It’s tough to get fired in America. That’s a #fact. It’s good news for many of you who are tired, disengaged, and totally over the concept of a work ethic.
Most of my Human Resources colleagues will tell you that they are efficient and heartless. I just heard a friend say, “Violate a policy or do something offensive on my watch? You’re gone. I will personally see you suffer.”
Whatever. This is rubbish.
Here are some common scenarios where you probably won’t get fired.
- Excessively long lunches. Go ahead and take them, especially if you are salaried. Although your colleagues are watching, you are paid based on your outcomes & deliverables. If you are warned to shorten your lunches, know that you will be watched for thirty days. Keep your schedule in line for a month. Add extra breaks during the day. After a few weeks, you can go back to your normal routine. Human Resources has moved on to bigger and meatier issues.
- Repeatedly missing deadlines. It’s rude to miss a deadline but you won’t be fired for it. Communicate strategically for the two weeks leading up to the project deadline. Set the expectations for your failure. This will cover up your laziness. Send emails that document your impending failure. “I want to express my concern. These project deadlines are based on timelines that were inaccurately calculated.” When the project deadline is missed, you covered your ass. Take your long lunches. You deserve it. That project was hard and those deadlines were unreasonable, anyway. No Human Resources professional will fire you. Instead, we’ll talk to your manager about time management and his responsibility to effectively communicate project timelines to his team.
- Snarky attitude to colleagues & peers. I’ve seen an uptick in passive-aggressive behavior in the workforce. This is acceptable if you cover your bad attitude under the guise of feedback. You can say things like, “As demonstrated in the past, I’ve been totally open to feedback. That being said, I have no idea why Sally in accounting is being so defensive. It’s adding a few years to her face. She should just chill out and assume good intent.” I also recommend insulting someone and adding, “Just sayin’.”
- Sexual harassment. Human Resources pros love these investigations because it feels like we’re participating in an act of feminist, social justice. Many of my colleagues attempt to resolve these situations quickly and humanely, but there are sexual harassment investigations that last longer than the incident itself. If you are a pervert or badgering one of your coworkers to date you, there is a 62% chance that you will get away with it. I am not encouraging you to sexually harass someone, though. I am encouraging victims to quit, slash your tires, or google your mother and steal her online identity. So you’re on notice. I have all kinds of ideas for remedying sexual harassment situations that have nothing to do with Human Resources. If you are a victim, please feel free to talk to me offline.
The truth is that most companies and HR departments will accept childish & lazy behavior because it’s cheaper to tolerate shenanigans than to hire and train a replacement. I am not a Human Capital genius, but when I’ve fired employees in the past, I’ve also asked some tough questions that managers & VPs don’t like.
Who hired the idiot in the first place? Who allowed this to go on for so long? Why wasn’t action taken sooner? Can someone get me a bukkit? I’m about to puke from the lack of leadership skills around here.
So here’s my message to the disenchanted and lazy employee: it’s easier for your company to ignore your long lunches than to fix organizational, cultural, and institutional problems.
Bon appétit!
{ 1 trackback }
{ 35 comments… read them below or add one }
Oh man – any post with a baby otter immediately becomes my favorite blog post of the day! May I also suggest:
http://www.wimp.com/babyotter/ and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJjeG4ZFn6E
Sorry – I’m easily distracted. Uhm…what are your thoughts on an employer firing an employee for spending too much time watching baby otter videos at work? Could it happen? Please let me know ASAP!
@ginger ur killing me.
“Instead we’ll talk to your manager about time management and his responsibility to effectively communicate project timelines to his team.”
This will only occur if some senior executive is avoiding responsibility and orders them to do it.
@sales In reality I won’t talk to anyone. I’m a lazy HR professional.
Wow. I’m inspired, I think I’ll catch that new A-Team movie over lunch today!
Thanks LR!
David
@David Average Jane (great blogger) really liked A Team.
