Breaking Bad News At Work

[mekender]

In light of the shooting in Conn. yesterday. I have been thinking. How do you as a manger/supervisor ensure that things like this do not happen when you inevitably have to fire/lay off/terminate someone?

I know a lot of companies will have it done by a HR person and a couple of witnesses that are completely unrelated to the manager that made the decision. But if you work in a company where you cant carry or if every day carry in your work is impractical, what else can you do?

For example, where I am working now, 95% of the building is behind metal detectors, exiting the factory requires that you go through them, so I cannot carry. It would be illegal even if I could because the building is posted.

I know a lot of people will say that they simply wouldn't work in a place that wouldn't let them carry but that would eliminate almost every company in the nation so that isnt a practical thought to me.

Thoughts?

[Gunnuts]

You can't have success without risk.

If you enjoy the money and power that come from working in a position that can take away other people's livelihood, you have to accept some risk associated from wielding that power.

That sounds callous, but its the bare bones truth.

[Flintlock Tom]

Be sensitive to the emotional state of the folks you work with.
Explore non-firearm options for self-defense and "wacko suppression."
Be familiar with all options for egress from the building.
Adopt a regular daily prayer time.

Mix and match as appropriate.

[Netpackrat]

If your company is big enough to have a dedicated security staff, have them present to escort the individual(s) off the premises as a standard procedure.

[oilcrash]

We (the security team) have to escort folks out, and ensure they leave the property, it's usually two of us. They are instructed that should they need to return to drop off any company equipment, they can leave it at the security desks in the lobbies.

[Darrell]

A director/VP type at my employer called everyone together about a year and a half ago to announce another layoff. Then the company laid HIM off. He went ballistic on the company CEO; the company canned security some years ago, so they had to call the cops to get the guy off the property.

The company announced yet another layoff last week, all management/salarieds this time. There's hardly anyone left to manage the hourly workers (such as are still left). I wonder sometimes why we're still open for business.

[308Mike]

A LOT of it depends on the corporate culture, the morale, and just HOW they handle the situations.

I already believed I worked for a great bunch of people when corporate decided to whack our whole division. We didn't have the best corporate culture, but the people we worked for tried to do what they could and actually cared about each other. So when it came chopping time, almost every single one of my bosses got the axe too (we had plenty of company). I had a meeting with the guy who had to do the dirty deed and told him I didn't blame him, 'cause if he didn't do it, they'd just call someone else in and then he might even be joining us in the unemployment line. It wasn't anything personal (and our employee evaluations all reflected outstanding performances), it was strictly a business decision made at a MUCH higher level than his paygrade.

Even so, being on unemployment this long can make one a little bitter as prospective employers play salary games trying to low-ball incoming employees because of the tight job market.

I know it's different for companies which are unionized, but if you have employees whom you can't trust and/or have security concerns about because they've perhaps threatened other employees - well, maybe they shouldn't be working there anymore. As I mentioned to someone else, if you can't trust them, WHY are they still working there?

When we got laid off, my supervisor and I made sure the covering network administrator had all the passwords, was told of the location of all the working files and passwords required to open them, was given specific OU-wide Administrator access to all accounts (machine and user), had access to our workstations (and login passwords if our accounts were kept active for a time after we were gone - I'm sure they just disabled them, and then if needed re-enabled them if necessary). We provided him with our routine (which changed SIGNIFICANTLY once we were told of the division getting chopped), the changes to the phone system we'd made (EVERYTHING was documented, including changing the cross-connects on the phone system DEMARC, etc., etc.).

Thankfully, I hadn't received a single phone call asking where something was - which tells you just how well we gave him what he would need to continue getting the job done (all the HR folks moved on paper to another division even if they didn't physically move).

I was probably the most upset out of the bunch getting the axe, since I only got 5 days notice (that's not much time to clear out an office after almost 12 years of service), and still get my work done. I had to borrow my brother's truck to move my "portable" fridge (I was used to eating my lunch at my desk due to workload), plus all my tech books/manuals/etc., etc.

My dad was a major part of the BRAC (Base Re-Alignment and Closure). They chose him because he had the ability to lay-off/fire people and when he got done talking to them, they'd actually THANK him when walking out the door (after getting laid off). I have no trouble saying it, my dad was one HELL of a great manager/supervisor/leader - which is how he wound up in positions requiring advanced degrees and he had only a BS degree in Physics.

It's NOT what you do to people that makes them angry, it's how you TREAT them that's the key. My dad taught me you can FIRE someone and if you do it right, have them thank you at the end of the conversation (even if they don't like it). OTOH, you can also HIRE someone and make them feel like they're walking into a firing squad. Treat employees like adults, then get rid of those who don't act like adults. It's REAL simple!!

Morale and corporate culture comes from the TOP down (employee-owned companies are a little bit different).

If you take GOOD care of your people, they'll take GOOD care of you, they'll bring innovation, product improvements, streamlined ways of doing things, find ways to save the company money, cut wasteful spending, and actually HAVE FUN while at work - IF COMPANIES LET THEM.

