"...we will not comment on all the factors that contributed to our parting ways"
That's what I was referring to. There's so many things that could have been done differently on all sides, but I can't help but wonder the real reason the employee was terminated so quickly. With as much as this has escalated, I think a lot of people are owed at least that.
It matters because this is about trust, transparency, and honesty. If you were in her position, would you want to know if your termination was due to something you did badly, or because of a general company policy?
I agree that being honest is not going to make everyone happy, but I don't understand why they can't at least give solid reasons.
It reads to me like when he was let go, he might not have been given the clearest of communication as to the nature termination. I've been fired before, and I've been laid off. It was unambiguous in both cases.
That's not to say he wasn't clearly fired, and isn't dancing around that fact, but based on the available information, the broader internet bystander community doesn't have sufficient information to tell which story is true.
I doubt that there was a strict causal link between your statement and your termination. (That no one was considering it, then you made that statement, then suddenly you're let go the next day.) If there was, and you're the type to read HN, you are better off anyway, even if it felt otherwise at the time.
If that's the case, why in the world wouldn't they tell the guy? According to his account, the closest thing to a reason for termination was that they "changed their mind."
>given that they discussed the termination in the public (disclosing an opinion that he is guilty)
The actual wording is: "The result of this investigation led to the unfortunate outcome of having to let this employee go." It's not explicitly stated what (if anything) they determined he did; just that the end result was firing him.
One item that's unclear to me is if the employee had put that they were open to other opportunities on their profile at the time of firing. To me that changes the calculus of why he may have been fired.
"someone I know got fired on the spot after 15 years at a company for not reporting some personal stuff between other employees"
You make it sound as if whatever they didn't report was no big deal "not reporting some personal stuff". Do you really believe that a company would lay off a 15 year employee over something that didn't matter if they were otherwise doing their job?
I would imagine that whatever the "personal stuff" was it was clearly laid out as far as their responsibility to report it and they didn't so they got fired.
Of course I don't know the true facts but it seems that if companies simply laid off employees for arbitrary reasons that wouldn't be to their benefit, right?
Edit: Anticipating the reaction to "arbitrary" I would clarify that I know companies do arbitrary sucky things. I'm just questioning the probability of that happening to someone working for 15 years. Seems that layoffs for business reasons would be much more of an issue.
I'm not sure the lack of an explanation from the company really means anything here. Most companies, especially the more risk-averse, will not tell you why you were let go unless there are clearly-documented performance milestones that were missed (i.e. not meeting your PIP goals). It's a potential liability, up to and including a lawsuit for wrongful termination, to justify a firing in any recordable way unless they've been exceptionally judicious in documenting cause.
yeah, I was being facetious because the boss doesn't really get asked and can lie, the fired employee has to come up with a good explanation for why they were fired. Since the discussion was about ways in which there are differences between being fired and quitting.
The article doesn't give enough information to determine whether this was a reasonable judgment. What actually happened when they discussed the event afterwards that led to his termination? That could have been completely justified even if they had originally been in the wrong for ignoring his request.
I don't think you can fairly say a person was fired simply because s/he quit following a dispute with the boss. Maybe the person would have eventually been fired, had s/he not quit. But that's pure speculation.
There's the cliched "you can't quit, you're fired"/"you can't fire me, I quit" scenario. I think the question of who terminated the relationship is less clear there. But that doesn't seem to apply to the story the author tells.
Why quibble over this? Because the distinction between being fired and quitting matters for the employee's future prospects.
> The biggest mistakes you made was a) still being a contractor
How do you know the author was in fact a contractor? The author didn't post his offer letter, tax forms, or other similar documents. So we can't know for sure. But he says he understood himself to be a full-time employee. Some of what he describes, e.g. the boss's comments about hours, seem to support this view.
Exactly - your last paragraph is the crux for me. They could have been fired for no reason, and no notice under the most common at-will agreements. The system does not favor employees at all, and I wish we were all more angry at that.
That's what I was referring to. There's so many things that could have been done differently on all sides, but I can't help but wonder the real reason the employee was terminated so quickly. With as much as this has escalated, I think a lot of people are owed at least that.
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