[foo101]

I have a very similar story with an interesting twist. I knew exactly one person who got on a PIP by his manager and didn't get fired. Almost anyone who worked with this person including me felt that the PIP was justified because he was known to be an incompetent developer.

The PIP ended up because his manager left the company. He was assigned to a new manager who worked in a different location. So the manager-employee relationship became a remote-relationship for them. He played his cards very well with the new manager and got himself out of PIP.

Nonetheless, it took that guy's career years to recover. Everyone around except this new manager still saw him as incompetent. He is still paid as an entry-level engineer.