didn't come up no the click-through, but I get it completely.
  • facepalm 12y ago
    So you letting him pay you for hunting jobs? Nice...
    • ryguytilidie 12y ago
      Re-read (or perhaps, judging by your comment, actually read) the linked article. Then reread the comment. Hopefully it will click at that point.
  • chris_wot 12y ago
    Please do a writeup for the following article: http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140328120354-44558-breaking-up http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140328120354-44... And I quote: "A while later (hopefully a few years), you tell me it is time to talk. You are not happy anymore and feel it is time to change things. Of course I’ll try to convince you. See if we can change something in your job description to make you happier, see if I can get you motivated in different ways. But if we can’t work things out together, if it is simply time to end the relationship, let’s talk about it like adults. Don’t come into the office one day telling me out of the blue that you haven’t been happy for a while, found someone else and will leave me as soon as possible. And now that you brought it up, why should I pay your full wage if you are only working at half force since you aren’t motivated anymore?" Consistency doesn't appear to be Inge's strong suit.
    • waylandsmithers 12y ago
      > And now that you brought it up, why should I pay your full wage if you are only working at half force since you aren’t motivated anymore? I think this is the reason why "openness" is tough to achieve. Most of the time, the stakes are much higher for the employee than the company-- the business can probably continue operating after separation, but the employee might not be able to pay rent without a paycheck. All information is power in the relationship, so I don't think an employee should ever feel obligated to share more than what is necessary. I wouldn't expect to be informed that my department's budget for salaries is $X or that I'm going to be let go, effective three months from now. > Don’t come into the office one day telling me out of the blue that you haven’t been happy for a while, found someone else and will leave me as soon as possible. Some people just prefer voting with their feet.
    • ctdonath 12y ago
      "Don’t come into the office one day telling me out of the blue that you haven’t been happy for a while" The fact that she finds such "out of the blue" IS the problem. As for "why should I pay your full wage if you are only working at half force since you aren’t motivated anymore?": you pay full wage because he's doing full required work, demonstrated by the fact that she didn't notice anything was wrong and was content to pay him for it. Maybe he's unhappy because he wants to do more but she's not making it worth his time/effort to. And obviously the disclosure is "out of the blue" precisely because her first reaction is to cut his pay.
• edgarvm 12y ago
  >So your best bet is to hire people who share your passion Seems like the PHB still does not get the idea
• lazyjones 12y ago
  tl;dr - clueless CEO fires employee because she didn't know his work was still needed (and thought she'd fatten the margins), later finds out and regrets it. Happens all the time.
  • cs02rm0 12y ago
    I don't think they even realise this employee is still needed or that they haven't figured out how to deal with this when the employee is gone. As for expecting an employee to make themselves available to a level they're not legally able to contract them to out of some shared passion... naive to say the very least. And now they need to hire a communications person to review their social media posts as well as figure out who's going to be mercilessly on call in place of the employee in question.
• kefka 12y ago
  Sounds like a great case of charging $500/hr, with a 4 hour minimum, of course. How bad do you need his information?
  • crusso 12y ago
    Right, so she's cool by letting him keep his job for some period of time while he looks for new work with minimal expectations from her - but then when she could use his help just once in exchange for paying him thousands and thousands of euros for doing nothing, she should have the hammer brought down on her? It's amazing how little empathy this thread has for people that create companies and struggle through the employer's side of trying to be decent to people while trying to run a thriving business.
    • kefka 12y ago
      An answer of "No" would be very detrimental to the business owner as well. This yes, of $2000 would surely be beneficial to everyone. And empathy has little to do in business. Where was the empathy in firing someone? Answer: "It was business".
      • crusso 12y ago
        If it was just business, she could have fired him outright rather than giving him the extra time of not officially firing him.
        • CHY872 12y ago
          Not in Europe. He'll have to have been given weeks/months of notices, so that he can look for a new job in his spare time and not be completely fucked up.
        • Jacqued 12y ago
          No she couldn't. In countries like Belgium or France when you fire someone you must give them notice. They then get 3 more months until the point they no longer work for you. This gives employees time to find something else, and is also beneficial to public finances : the employer effectively bears the cost of the first 3 months of unemployment of this person, after which the state will cover.
• blacktulip 12y ago
  tl;dr - CEO thinks a previous employee she fired should be standing ready helping her 24/7
  • piokuc 12y ago
    Amazing... This lady is living on another planet.
  • abritishguy 12y ago
    Employee was still working there, in most European countries you cannot just "fire" someone unless they have done something, you have to give them notice (which is a reasonable length of time).
    • piokuc 12y ago
      Yes, but she wanted him to work after hours. So, btw, apparently this what she normally demands from her employees - IMO this is wrong in itself, but to expect that from someone who was just fired is, just... well, totally stupid or just infinitely arrogant, not entirely sure what is the case here.
• mtarnovan 12y ago
  "It wasn't even my decision" vs "I may be the bitch and the witch, but trust me: people want me to take decisions, even harsh ones."
  • namenotrequired 12y ago
    The latter was in the context of explaining their general leadership style.
• tommo123 12y ago
  Can't wait 'til she discovers the wonders of forced casualisation and then gets super upset when employees choose not to come in for 3 hours at 20-minutes notice. "How dare they treat my business so flippantly?" I wonder.
• qwerta 12y ago
  > We have to keep our tools running 24/7, even if that means working the occasional nights and weekends. Does this apply to CEO as well? As JWZ wrote nobody of higher management had to sleep under their desks.
  • megablast 12y ago
    Ok, but to be fair, a CEO can't really help unless they have technical skills. You don't want people to suffer needlessly.
