[michaelochurch]

OP's story is unfortunate, but this is tame compared to some of the things I've seen or heard of in the past five years. If this is TC-worthy, I've seen enough dirt to fertilize the Sahara.

This is a case of company and person who didn't work out, but it doesn't leave me feeling that Microsoft was unethical or mean-spirited about it (which is more than I can say of many, many companies). Badly run, sure, but not evil. Microsoft offered him a severance, and they gave him ample warning. Besides, if the company (or, at least, the part of it into which he landed) was that bad, why'd he stick around for so many years?

Why look for work elsewhere when I could coast from meeting to meeting, uttering and typing meaningless busywork. I could not relinquish that kind of comfort.

I may be unusual, but I get nervous and antsy in this kind of "comfort". It just makes me feel like no one is getting anything done and disaster is coming. Also, experience has led me to conclude that when the group is underperforming, the "rebel" rather than the cause of the underperformance is the one to get smited, utterly regardless of individual performance. So, environments where nothing is getting done scare me. Even if I am individually doing great, there's going to be blame to be allocated, and the fact that I'm individually an asset to the team is no shield.

In my mind, working itself is fun. Even when difficult and frustrating, actual work is not stressful, except in very rare moments of crisis. Those interminable sitting-down "stand up" (do people not know what the fucking words mean?) meetings that many companies have, on the other hand... fucking intolerable. I would not be "comfortable" if my calendar had 5 hours per day of status meetings and pointless chatter on it. I'd go insane.

My planned and promised promotion was cancelled.

That should have launched a thousand resumes. Or at least five or six. Why delay in getting ready? As OP has learned, they won't. Corporate "loyalty" is dead. Just don't "job hop" if you chance upon the one company in 20 that actually treats its employees decently and knows what it is doing... because, unless you know where you're going and trust the people you'll be working with, you probably won't find another. Job hopping is only stupid/dodgy when you leave a good company for a pay raise.

Official HR warnings were sent.

Anyone who is not looking for another job after the first "official" warning is sent is a fucking moron. It doesn't even have to come from HR. Negative verbal feedback from the boss might be genuine constructive criticism. He might be trying to groom you into a leader. Negative written feedback, such as an email? That is not ever to your advantage. If your boss is genuinely trying to improve you or groom you for something better, all such feedback will be verbal. Hostile email? Then get the fuck out. The case is being built.

For the record, PIPs (which is what the "dubious case" sounds like) are a kangaroo court and they can be emotionally draining. The trick is to recognize what they are and not get emotionally drained. (The reason to avoid emotional drain is not to save your current job; that's over. It's to do well in your transition and next job.) Don't get emotional. It's just a damn game, and the only way to win is to get out. Forget the shitty sweet talk. This manager doesn't want to "improve" you. He wants to get rid of you. Your job is to leave on your own terms before you get fired-- or, if that can't be done for some reason, engage in the legalistic fighting but realize that the best-case scenario is for the PIP to be ruled "inconclusive" and, unless you can transfer after that, have the manager PIP you again. Almost no one ever passes a PIP. Most people leave; the rest either get fired or the PIP is ruled "inconclusive".

I was offered 12-weeks’ pay for an amicable departure.

Take it. More than enough time to get another job.

Instead I decided to escalate the thoughts above to the highest echelons of Microsoft.

Terrible move. Like, Ned Stark in Game of Thrones. Managers and executives are fundamentally tribal. Most of them will protect their own, at any ethical or business cost except their own skin. If you go against one manager in front of another, your credibility is shark-shit at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

Likewise, never threaten to leave a job over managerial misbehavior. You'll just get fired. You don't threaten to get another job (unless you've found one and are trying for severance). Just get another job.

[illumos]

Thanks so much for sharing this! Your other comment(link: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3871688) and this post show(link: http://skloverworkingwisdom.com/blog/index.php/performance-i... ) how common this is. In my personal experience, even startups do this.

Which I guess is more fault to US law having high severance cost, than people being sociopaths.

In fact, don't try to anthropomorphize the companies (Bryan Cantryl said that out loud recently about Oracle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v... , but it applies to all companies and all bosses).

[michaelochurch]

"Fault to US law having high severance cost"? No. That's not it.

When you factor in morale damage and the amount of managerial time spent on them, it's more expensive to run a PIP than to let someone go with a severance package.