Passive-aggressive behavior is the greatest equalizer in the workplace. I’m underpaid, so I’lll take a long lunch to make it fair. I can do my work twice as fast as the jackass sitting next to me, so I’ll surf the internet for two hours a day. Management isn’t going to address any performance issues because avoidance is what we do, so I’m going to avoid work by playing games on my iPhone in the bathroom.
Really, given the state of things, I can’t actually argue against any of those mindsets. The workhorses really haven’t ever been rewarded to the extent that the loudmouths are, so why should the former continue to knock themselves out? And every time I go up against the brick wall of management on this issue, I get the blank stare like I’ve just landed the alien ship. It’s extremely difficult to help employees work through these issues anymore when I know that the real answer is: Accept it because it’s not going to change. I could generate the costs associated with this, and it still wouldn’t do any good (tried that, still an alien).
So then I decide that I’m just going to find another job…until my HR friends tell me it’s the same sorry state at their workplaces.
@H Aria It is the same everywhere. Sad. True.
It may be true that it’s difficult to get fired from anything resembling a professional role, but i’m wondering if the unskilled labor market is still chewing people up and spitting them out?
(Totally rhetorical question. Sorry to be a Debbie Downer.)
@Sherry C Ahhhhh, that’s a different & more awesome question.
Most companies I’ve worked for, the odds of you’re getting fired are directly proportional to the “corporate culture”. If the Director of Regional Sales is a lazy, snarky, long lunch taking sexual deviant— the last thing they want to do is point it out in someone else– it just means the spotlight’s on them for 30+ days— and who knows what’s happening behind thier closed door??
@mattymat I wish my director of regional sales were sexual deviant. Then we’re talking about someone who might be a little interesting.
Love it! And not to burst the bubble, but don’t be so quick to overlook firings popping up in the form of “we had no choice” layoffs. But then again, as long as you’re getting your stuff done on time and within reason… you probably won’t have to worry about that being your fault either.
@Dana I can’t tell you how many people I laid off who deserved it. Hundreds. Thousands, maybe.
Ah, but if you are smarter and more capable than those in leadership positions, and become a threat to their egos, your days are numbered. I speak from experience.
@BZTat Now that’s just bringing me down…
And yet all we hear is about these “heartless, evil corporations” that fire everyone at the drop of the hat. I’d be interested to see where these claims come from in a union vs. non-union place. I worked in a plant with and under both and I can definitely say, it’s easier to fire a non-union guy than a union guy, no matter how bad the union guy is.
@brewers It’s tough to fire a union person, sure, but it’s tough to fire anyone. Lawyers get in the way of progress.
BZTAT: You hit the nail on the head. I too can speak from being on the receiving end of that awful ego-maniac experience. Don’t tell me it’s nothing personal – sadly there are some easily threatened “pics” (people in charge) out there who have NO confidence in themselves and freak when someone is smart or smarter, is kind and well received by others, and certainly capable. And you can stroke their egos til the cows come home but once you have demonstrated competency and approachability that exceeds expectations they’re on you like a fly on ice cream. The woman that did that to me even went so far as to tell me right after I started that because she was new to her senior executive level hr position, and no previous hr experience, she had no clue what she was even suppose to be doing. How does one even respond or successfully navigate through that? Nice for her that the CEO protects her- in a twisted parent-child relationship- where others are at the mercy her. And the CEO isn’t retiring anytime soon. Good times.
@iknowtoo God that is depressing. Speaking of ice cream — we need some after that comment.
I just got a chill up my spine. In another life I worked for a small telecom that was bought-out by the largest telecom in the country. The change in corporate culture was numbing. We were like family, and like all families when someone would betray their vows, we divorced them, quick, simple, and painless (to us). When we were purchased by Engulf & Devour, it felt as if we were pushed out of our fragile state of reality onto the set of the movie Event Horizon at minute 78, the graphic scene in the infirmary. But nothing lasts forever, their stock went from $68 to $9 in three months from a poorly planned IPO and sold us off for quick cash. Our old Owners bought their company back and had a few million left over from the original sale. Only problem was, like the crew of the Event Horizon, we brought a little piece of chaos with us (learned behavior).