    • rguzman 12y ago
      If I'm the CEO and I'm going to ask some people to work 80 hour weeks for a few days/weeks/months, I'd be around and find something productive to do just to show solidarity.
      • kjs3 12y ago
        Yup. If you're asking your team to dive on a grenade, the least you can do is make sure they're stocked with refreshments and feeling like you have some skin in the game.
      • matthewmacleod 12y ago
        Ah, absolutely. Even if that's making coffee, ordering food, or doing the mindless repetitive tasks.
      • frak_your_couch 12y ago
        I've been the engineer in that scenario a number of times in my life. Almost every time there were management people who stayed who just couldn't contribute. Honestly, I didn't particularly need them to suffer. I'd rather they go home, recognize the situation and reflect on whether something should change if this is a semi-regular situation..and then act. That action is within their capacity and it would have been impactful to me. As it was, they just didn't act, treated the suffering as a badge and pretended they were in the foxhole with us. If they could handle it, why couldn't we? Why were we bitching so much? They were right there next to us! Needless to say, I don't work in those kinds of places anymore.
• mortov 12y ago
  Sounds like someone really wanted to set up a UK style '0 hours contract' where you get to avoid paying an 'employee' unless you ask them to do something and then only need to pay for the actual time they spend doing it but you have the advantage of stopping them getting another real job since they are already reserved by your 'employment'. UK companies do it all the time - sounds like this Belgian needs to move to the UK to get the desired outcome of slaves on standby.
  • linuxydave 12y ago
    >UK companies do it all the time Thankfully I've yet to see this in IT.
  • ZenPro 12y ago
    I think this was recently touched on by the big four supermarkets coming under criticism. No real full time customer service assistants. Staff are placed on 16 hour contracts with single, double or quad hours randomly placed throughout the week. If you don't come in, you get fired. http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/apr/19/zero-hours-contracts-flexible-working http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/apr/19/zero-hours-co...
  • rmc 12y ago
    Or that the employer really wanted a 24x7 contract. "You must be available to work at any time". Which is the other end of the scale.
• seivan 12y ago
  "So your best bet is to hire people who share your passion, willing to 'volunteer' on such occasions." Reminds me of Passion Versus Professionalism http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6523/the_designers_notebook_passion_.php?print=1 http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6523/the_designers_not... The SaaS in question (I think) http://company.cvwarehouse.com http://company.cvwarehouse.com Do we know one that's run by technical founders that can compete?
• stuaxo 12y ago
  I love reading articles on linkedin, you couldn't parody them.
• vicbrooker 12y ago
  tl;dr - don't fire people if you need them
  • laichzeit0 12y ago
    That's incorrect. The actual tl;dr would be "don't give people notice if you need them". He's technically still employed until the end of the notice period. How does "firing" work in the USA? Do you literally pack up your desk and walk out the moment you're "fired"? That sounds, well... illegal?
    • zrail 12y ago
      Typically, yes. Most states in the US are "at will" states, meaning both the employer and employee have the right to end employment at any time. It's customary to give your employer two weeks notice that you're leaving, but it's by no means a legal requirement. There's no such custom when the employer takes the action.
      • HeyLaughingBoy 12y ago
        In smaller companies there typically is. I've only been terminated once (not for cause) but I was given two weeks notice and told I could take some time off if I needed to go on interviews, etc. In most larger companies, I agree. Typically, you have to leave the same day and they must (by law) pay you through the end of your current pay period.
      • Dewie 12y ago
        > It's customary to give your employer two weeks notice that you're leaving, but it's by no means a legal requirement. There's no such custom when the employer takes the action. That seems incredibly unfair. Sure, by law neither party is required to give notice, but a sufficiently ingrained social more can be just as much of a burden (for the employee, in this case). It's brilliant, though - lull employees into an informal gentleman's agreement, then pull the rug out from under them if things don't work out. If verbal agreements aren't legally binding, then the employee can't even appeal to the law, since the law is fair. And maybe the former employee blames herself for not agreeing to get this in writing, instead of blaming the overall culture of this kind of asymmetric relationship.
• jstsch 12y ago
  Not fired in the American sense (you can't let someone go in any short term in most European countries). She let him know that he should look for another job, meanwhile he's still employed but unmotivated.
  • qwerta 12y ago
    Notice period could be anything from 3 weeks to 2 months. He could be also hired as a contractor and not to have his contract extended.
    • Arkadir 12y ago
      I would expect such an employee to be paid over €35k. This would place the minimum notice period at 3 months.
      • corin_ 12y ago
        Entirely depends on which country within Europe, France for example has employment laws which are incredibly favorable to employees rather than employers.
        • Arkadir 12y ago
          The story happened in Belgium, and the specific duration in this case would be three months, unless there are some specific details that we are not aware of. I agree that it would have been different in another country.
          • corin_ 12y ago
            Sorry, I thought you were writing in the context of the great-grandfather comment which was just about Europe vs. USA, my bad
        • byroot 12y ago
          That depends. New hires go through a probation period up to 4 months renewable (almost always renewed in practice) were you can be fired in a couple days without justification. I find that pretty favorable to the employers.
