Honesty Exception

Once again we see the "honesty exception" for large companies in action. Unhappily, when this exception is thrown there are usually human casualties.

A co-worker (and friend) who, until recently, worked on my team, was lately terminated for a "bad attitude."

He made the mistake of insisting that:

the company, in particular its executives, keep their promises
executives, in particular our boss (and the boss's boss) be truthful
performance be evaluated as performance, rather than responses to provocation.

The company (especially those who fired him) will not appreciate their loss. This guy is good. Outstanding. He was our database guy (SQL Server 7/2k) and was the first of us to grasp the system we're supporting. His work was crisp, always on time, always correct, and always documented. The company may not miss him, but the team members will.

He saw to it that the other team members knew what he was doing and how it affected their work. He helped out when others of us would hit the wall. He was always cooperative, always positive, always friendly. Ironic that the pretense for firing him was "bad" attitude.

He will be a real asset to whoever hires him. (Incidentally, if there's anyone in the Pacific Northwest or Idaho that needs a really sharp database guy, he's available. I can put you in touch with him.)

I've managed to avoid this kind of thing in my career, though I've had a near miss or two. My downfall is more along the lines of seeing the political chicanery at work and being too "politically astute" to openly say or do something that would draw fire, yet having the fallout of incidents affect my performance to the point where I was in hot water.

There seems to be a particular PointyHairedBoss species that aggressively protects its rights to its own career at the expense of those in its charge, and having an allergic reaction to having light shed on it.

I gotta tell ya, even though my own job "seems secure" at the moment, it's truly sobering to see the guy in the trench next to you catch a bullet, and know that the entry wound is dorsal. Makes it harder to be effective when you're watching for shots from people who are supposed to be on your side.

I'm sure I'm not alone in this experience. I wonder if this is standard fare for those of use who push bits.

-- GarryHamilton

(This page might go somewhere -- or I could just be venting. It would be more interesting with feedback.)

As a victim of one of these things once myself (well, I also could have been more discreet), I can sympathize. My problem was that a particularly inane (WagTheDogAntiPattern) implementation of V1 of the app for which I was charged with leading the development of V2 had been cleverly marketed to non-technical management as a SilverBullet. I knew it would collapse under the new volume of transactions, which meant I was being lashed to the mast of a sinking ship. I made the mistake of complaining to the project manager, a just-hired ex-Arthur Andersen type who understood nothing of OO.

I'll always remember the moment of black comedy when I was called into the office of the head of IT and told "we have no politics here". He was a big ex-linebacker from the look of him. At one point he asked me if I would like to "grovel". Being unemployed was a relief after that.

The final irony is that after I was gone, the architecture I designed was put in place and the SilverBullet was gone. (This was accomplished by employees - I had been JustaBody.) -- TomRossen

Regarding the quote, "There seems to be a particular PointyHairedBoss species that aggressively protects its rights to its own career":

: BlueHat: It's not just a particular species; everybody will try to protect their career. I'm not trying to be contrary, just to point out that if we view our bosses' and coworkers' and even our own motivations in this light, a lot of dumb actions start to make a lot more sense. This is the root cause of OfficePolitics?.
: BlackHat: On the gripping hand, there's a difference between protecting one's career and aggressively protecting one's career. In particular, protecting one's career by the means of overcoming one's own shortcomings vs firing others who dare point out one's shortcomings.

The difference being that of comfort-preservation and self-preservation - even if the apparent necessity is mistaken?

There seems to be a particular PointyHairedBoss species that aggressively protects its rights to its own career at the expense of those in its charge

This is a characteristic of the well known AgencyProblem, which is a form of MoralHazard.

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