So, to continue along BZTAT’s line of thought…if someone seems to be setting me up to fail–or at least to mitigate success–I should take caution?
Hmmm, obviously depends on who you’re working for. I’ve fired people for chronically missing deadlines and for chronically being a jerk to their colleagues. And I would actually say that if you’re working somewhere that routinely tolerates those two things, that’s not an employer you want to work for. I always felt like it was part of the benefits package for our employees that they knew they wouldn’t be working with slackers or jerks.
I don’t even think it’s just laziness to hire and train new employees. I think its laziness of spending the time to create a workplace that values results instead of corporate jargon. There’s a lack of leaders that value creating a place where people could actually thrive instead of just survive. A lot of leaders want people to show up and do everything “because they get paid to”. But they don’t spend any time creating the infrastructure that great work needs to support it.
“…it’s cheaper to tolerate shenanigans than to hire and train a replacement.” Really? The cost to morale, missed deadlines, and billable time being spent on non-billable “shenanigans” sounds like it could add up pretty fast and outweigh the cost of getting rid of that person and replacing them. I am a strong believer that any bad apple has a negative monetary impact on the bottom line. My bottom line is managers should correct behavior when it happens, not ignore it. Maybe I’m just too hopeful so early in my career, but I think you’re doing your company more harm than good to put up with a lazy employee’s B.S. Instead, coach the manager to have a 2 minute “come to Jesus” conversation with them to set them straight. Granted, sometimes this is successful and sometimes it is not. But if it isn’t, we’ve already warned them and set the wheels in motion for a termination, no?
I share NetFlix’s sentiment regarding underperformers…for the SHRM members out there: http://www.shrm.org/Publications/hrmagazine/EditorialContent/2010/0410/Pages/0410grossman3.aspx
@carolyn I agree, of course, in theory…
@carolyn I am 67% serious and 33% joking around with this post.
@AC Word
@AskAManager Agreed. A good culture with nice people is probably worth about $10K in cash compensation.
@econopete Always. Be. On. Guard.
@Lamb That’s too bad — but our American culture has changed as a whole, too. Much more bloody and bruised.
Best.Post.Ever.
You never fail to challenge my ability to look at the world from a different perspective. While I very seldom agree with you or your approach, I value it greatly. It reminds me that just maybe sometimes people don’t get me either, and that keeping an open mind to the fact that people see the world from their perspective and not mine is a key to being successful.
@Bruce Thanks.
@brewers_rule Any time there’s a reorg/layoff/downsizing, then companies shed good and bad employees with abandon because as long as there are two or three people of any type they can deflect legal action.
Now just try to get rid of an individual whose job performance is barely 66% and there can be all sorts of obstacles.
There is another reality in the workplace that contradicts the notion, “Good News: It’s Hard to Get Fired”. I answer employment related questions from terminated workers on a routine basis. Everything from discrimination to false sexual harassment claims. Workplaces that foster a culture of “bullying”, incompetent ill trained managers and outright discrimination have little or no problem firing employees.
The four points, “Excessively long lunches”, “Repeatedly missing deadlines”, “Snarky attitude to colleagues & peers” and “Sexual harassment” may be generally tolerated. However, employees in diverse groups are routinely “held” to a different standard of intolerance involving these and other areas.
@Yancey You are right, of course. Diverse groups do have it tough in many companies.
Avoiding getting fired is easy. It’s avoiding getting laid off that’s the trick. Not so easy, especially now.
just addressed this same topic here: http://hostilework.blogspot.com/2012/03/is-it-hard-to-get-fired.html
agreed, in most cases, it’s pretty damn hard to get fired. too many people’s reputations at stake.