• Robin_Message 12y ago
  > However, Belgian law makes it very difficult to put such a flexible schedule in a contract. Oh really? I'm not an expert on Belgian law here, but are they really claiming they offered to pay people extra and/or give time off in lieu for optional overtime, but they didn't agree to it? Or is it just mandatory free overtime that is banned? Belgian law probably makes it hard to require employees to work more than reasonable hours for no extra reward or choice. Which is a good thing. If you want 24x7 support, you need to pay for 24x7 employees. This person is wishing they had the right to specify in a contract that your working hours are "whenever I call." Since they don't get that, I'm not surprised they didn't realise firing someone^W^W, sorry, "agree[ing] to terminate your collaboration" might make them stop responding beyond the call of duty. Also, I was reading something the other day that pointed out that, whilst seeing things in black and white reduces you to only two perspectives (moral and immoral), the attitude that everything is a shade of grey (and the implied attitude that this makes moral comparisons impossible) reduces you to a single perspective (amoral). If you think two perspectives is too few, how is going down to one perspective supposed to help?
  • ama729 12y ago
    Like most European countries, they probably require to have a day team and a night team. Google has datacenter in Belgium[1], so it would be surprising it was "impossible". [1] http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2012/05/15/google-data-center-faq/ http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2012/05/15/googl...
    • valarauca1 12y ago
      Google's company culture is a lot like Japanese work culture. Lie about your hours because its more honorable to claim you did more work in less time. I've seen a lot of googlers put in 60-70 hour weeks and claim it was 40.
      • deelowe 12y ago
        For hourly and contract employees that work in operations? You sure about that?
• jgrahamc 12y ago
  This is why I stopped writing my fictional start-up CEO Brad Bradstone (http://blog.jgc.org/2013/01/archived-posts-from-double-stealth.html http://blog.jgc.org/2013/01/archived-posts-from-double-steal...). There was no need to write parody, when the parodies existed in the real world.
  • deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  • rmc 12y ago
    Apparently that happened with Dilbert. The author made stuff up and people kept writing to him saying "That story-line is just like $COMPANY, that's where you got the idea, right?"
    • arbitrage 12y ago
      Sounds like what happened with _This is Spinaltap_. Really good satire cuts pretty close to reality.
  • Tyrannosaurs 12y ago
    Armando Ianucci has said that one of the reasons he stopped writing the political satire "The Thick of It" was politicians were now doing things that they'd written off as too implausible for the show. Also I suspect Veep pays a lot better for basically the same idea.
  • camelite 12y ago
    I really enjoyed those! Seems like you've real talent: "After my speech tonight one little boy came up to me and said simply, "I'm hungry". I wanted to take him in my arms and tell him: "I feel it too, champ. I feel it too. I feel the hunger to succeed, to create a product that Johnny Ive would truly appreciate, I know precisely what you're going through."
    • jgrahamc 12y ago
      You missed the final bitter line! "But C says that at iTouch we have a no touch policy in case we get sued. Pity, that kid looked like he could really use a hug."
• sgift 12y ago
  > I can be very flexible and friendly, but I always put the company first and I value the group's wellbeing over an individual employee. And her employees do the same: They value the wellbeing of what's most important to them over her wellbeing .. what a surprise.
• duiker101 12y ago
  I really don't see a single reason why he should have answered your call at all without charging you A LOT.
• yummyfajitas 12y ago
  As a consultant rather than an employee, and someone who takes a similar attitude to employment, I totally get where the author is coming from. Employment is a transaction of money for work, not a marriage. I'll get annoyed is my hypothetical wife leaves me when my skills atrophy, but I'm not going to act butthurt just because my employer no longer needs a data scientits. Additionally, it sounds like the employee was treated well. "eventually we agreed to terminate our collaboration as soon as he would have found a new challenge." Maybe I'm misinterpreting the corporatespeak, but that sounds like a "start looking for something, we'll pay you until you find it." Not a bad deal at all. And it sounds like the employee was still employed (albeit being paid to look for new work) at the time this occurred.
  • collyw 12y ago
    As a consultant you must see far higher hourly rates than a normal permanent employee.
    • yummyfajitas 12y ago
      I'm not arguing that employment or contracting is better - I think that markets are efficient and they are roughly equal deals. I'm asking why employees often don't take the same attitude about it, albeit with a different set of expectations/tradeoffs. I.e., I had a client about 6 months ago who got rid of me when he no longer needed help with $STOCK_MARKET_STUFF. Then he needed more $STOCK_MARKET_STUFF done recently - I wasn't "unmotivated" as a result of him terminating our relationship previously.
      • ZenPro 12y ago
        Did the additional $STOCK_MARKET_STUFF require you doing it for free and for the 'passion'?
      • jackvalentine 12y ago
        1) The notice given was required by law, not some kind of sweetheart deal for the employee. 2) It appears that after-hours on-call work wasn't ever actually a part of the employee's contract - they shouldn't have been doing them anyway. When you know you're no-longer part of the team, why exactly would you go above and beyond? Show up, do good work in the hours you're contracted for and don't pick up the phone after hours. The employee is treating it as a time:money transaction and since there is no ongoing deal why give away your time for free?
• bprieto 12y ago
  The post might not be as shocking as it appears. In most of the EU you seldom can fire an employee without weeks of notice. The way she tells the story, it seems as if the employee was told his contract would terminate, but he was still working for the company when he was needed. Still, I don't find strange that an employee who knows his days at a company are counted is not willing to respond to an after-hours phone call.
  • edu 12y ago
    Note that (1) the employee was let because his role was not necessary anymore, then suddenly he is needed (2) outside office hours.
  • bad_user 12y ago
    Looking for a job is also time consuming and in most of the EU the employee that got the firing notice is legally allowed according to the employment law to work shorter hours, say 6 per day instead of 8, in order to search for another job. From the story it also seems that after-hours work is based on "volunteering" and thus not paid extra compared to regular hours, so it's not a surprise that an employee that got fired is not motivated to volunteer for doing work after-hours. Apparently it's a big shock for some people that employees have needs and obligations, like a family to take care of. Receiving a notice that you've been fired can be very stressful, even if your skills are very in-demand.
