[throw1230]

It sounds like you weren't meeting the needs of the company either and this is all sour grapes.

If someone is not meeting the expectations or underperforming and it's not a character problem. I'd be open to working with them if they did some growing somewhere else. If however, you have this kind of attitude of blame-shifting and finger pointing without any substance to back it up, no one will want to work with you.

Your boss was right in warning his friends.

[ClumsyPilot]

"If however, you have this kind of attitude of blame-shifting and finger pointing"

They asked him whether anything is wrong, they don't get to complain about the answer.

On the other hand, for a senior person to go around town and spread rumours about a (presumably) junior team member is exactly the kind of behaviour I want nothing to do with.

This comment is miopic, seems the closer you are to the top the less maturity and aelf-control you are expected to have?

[iratewizard]

I once fired a Jr dev who lied about having done work and was generally being a salary thief. When I told him, he said he would work for free, it would never happen again, it was a misunderstanding and pleaded for his job. I told him no, so he went into the office crying to beg the founder for his job.

If someone were to ask me about hiring him, I would say in no uncertain terms that it's a mistake. I wonder, though, if he was telling his side of the story on HN, how I would have been painted as the villain.

[nopenopenopeno]

Nobody is a villain here. This is the system we all live under together. Until that changes, we are stuck with it.

That said, what is profit if not stolen value?

[iratewizard]

Profit is investment plus risk plus labor paying dividends to the entrepreneur. Go be a nutjob somewhere else.

[throw1230]

None of the feedback OP has given to HR has any substance. If you throw around heavy words like this, you better know how to back your words up.

- passive aggressive: This is a personal judgment. He was passive aggressive in what way? - excluded you from the team: How was he excluded? Was he not invited to events? Or did he not get good projects? If you are a temp with potential performance problems, it's normal that you don't get the cool projects. - code was awful: Again, is this a sentiment shared by other members of the team or is it just one junior engineer being super opinionated about something - long term maintainability: I don't think he was there for long - missing roadmap because poor design decisions: Again a junior opinion, running projects are complex with many different variables, you fail meeting deadlines for various reasons, there's never a single reason, and that reason is never "we had a bad piece of code written by one guy". I don't think OP has the historical context of that led to the that code.

When I hear all this feedback coming from a temp, all I hear is they weren't a team player, they don't know how to be diplomatic and most of the things they are saying are coming out of frustration and have no substance and is not actionable.

[ClumsyPilot]

> "- passive aggressive: This is a personal judgment... missing roadmap because poor design decisions: Again a junior opinion"

So you asked a Junior person for his opinion and you complain that you got Junior's opinion? What did you expect, to get a senior executive's opinion?

It's irrelevant if his opinions are incompetent - let's imagine he got fired for being an complete idiot. Then you asked for his opinion, and complain that it's an idiotic opinion. That means we have at least two idiots!

What in the world are these complains about negativity, is management entitled to love and loyalty from employees it fired? This sounds like a North-Korea style dictatorship, not a company.

If they are too daft to know that fired employees might provide negative feedback, or if their fragile egos can't handle it - that's their problem.

Let me make a parallel that might be clearer:

If someone comes up to me tells me I smell, that's kind of offensive.

But it if I go to someone and spesifically ask them 'do I smell', they might answer 'Yes'.

I don't get to complain that they are not a qualified perfumer, or their judgement is poor - I picked them, I asked them. And I certainly don't get to go around town telling everyone how they are a terrible person.

[detaro]

> This is a personal judgment. He was passive aggressive in what way?

It's an exit interview, so that is an excellent question for HR to ask.

> excluded you from the team: How was he excluded?

same as above.

> code was awful: Again, is this a sentiment shared by other members of the team or is it just one junior engineer being super opinionated about something

Something you can correlate with other feedback, and see if it gets mentioned repeatedly, or not.

...

But you straight out just always assume the most negative interpretation, and then come to the conclusion that your prejudice was confirmed, and support spreading that outside the company.

[throw1230]

Yeah I've managed an assumption based on what I'm seeing here. That's all the data I have.

