Thread by @jpetazzo

Let's have a conversation about bad managers and how to get rid of them!

I recently heard multiple stories that had a similar substance: an engineer is working hard and doing a great job, but their manager doesn't recognize their achievements and tries to fire that engineer.

Since firing somebody without real cause can open the way for all kinds of lawsuits, the bad manager involves HR and tries to put that engineer on a PIP — a "performance improvement plan." If you haven't worked in the US, you might wonder, "what's a PIP?"

A PIP is, in theory, a document telling an employee "this is what you need to do (to improve) so that we don't fire you." In practice, it is a document telling the employee "this is why we are going to fire you soon," i.e. it is used to build a case to terminate the employee.

(There are heaps of articles out there explaining how you can, or cannot, keep your job after a PIP; I could not, however, find any statistics on that matter. I'll be happy to add them here if you have reliable sources!)

The PIPs I have heard of recently were, if you'll excuse my French, full of bullshit. Specifically:

- asking the employee to comply to standards stricter than any other employee in that team

- asking the employee to do a huge amount of work in a short amount of time

- asking the employee to complete a task but prevent them from having access to the people or tools they need to do so successfully

- reproaching the employee for taking flex time or working from home, while they got written approval to do so

- pointing out lack of deliverables during a period of time, when tracking these deliverables was, in fact, the job of the manager (who failed to do so properly)

- reframing negatively achievements of the employee (e.g. if the employee went the extra mile in an area, use that to show "lack of focus" or question their judgement when prioritizing tasks)

When we are on the receiving end of the PIP, what can we do? One option is to ragequit and take another job; preferably in a company that doesn't let toxic people end up in management positions where they can harm their direct reports.

But there are plenty of cases when we cannot quit, at least not immediately. Finding a new random job is easy if you are a healthy white dude in tech; but it's a whole different story if you are a (for instance) trans woman of color dealing with anxiety.

In particular, if you are working hard to comply to the PIP, it will be very difficult to make time for interviews; and the added stress (mental and physical) means that you won't be in the best conditions, to say the least.

But what if we love our job? What if everything would be GREAT without that shitty manager? Shouldn't we be able to keep our job?

In theory, there are checks and balances in place to detect bad managers. In theory, when an employee leaves (of their own volition or not), there are exit interviews, which are supposed to help the company to detect these patterns and fix them.

NARRATOR VOICE: THIS NEVER HAPPENS. Let's see why.

Sometimes the "exit interview" is not an interview, but a form (paper or online) that doesn't give us the ability to point out these dysfunctions.

Sometimes the interview is in person, but with the very HR person who bullied us into signing the bullshit PIP in the first place. Not exactly the best framework to discuss problems within the company, because we feel like it's pointless since that person is hostile to us.

This all allows the company to turn a blind eye on these problems: "No, we haven't noticed a pattern of abuse and discrimination with that manager; yes, most of the women in their direct reports quit, but nothing cropped up in the exit interviews!" 🙄

Sometimes the company is so bad that the best option is to quit, and then courageously talk about it — like @susanthesquark did in her very brave blog post (susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19…).

So what do? "Going to HR" is usually not an option, because at this point, they are already involved, but their goal is to (1) protect the company's interests and (2) get us fired since that's what our manager asked them to do.

Very often, "protecting the company's interests" means that the HR team will back the bad manager, because it's easier to fire us than to admit that a bunch of past PIPs and terminations have been abusive and that this manager has been doing so much damage.

But "protecting the company's interests" might help us, because that also means "avoiding the bad PR that comes with a ugly discrimination lawsuit and would point out that our diversity, inclusion, and community involvements have been, in fact, lip service all along."

Moving laterally (to a different team and a different manager) can be a solution; but it doesn't work in smaller companies, or if we're doing specialized work in a specialized team.

What are your thoughts? Are there realistic strategies to get rid of a bad manager, or is it just impossible in the US corporate world? If you've faced such circumstances, what worked (or didn't work) for you?

If you want to share anonymously, feel free to do so e.g. by emailing me ([e-mail]) from a throwaway email address; I'll do my best to relay / summarize here. Thank you!