  • CaptainZapp 12y ago
    In most of the EU you seldom can fire an employee without weeks of notice This is true. What you can do, though, is let an employee go immediately and pay his salary for the notice period. Banks do this quite often on employees, who could create huge damage for the bank. For example traders.
    • Nick_C 12y ago
      A friend of mine was a trader of some long term with a particular bank and, because of his length of service with the bank, had to receive a few month's notice of termination. They terminated him and made him come in to work to sit in a featureless room with only a table and chair -- no computer, nothing. He'd rather stay at home and garden or whatever, even it meant finishing up early, but they wouldn't let him. He always said that he must have seriously pissed someone off in HR.
• sergiotapia 12y ago
  >However, Belgian law makes it very difficult to put such a flexible schedule in a contract. So your best bet is to hire people who share your passion, willing to 'volunteer' on such occasions. Threw up in my mouth a little bit. My 'passion' is making money by providing services you need. You pay me, I do sh*t. That simple. Let's not kid ourselves. I love the mental gymnastics she goes through to paint herself as having done no wrong in her mind.
  • bjornsing 12y ago
    What exactly has she "done" that's so wrong? I mean, sure, her expectations are perhaps a bit [insert whatever you want here], but her actions? Or are you saying it's morally wrong to terminate an employment contract when the business no-longer needs the employee?
    • sergiotapia 12y ago
      She did wrong by letting him go _and_ asking him for overtime. You just don't do that. I'd expect more class from someone.
      • TheCondor 12y ago
        It's not a lack of class, it's a lack of intelligence. Amicable separations aren't quite as rare as unicorns but they make California condors look ordinary. No matter what people claim, it's remarkably uncommon, one party always gets the bad end of the deal. If what I've heard about work in Belgium is true, unless this guy was an elite contractor, short of finding another position there is no way this was going to be amicable.
    • wavefunction 12y ago
      She lets an employee go because they don't need him, then needs him and complains that he's not readily available. Humans aren't inanimate objects to be used and discarded and retrieved as your personal needs change, and this CEO is getting some faint glimmers of that if not fully realizing the entire scope of this implication.
• noja 12y ago
  From the way the last paragraph is worded, I would suggest that this lady take some time off. It's all over the place, she has a lot going on in her head. Perhaps she should see someone professionally to talk through things.
• Arkadir 12y ago
  Most of the reactions both here and on LinkedIn seem to miss a crucial fact: this story happened in Belgium. In Belgium, employees must be notified in advance before they are let go: you send them a letter stating "your contract will end in 12 weeks", they keep working for you for 12 weeks, and then they leave. Employees are usually expected to pass on their knowledge to other team members and wrap up their current projects before they leave. And they are getting paid for it. This is not the story of a CEO who fired out an employee on the spot, then tried to get back in touch later because they found out they still needed him. This is the story of a CEO who told an employee that they would be let go three months from now, then asked them to help after hours---something that they had done previously---only to find that they were not motivated enough to do it anymore. And this is what makes the story interesting: it's not a ridiculous caricature that you can point and laugh at ; it has all the real-life ingredients that you can easily find in the average company. - Employers and employees who assume that "professionalism" means volunteering to work beyond the scope of a work contract. - Employers who forget that loyalty is an essential factor in the motivation of many employees. - A CEO who made the tradeoff of not having a dedicated 24/7 support team, and whines when the inevitable outage happens and there is no one to handle it. I believe the original author herself said it best: "So your best bet is to hire people who share your passion, willing to 'volunteer' on such occasions." No one is passionate about staying long hours to fix a production server. But they might be passionate about building a product that can make them proud. Their product. And once they feel it's not their product anymore, the passion is gone, and they'll be home by 7pm with their cell phone turned off.
  • ClayM 12y ago
    You got the last part right. It's pretty unreasonable to expect anyone to have passion for a project that is no longer their's. Hard to get people to go above and beyond the call of duty after you tell them they aren't needed.
  • rmc 12y ago
    In most develeped countries (except the USA), you can't just fire someone on the spot (unless they are stealing from you / beating up co-workers etc.). So the employee always has a notice period to work.
• bowlofpetunias 12y ago
  This is just one of the many examples of the utter douchiness of hiring people as employees, but treating them as "fellow entrepreneurs" whenever it suits the employer. It seems to be a standard pattern in most start-ups, simply not taking the responsibility for being an employer. What this CEO did isn't just a misunderstanding, it's very, very bad employer-ship, and detrimental to the well being of the employee. Every day that employee is sitting there, being utterly demotivated and wondering what they're going to do next with their career and life that person is edging closer to a burn-out. Under Dutch law, if that happens, the company is 100% liable and will have to keep paying the employees salary (for up to two years), and get actively involved in the employees recovery. In this case, it is very black and white: this CEO is an incompetent employer who on top of it has a serious, near sociopathic empathy deficit. This is not about "leadership style", this is about simple management competence.
• james1071 12y ago
  You couldn't make this up.
• woof 12y ago
  "It wasn't a decision I made overnight." - "It wasn't even my decision." What? "I know I fired this person" - "It never crossed my mind that he had been FIRED" WHAT? fuckedcompany.com is dead, linkedin.com lives!