Similarly most everyone assumed that the manager went out of his way to talk shit about him. Managers don't go around and talk shit of their employees without getting prompted. If someone asks his manager "Hey I saw you worked with aroundtown, what was your experience like" you bet the answer is going to be crystal clear.

[jallen_dot_dev]

You are sealioning with all of these questions and accusations. This isn't a trial, aroundtown doesn't need to divulge all of the evidence in order to share their anecdote here. You've made an unfair judgement without knowing them or their boss.

[throw1230]

I've made a judgment about the event with what I have read. I have no intention to bully anyone.

My point is clear, we are only reading one side of the story and I don't see an iota of maturity in the story he described. Therefore I also don't believe that his manager called everyone in the town to tell them not to hire him. We don't even know the feedback was sent out to his manager.

Maybe the other employers figured out on their own or maybe they asked his manager for a reference.

[hluska]

And again, this isn’t a trial and aroundtown doesn’t have to share all their evidence. Why not just take it as an anecdote and leave it? You’ve repeated this theme enough now that it sure seems like bullying. Would you just let it go?

[throw1230]

I'm not even talking to him, most of my replies are to others who asked me a question or challenged what I said.

They don't have to share anything at all, but I'm free to talk about the parts I've read.

Even if all my judgment is correct, that doesn't mean anything. We all did hot-headed stuff, fucked around and found out.

[selcuka]

I guess the main point is they were exit interviewed by the HR, but then the conversation was leaked to their direct manager. That's a no-no regardless of the OP was right in their accusations or not.

[stavros]

Except aroundtown expressed their opinion to HR when asked, and the boss went around badmouthing them around town. Only one of the two is the asshole here.

[throw1230]

Nah man, exit interviews aren't to express opinions or talk shit, it's a data source for HR to identify problems emerging as patterns and improve their org/company.

One guy saying "my boss sucked" isn't really feedback

[analog31]

For this to work, employees have to trust that they can be candid without repercussions. And employees don't have access to the inner workings of the business that they work for, but know that there are similarities across businesses. For this reason, the conduct of an exit interview is governed by the widespread behavior of similar businesses, as communicated by workers among one another, and not by the company. If things like exit interviews are widely abused, then they become useless.

[stavros]

I didn't say it was useful feedback, I said they asked him his opinion and they got it. Badmouthing him around town for it is completely uncalled for.

[throw1230]

Eh we don't really know what happened and to what extent he was badmouthed. If it's as bad as he says, then yes that was uncalled for

[stavros]

I don't see any reason to doubt his story, and it's pointless to anyway. It might be total fiction, but within those parameters, he was right and they were wrong. We're just expressing opinions on a forum, which is the most moot thing to do anyway.

[SantalBlush]

>exit interviews aren't to express opinions or talk shit, it's a data source for HR

These are the same thing. You're trying to legitimize your opinion under the pretense of seeking raw, objective data, and characterizing OP's interview responses as something less than data, but it's not true.

[throw1230]

Well it's shit data and is not actionable

[nathanlied]

Why couldn't HR see this as just a data-point? Put things this way, if the "junior opinionated guy" is full of it, this kind of feedback won't emerge again, and you can discount it.

Or maybe you've got some other data-points indicating this guy is an issue? Say, his projects are consistently late, or there's issues developing new features, or his teams have a higher attrition rate, or, or, or.

This is why it's my opinion that these things should be as secret as possible so people can feel comfortable voicing their real opinions knowing it won't blow back on them, and the company can get real feedback that might prevent thornier issues from becoming terminal.

[kevin_thibedeau]

> it's a data source for HR to identify problems emerging as patterns

It's 100% CYA and nothing more. A performative act so the personnel department looks like it's serving the business and complying with labor laws.

[detaro]

So you are supposed to provide data sources about problems, but are not allowed to involve opinions in that? Can you give some examples of feedback that would fit that criteria?

[throw1230]

You can opinions if you can express them in a more neutral and actionable way.

- My boss doesn't like me and excludes me. vs - I think my boss has a few favorites who get all the cool projects. Despite me being the best person as I had the most experience with technology X, my performance in good standing, and having showed interest in the project, I didn't get assigned to that project.

[digisign]

It is after a number of people quit. Then there is good information on who the problem is.