[Dedicated_Dad]

I worked for a "dot com" during the boom, and when the "bust" came they began laying people off.

The first round, they called me @ home on Friday night, told me to log in and disable the list of accounts I'd find in my e-mail.

On Monday morning, they began filing through my office - asking why their accounts were disabled. Naturally I was forbidden to tell anyone anything -- it was one of the worst experiences of my life, as these people had become my FRIENDS!

After that, I stopped going in on Monday if this was happening -- which quickly became obvious to everyone and "DD's not here!!" on Monday became "Who's getting axed TODAY??!!"

Eventually the decision was made to close the big-city office (and its smaller data-center) and consolidate into the suburb facility and it's "primary" data center. Pretty much everyone "downtown" with any IT skills had been axed, and the "suburbs" were all *nix-folk, so I was tasked with the migration/consolidation while ensuring **ZERO** business impact.

Suburb was a 3.5-hour+ commute, and there was simply no way I could do this, but we'd had discussions and (1) were hoping I could telecommute and (2) agreed that I was "safe" at least until the migration was complete.

One Friday night I sat down to do the inevitable, and found **MY ACCOUNT** had been disabled.

WTF??!!

Within minutes, my doorbell rang. My boss had driven the 3.5 hours to inform me himself, and missed doing so by minutes.

Needless to say, he was LIVID -- he had **NOBODY** capable of handling the migration -- but mahogany-row had made the decision and there was nothing he could do about it. He assured me he'd be fighting again on Monday AM and that he fully expected to win, given the circumstances.

I told him that the circumstances had changed -- irrevocably. Their "word" was now worth **NOTHING** -- since I'd foregone my job search in light of their promises I now had no choice but to protect MYSELF. I'd come back -- for triple my previous rate -- ONLY if they'd provide me a written promise of 6 months' pay or until the migration was complete, whichever was LONGER, and triple the meager "severance' they'd offered.

In return I promised to stay until the migration was done, I'd documented and handed off everything within my sphere of control, and would sign a "release" and NDA in exchange for my last check.

Needless to say, they squealed like scalded dogs ("Mr. D -- you're being unREASONABLE!!" - ROFL...) but had no choice...

I finished the work in ~4.5 months, at which point they sent me home but continued to pay me the rest of what they owed me. I'd started looking soon after the "Revelation" but made plain I would not leave until my job was done.

As it turned out, I left "dot com" on Friday, and went to my new ".gov contractor" job on Monday - without missing a beat.

Unfortunately, I also wrecked my bike the following Sunday, which has irrevocably changed my life...

OTOH, the extra paychecks covered the 5 weeks I was in hospital/rehab and the extraneous expenses of all the necessary care -- bottom line is that G*d once again looked after me!!

I still feel all happy in my pants when I think of how those bastards squealed at having to bend over for a change... Up to this point they'd screwed people over with impunity, but they went one man too far...

One thing I know for sure -- in the future they were **MUCH** more careful about ensuring they understood the ramifications of cutting people, which slowed the bleeding and gave a LOT of people a chance to find other work before they got the axe. Even for the skeleton-crew that finally survived, life was much easier as they weren't forced to try to clean up the huge messes left by mahogany-row's indiscriminate cuts...

The slow-down allowed most duties to be transferred in an orderly manner and injected a bit of civility and decency to an otherwise horrible situation.

All in all, it's one of the proudest moments in my life...

DD

[Dedicated_Dad]

I've gotta add this...

I just had a bit of an epiphany that helps me understand my extreme foreboding since 11/08.

That whole "dot-com" experience was a microcosm of our Republic's current situation.

They spent money like it grew on the fake ficus trees dotting the place. The day I started they handed me a top-of-the-line laptop, *AND* a desktop that would have been a SERVER everyplace else I'd ever worked.

EVERYONE had Herman-miller "aeron" chairs to go with the H-M cubicle furniture. The brother of the CEO - an architect - was paid MILLIONS to design the floor-plan of "downtown" -- which was 99% just arranging the aforementioned "pods."

The frat-brother of the CIO was paid over a million to paint "murals" in the "suburb" facility -- murals in which he'd just splattered paint on the walls over a few geometric stencils.

The CORE of the company was an almost unimaginably large and critical database, running on Oracle. Mahogany Row decided to migrate everything to another DB platform -- an upstart noone else had ever heard of prior to the announcement. It was a couple of years later that we all learned that M-R -- collectively -- owned a controlling share of said upstart DB company, and made MILLIONS on the increased value of its stock after the announcement of this "switch."

Go figure...

Profligate spending, gerrymandering incredibly profitable "deals" for their cronies, and enrichment of themselves at the expense of their investors - all while starving those who made the whole thing run...

Sound familiar??!!

DD

[mekender]

I have heard many similar stories from people that were in CA in the middle of the .com explosion.