• porker 12y ago
  > I can be very flexible and friendly, but I always put the company first and I value the group's wellbeing over an individual employee. While difficult decisions have to be made for a group's wellbeing over an individual's, if you're managing people frequently you need to be perceived to put their wellbeing over the company's. Sure, most of the time your hands are tied (a capitalist company exists to make money) but botht he perception and some action are important. > I have accepted that, on the short term, it does not necessarily make me nice or likeable. Many would even say on the contrary. Here's the real cause of problems with the employee. You are a person who values logic and results above people skills. So am I. But - despite not running a company like you - I've learned that others don't, and people skills are infinitely more valuable to have and have to be developed by me, else I fail them. Inge Geerdens, sort yourself out and then take your employees to task.
  • moron4hire 12y ago
    "Logic and results" is orthogonal to "people skills". I've worked with so many other programmers who act like this. Being smart does not excuse being rude.
• watwut 12y ago
  It seems like someone believed her own bs. Article uses a lot of words to make situation sound as something entirely different then what it was. "I know I fired this person, but I considered that merely a technical matter. I thought we agreed it was the best option for all involved, allowing him to grow professionally elsewhere." Agreed as in employee did not put fight when he was informed of the decision? Good for both of them, but it is still firing. Feel good talk about "professional grow elsewhere" is just that. Might be even insulting to employee. Did she really expected the employee to buy it? "It never crossed my mind that he had been FIRED. We just reached the end of our partnership, for now. Time to move on for both of us." I mean, yes, they reached end of partnership by firing employee. He was not needed anymore. Nothing wrong with that, companies can not afford to pay people without giving them work. It is still firing. "I have always valued being open, honest and correct. Even if I wanted to, there's not much you can hide in a small business. So I embrace transparency to the full extent." No she does not. She tries to put spin around things to paint them rosier then they are. Then she acts all shocked when it turns out that employees are able read through euphemisms. EDIT: changed he to she since CEO in question is a women.
  • DrJokepu 12y ago
    Her. The article was written by a lady.
    • hedwall 12y ago
      You beat me to it, by a minute >_<
    • aaronem 12y ago
      No. The article was written by a woman.
  • hedwall 12y ago
    It's quite nitpicky, but she.
  • AUmrysh 12y ago
    Sadly, such wordsmiths are far from rare in the world of business. Very often they will go through linguistic gymnastics to make every action of theirs sound good, and justify things they shouldn't have done as okay. In my personal experience, salespeople are the worst about this, as their entire job is really to bullshit people into buying a product.
• bitL 12y ago
  LOL What a parody! With this article she effectively destroyed her business... Unbelievable! Nobody with a brain would like to work for her after a simple search for references and her customers must be already scratching their heads if they can trust that a business with her as a head would stay afloat... Unless she is linked to EU funds that can keep her business funded regardless of performance due to political connections, I don't think many people would be willing to bet on her. This is not about making tough calls when they are necessary, it's about exhibiting inability to comprehend basic business and operational issues and inability to at least conceal that fact by issuing meaningless statements.
  • deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
• snarfy 12y ago
  'I'm just being honest' is not an excuse for being an asshole, yet the vast majority of the time that is exactly what it's about. It's the most popular justification given by sociopaths.
  • Gracana 12y ago
    And when called on it: "oh it's not just you, I'm an asshole to everyone!"
• tech6 12y ago
  I am a 2 year old.My brain thinks everyone in the world wants what I want.When I grab some other childs toy I dont understand why the child cries instead of being motivated and jumping with joy at having done what I want. Apparently this startup ceo has not outgrown the terrible twos
• dkersten 12y ago
  I agree with what most people here are saying - there is certainly a lot of WTF's in what she wrote that doesn't quite add up. BUT! When someone is leaving a job (ie is working during the notice period and is still being paid), I would still expect that they fully do their job until they've actually left - doesn't matter if they quit or "were let go". Doing otherwise is, IMHO, very unprofessional. Having said that, in this story, he was expected to work after hours, so he had absolutely no obligation to respond. So, given the circumstances, what I said above doesn't seem to apply in this case, unless it was in his original contract to be on call like this.
  • dkersten 12y ago
    Really? Downvote even though I'm generally agreeing with the crowd? Not even an explanation or counter-argument?
• Aqueous 12y ago
  'It never crossed my mind that he had been FIRED.' Yes, by the end of most modern firings, which are conducted with an astonishing degree of cowardice, the goal is to make the employee somehow leave feeling like they've voluntarily quit. This is how we avoid recognizing the uncomfortable fact that a firing is actually a confrontation, and that it is super uncomfortable. And we don't want to experience that, right? Apparently the CEO has somehow convinced themselves that firings are mutual and that they aren't super uncomfortable. Stop couching something in euphemisms and recognize things for what they actually are. If you are letting someone go chances are 1) it's a one-sided decision 2) they won't appreciate it very much. Only in the flavor-less world of detached corporate speak are firings mutual.
• downandout 12y ago
  This CEO is actually an even worse person than her post implies. This was just a way of avoiding severance pay. They wanted to squeeze every hour they paid for out of a fired employee.
• wil421 12y ago
  >It never crossed my mind that he had been FIRED. What would you call terminating someone? You can be fired and still be on good terms and have a healthy relationship but you still let that person go or fired them. Please dont be so naive next time you let someone go. We dont get a job to make friends we do it to make a living. If my company fired me and gave me x amount of time till I had to leave, I would probably not being going above and beyond any longer. My body may be at work but my mind is focus on the new job or job search.
  • collyw 12y ago
    I speak British English, and I see a distinction. "Fired" (or "sacked") to me is getting told to leave. Now. Usually because your work is crap, or you have done something wrong. Letting someone go like this (when the work is fine, but not needed) is usually referred to as "making the person redundant".