PIPs are paper shields in a lawsuit, and do nothing about disparagement, which severance contracts usually cover. A PIP doesn't actually establish that the employee was an objective underperformer, only that he "should have seen it coming".

The real purpose of the PIP is two-fold. First, it's to make the employee feel like he deserves to be fired or that he has no recourse, even though that's not true. Second, it's to make the HR and finance offices look good because they "saved money" on severance packages, when what they actually did was externalized the costs to that employee's team.

PIPs make no sense. When companies fire people, it's typical to close out that person's computer access and take him out of the building immediately, as if it's a danger to have him in the building for another minute. Yet companies have no qualms about keeping an essentially fired employee in the office for a month on a PIP.

[tomkarlo]

PIPs have a purpose. Just as there has to be an orderly and codified system for promotion in larger companies (to avoid favoritism, etc.) there generally has to be a codified system for termination due to under-performance. A manager shouldn't just be able to fire one of his team arbitrarily when they haven't broken any rules/policy.

PIPs provide a codified, constructive way to deal with these situations; they make explicit to the employee that they're on the edge of being let go, and they force the manager through a process to demonstrate that the employee is not appropriately qualified or motivated for their job. No manager _wants_ to do a PIP. Frankly, it's usually easier to just pawn an underperformer off on on another team. But the reality is there are appropriate situations to do one where just passing the buck is unacceptable.

I have seen folks get PIP'ed and let go, and I've seen some come back and have a good career with the company. (Obviously the latter is less common.) In some cases where you have a young guy who just isn't stepping up, the PIP process serves as a wake-up call that the manager isn't kidding around.

[loup-vaillant]

> Terrible move. Like, Ned Stark in Game of Thrones.

Thanks for the explicit warning. This may even deserve a tvtropes name, like "Stark Blunder". That move is so tempting, it feels so right, so virtuous, that really, the sheer karma boost should make you invincible.

Except it doesn't.

[michaelochurch]

It's the opposite. Honorable people (like Stark) tend to assume their enemies are like them. Big mistake. They assume that, when confronted with proof of their own dishonesty, they'll shrink away quietly. Oh no. It's the opposite. Dishonest people have no sense of shame. They don't care that they're dishonest, but they'll do anything to prevent other people from knowing it.

If you want to rise in the typical corporate world, you really can't afford to make enemies at all, which means that you often have to turn a blind eye to unethical behavior if you want to succeed. In typical companies, 70 to 80 percent of upper management is scumbags. Even in good ones, there are usually at least a few. You can't beat all of them, and chances are that you can't even beat one of them.

The problem with OP's letter to the upper management is that he thinks they actually give a rat's ass about "the company", rather than their own careers. He actually believes that company-man drivel and that these people care enough about the firm to stand up for a "rebel" who is good for it. Not so. They won't.

One explanation of large-company idiocy is corporate consistency. People would rather be consistently wrong than admit past error and be inconsistent. It's the same with companies. The companies has already made the decision (right or wrong) that the manager outranks the employee. Asking a higher-up to do something about a shitty manager is asking him to override the corporate consistency, which people seldom do-- especially the sorts of people (ethically flexible, lacking creativity, politically minded) who get into upper management in the first place.

[cafard]

Gee, you sound as if you'd been reading the NY Times piece on Walmart de Mexico...

[luser001]

Hmm, it isn't clear if you're not-so-subtly putting him down. I find such clear writing to be refreshing. Not a whole lot of people saying these things.

I, for one, found the line about "no enemies at all" to ring too true.

[yuhong]

Personally I have been thinking that anti-discrimination laws are fundamentally flawed for a while now.

[sudoscience]

No Game of Thrones spoilers, please!

[jay_kyburz]

Arg, read the books. Don't wait for the TV version. There is so much more to enjoy in the longer format.

[antihero]

Leave that up to us, please, and do not spoil.

[gaius]

Sorry, but the event referred to was in the book published in 1996. There has to be a statute of limitation on "spoilers".

PS Titanic sinks.

[desas]

Ned Starks blunder was also on TV last year. Unless there's a fantastic unguessable twist.

[antihero]

It's being aired NOW though.

[gaius]

Frodo reaches Mount Doom and destroys the Ring.