    • wil421 12y ago
      I guess there would probably be that distinction in American English as well. In casual conversation I may say I was fired because they didnt have anymore work left when in fact I was more likely laid off. Either way I wouldnt me motivated no matter how I was let go. I am still losing my job.
      • collyw 12y ago
        Yes, "laid off" is another term I would put in the same category as "made redundant". I work in Spain now and I am used to non native speakers using sacked or fired when I would have used "laid off" or "lost his job". Like I say, I still have the connotations of incompetence or poor work when I hear "fired".
• raheemm 12y ago
  Surprised at all the hostility towards the CEO. She did the right thing by giving him notice and paying him to look for another gig.
  • james1071 12y ago
    Are you serious? She expected him to do unpaid overtime.
    • raheemm 12y ago
      But he is getting paid to look for another job, instead of getting fired without any notice, which is the usual norm.
• fab13n 12y ago
  Nice and funny example of Poe's law [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law]. Failing to realize when you ought to STFU is part of what being a sociopathic boss is about. That her companies seem to revolve around HR and hiring is just the icing on the cake. But from what I understand, LinkedIn somehow featured this article; I'd love to have them explain why and how they picked it...
  • mattgreenrocks 12y ago
    Probably something to do with being an "influencer" and "thought leader." Gag me. Actually, when I'm feeling masochistic, I read articles on LinkedIn's Pulse section. They're so, so, SO bad. It's either "work harder, and you might become like me!" or "it turns out your employees are people too!" Strangely enough, never anything about workaholism.
• PhilipA 12y ago
  Apparently the article backfired and it has been deleted.
• downandout 12y ago
  tl;dr: "I don't think we'll be able to get a hold of him," says the colleague. Why's that? "Well, he got the sack. He's finding it hard to stay motivated." Right. I didn't see that one coming.......I know I fired this person, but I considered that merely a technical matter." Comedy ensues.
• brokentone 12y ago
  Link is down, mirror anywhere?
  • claar 12y ago
    Google cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Awww.linkedin.com%2Ftoday%2Fpost%2Farticle%2F20140423114614-44558-shades-of-grey&oq=cache%3Awww.linkedin.com%2Ftoday%2Fpost%2Farticle%2F20140423114614-44558-shades-of-grey http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Awww.l... Pastebin: http://pastebin.com/uUGfWnjf http://pastebin.com/uUGfWnjf
• bru 12y ago
  I cannot access it: >Sorry, we couldn't find that page. Here are some others for you to explore. Here's the version from Google cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Awww.linkedin.com%2Ftoday%2Fpost%2Farticle%2F20140423114614-44558-shades-of-grey&oq=cache%3Awww.linkedin.com%2Ftoday%2Fpost%2Farticle%2F20140423114614-44558-shades-of-grey http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Awww.l...
  • piokuc 12y ago
    I guess Inge Geerdens, author of the text, and LinkedIn "Influencer" (sic!) removed the page; LinkedIn users were quite harsh with their comments. The logical development, IMHO, would be that: 1) relevant Belgian authorities launch investigation into employees' treatment in her company. Apparently they are forced to work after hours and, unlawfully, not being appropriately paid for the overtime work. 2) Inge gets fired for bringing disgrace to the company she works for as a CEO.
    • jrochkind1 12y ago
      Hmm, it's still accessible for me at the original url.
    • Zenst 12y ago
      I read many comments and would not call them harsh, realistic yes. If anything rather constructive and tame to what could be worded as a reply to her post.
      • porker 12y ago
        Agreed - and with a more reasonable tone than the HN comments :o)
      • piokuc 12y ago
        I would say the comments (most of them) were "relatively harsh", because usually comments under LinkedIn "Influencers"' blogs are limited to "thank you!", "great!", congratulations, etc. I thought they were pretty honest and not too diplomatic.
• claar 12y ago
  Appears to be removed now. Mirror: http://pastebin.com/uUGfWnjf http://pastebin.com/uUGfWnjf
• praptak 12y ago
  Article seems offline now. Google cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:rLPq67GBnzYJ:www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140423114614-44558-shades-of-grey http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:rLPq67G... Edit: Summary, by me: a CEO complains that someone who has been fired is not motivated, i.e. does not provide "urgent assistance" outside office hours.
• mangeletti 12y ago
  Unbelievable... I can't tell if Inge is trolling the Internet or just her employee, or if she's just a sociopath.
• emhart 12y ago
  I wish this were extraordinary. President of our company showed up in the hospital room of the Sr. Developer he fired who had terminal cancer in order to ask him for documentation on various projects. Showed up multiple times in fact. I actually really do wish that maybe this is extraordinary and that next time around I'll wind up under more human leadership.
  • brohee 12y ago
    Seriously... I'm kinda surprised that no relative of the sr dev made the company president glad to be in a hospital...
    • emhart 12y ago
      That's what finally happened, thankfully. His fiance stepped in and acted as a silent wall to the president's ongoing requests. Thankfully he finally got the message and relented. EDIT: Hah! Just parsed your message correctly =P no violence ensued haha
      • ms4720 12y ago
        too bad
• chalgo 12y ago
  This sounds more like he was made redundant than fired. If his role at the company is no longer required that is redundancy and there should be a severance package in his favour. Assuming laws are similar to the UK.
• facepalm 12y ago
  I have to side with the CEO here. As a freelancer, I wouldn't let my work slide just because my contract is ending. What about acting professionally? Employed = lazy and feeling entitled? Where do the privileges of employees come from anyway?
  • jackvalentine 12y ago
    You'll note that the CEO at no point says that the after-hours work is actually a part of the employee's job description, she's just expecting them to do it because... "your best bet is to hire people who share your passion, willing to 'volunteer' on such occasions". The key thing about volunteering is that it's voluntary.
    • facepalm 12y ago
      OK granted I didn't read that she expects volunteering. That's of course completely ridiculous.
  • anu_gupta 12y ago
    As a freelancer, do you often do free work for your existing clients at evenings and weekends after they've told you they won't be using you anymore?
• blunte 12y ago
  This situation is a good reminder that just because people get themselves in leadership positions (and especially when they talk as advisors or authorities on leadership) doesn't mean they're actually any good at it. They may just be good at generating content that (usually) sounds smart. She's pulled her post, most likely out of shame. But take a look at all the other sage advice that remains! https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/44558 https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/44558
  • deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  • woof 12y ago
    Like this one: http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140328120354-44558-breaking-up http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140328120354-44... "And now that you brought it up, why should I pay your full wage if you are only working at half force since you aren’t motivated anymore?" I'm starting to see a pattern...
    • blunte 12y ago
      I actually understand many of the reasons why companies need to let people go. Sometimes it really does make sense to stop having someone as a full time employee. But if that person did anything significant during their employment, chances are the company might need a little of their time again in the future. That extra, on-demand time should be compensated well; and the possibility of such a need should be discussed before the exit.
• jrochkind1 12y ago
  The most important line in this one is: > I am the boss with all the perks and the quirks. I think this is yet another example of what another HN commenter recently called "ignoring the considerable power you wield over other people and expecting them to ignore it too." Guess what, power matters in relationships. > It wasn't a decision I made overnight. It wasn't even my decision. We talked about it on several occasions. Is she really saying it wasn't her decision because they talked about it on several occasions, it was somehow a mutual decision? Bullshit. You don't get to keep all the power, but then expect that in your interactions with people it won't matter, it'll be just like relationships between peers or equals.
  • jheriko 12y ago
    spot on re: > I am the boss with all the perks and the quirks. these kinds of comments are dangerous. what your boss thinks they have a right to treat you how they wish as if they own you then that is a problem... if they feel it is fine to say it openly and unashamedly then you are so far from sanity you shouldn't feel safe.
  • koonsolo 12y ago
    > I am the boss with all the perks and the quirks. As an ex colleague used to say to his 'boss': You are not my boss, you are my employer. My boss is at home.
• dimman 12y ago
  "I know I fired this person ... It never crossed my mind that he had been FIRED." I could think of less logical reasons to be surprised.
• joeblau 12y ago
  I was laid off along with 25% of our department back in 2005 and I stopped all work and started looking for a new job as soon as I got the news. I was halfway though a project, but My number one priority was keeping Myself employed. Thankfully the company was sympathetic to our needs, but there were some employees that had worked at the company for 18 years and now needed to find new jobs. I still came into the office for the following three weeks, unlike some of my other colleagues. Ironically, I was trying to get out of that company anyways so for me, the layoff was an amazing opportunity. One of the saddest scenarios was one of my colleges that had been out of school for merely 8 months. He had a 2 hour commute to work one way: car/bus -> light rail -> Metro -> office. He was chipper and gung ho about coming into work and working on his projects. The day he got laid off (which was about 1 hour before I got my news) he comes in super excited (as always) and runs up to have a meeting with his Project Manager. Then 15 minutes later, I see him leaving with his back pack and I ask where he's going. He looks dead in my eyes eerily and says "You'll find out soon enough." While he was only out of school 8 months, I think he's now realized that companies aren't all way they are cracked up to be, but now he works at Goldman Sachs so who knows.
• petervandijck 12y ago
  From another of her posts: "Don’t come into the office one day telling me out of the blue that you haven’t been happy for a while, found someone else and will leave me as soon as possible. And now that you brought it up, why should I pay your full wage if you are only working at half force since you aren’t motivated anymore?" http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140328120354-44558-breaking-up http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140328120354-44... Oh my god.
  • wazoox 12y ago
    And the comments... All these sociopathic-type managers living in the comfortable fantasy that employer/employee relationship is equal to equal. Crazy.
    • petervandijck 12y ago
      Yes this really baffles me.
• kokey 12y ago
  Looks like this is not the first time she got noticed through her LinkedIn ramblings, here is something from 2012 http://www.cmswire.com/cms/social-business/earth-to-inge-your-employees-dont-need-you-018279.php http://www.cmswire.com/cms/social-business/earth-to-inge-you...
• marpalmin 12y ago
  From her writing I cannot derive if she really agreed with this person to find a new challenge, and this person did find a new challenge, or if she just fired this person and it was not that amicable after all. Is this perhaps of language/culture misunderstanding?
• ececconi 12y ago
  Seems like this CEO understands everything but people.
• TallGuyShort 12y ago
  >> I value the group's wellbeing over an individual employee There's the problem. Yes, you should not value an individual employee over the group's well-being, and yes, if he agreed to work until he found another job he should work until he found the job (although I don't know when he's expected to find that job in any hurry outside of work hours). But it's like she has no idea what that conversation would sound like to an employee. Your CEO brings up the fact that things aren't working out. You hear a prelude to being fired. In some situations, maybe you just agree rather than argue. If you've actually been under the impression you've been working hard, it looks like you can't win and you would be better off else where. Now that's a motivating thought isn't it?
• bnastic 12y ago
  Apparently, we're now calling it a "challenge". "Job" was getting a bit stale so we changed it.
• al2o3cr 12y ago
  "I can be very flexible and friendly, but I always put the company first and I value the group's wellbeing over an individual employee." Translation: "Of course I'm not a narcissist - I value the whole group of people that make me money!"
• jeroen 12y ago
  For me the most important sentences are these: "I had to let go of an employee" "we need the assistance of our colleague urgently" Same guy. So there is a bus-factor of 1 and you fired that person. Since said firing was "a few weeks" ago, all critical stuff should have been out of his hands.
  • mratzloff 12y ago
    This struck me too. I can't fathom why the CEO didn't simply cut a severance check and wish him well.
• ceautery 12y ago
  This reminds me of an encounter with our department's director recently at an "all hands" meeting at my current gig. My company has been under financial pressure for the past few years, and there have been reorgs, layoffs, fewer promotions, and weaker merit raises. To answer complaints about all of this, particularly in the case of those who didn't get promotions they felt they deserved, he said, bluntly: "You are responsible for your own careers." To paraphrase Lone Watie from The Outlaw Josey Wales, I thought about his words. "You are responsible." And when I had thought about them enough, I decided to find a new job.
• washedup 12y ago
  It reads as if English may not be her first language which could be causing some confusion.
• subpixel 12y ago
  Since I can't understand it, and it sounds a bit humorous to my ears, I can easily imagine this interview with Ms. Geerdens is a Vooza.com video http://vimeo.com/82075734 http://vimeo.com/82075734
• ryguytilidie 12y ago
  The volunteering line really reminds me of the post from the github founder's wife. In both cases, a founder essentially guilted someone into spending extra, unpaid time working on a "world changing" (read: not at all world changing) new startup idea where they would retain all ownership while the people working for them were expected to "volunteer". How do founders get so sociopathic that they do stuff like this?
• idorube 12y ago
  a quote from this particular CEO's twitter feed sounds appropriate: „If I wanted to kill myself, I’d climb up your ego and jump down to your IQ level." (@netlash)
• bane 12y ago
  American here, I once left a job (quit) because of deep dissatisfaction with the management's general incompetence and constantly pushing critical maintenance off. I had been telling them for more than a year that there needs to be some changes or something bad was going to happen. Got a call from them a couple months later, something bad finally happened. "My consultation rate is <some ridiculously huge number per hour>." "What?" "You obviously want to hire me as an independent contractor to fix the issue I had been telling you about. Fair warning, I'm at another job now, so I'll be doing the work on nights and weekends." "Your rate is ridiculous. It wasn't going to cost that much for you to fix it when you worked here." "I warned you about it for a year and you had your chance to fix it back then when it wasn't a crisis. You ignored me and deferred the issue and now it's this is your emergency, not mine anymore. Frankly, I can charge whatever rate I think is appropriate." To my surprise, they agreed (at a mildly reduced rate), I came back, spent a couple weeks fixing the issue and then we parted ways. They never asked me back again but I got my 1099 from them a while later. Everybody always says, upon leaving a job, "call me if you need anything" because we all have friends at work we want to see succeed. But sometimes you have to stop volunteering our time (our lives) to cover up other people's failings. I keep hearing about people who leave a job, then come back in on the weekends to "fix a few things" at their old job. Stop doing that. If it's worth money to the company, it's worth some of that money to you.
• niels_olson 12y ago
  I was at a conference with the graduating class at the Naval Academy in 2004. The Chief of Naval Operations was speaking, and my bosses, the Superintendent and the Commandant were with him on stage. He walked into the crowd and started asking people why they thought sailors got out of the Navy. To a T, every soon-to-be Ensign said it was the money, to murmurs of agreement from the crowd of 1000. Then he saw me. "Let's ask this Lieutenant, back from the fleet, what he thinks. Tell me, Lieutenant Olson, why are sailors getting out of the Navy?" "They're unhappy people who haven't achieved their goals." You could hear a pin drop. He quietly, slowly, walked back to the stage and waited a bit. I thought I might be fired. He started talking about the value "division officer records", which is basically Ensigns keeping track of the progress their sailors are making toward their goals.
• matt__rose 12y ago
  Wow, between mojombo and his wife, the "Don't fuck up the culture" rant, and this woman, it seems like the world is teeming with clueless CEOs.
• pshin45 12y ago
  Not to nitpick, but doesn't changing the title of the article like this (from "Shades of grey" to "CEO complaints : employee not motivated after being fired") go against the HN Guidelines? > [...] please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait.[1] I guess you could make a case that the original title ("Shades of grey") was misleading, but seems to be more a case of the OP disagreeing with the angle/implication of the title, and wanting to change it to something that aligns more with the OP's point of view. (FWIW I agree that the original "Shades of grey" title is pretty bad in that it's both uninteresting and uninformative, but bad != misleading) [1] http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
• colemorrison 12y ago
  So, just in my opinion and in my experience. The more I work with clientele who are successful, the more I find that.... ...the more successful they've been, the more detached from reality they are. Because they've been so successful, who's to argue with their view point in life? They must be right. Again, just in my opinion and experience.
• jasonwatkinspdx 12y ago
  The amount of narcissism in this article is revolting. "Oh, silly me, it didn't even occur to me that what's a voluntary decision for me might feel entirely different to the person loosing their source of income. But that's ok, cuz I'm the boss with Quirks and Perks!"
• GhotiFish 12y ago
  wow. Read the article. Sounded like this CEO was actually coming to terms with the ramifications of firing someone, rather than acting exasperated that someone acted this way after being fired. This story is pandering to outrage where there is none to be had.