Need Advice! I believe my manager wants to fire me

DatabaseHead

EANx wrote: »

Good luck with it. When you interview, be sure to put the whole situation aside. Dogs smell fear and potential employers smell desperation.

Good way of putting it.

New2ITinCali

Thank you, EANx! I agree. When I spoke to the hiring manager on the phone our personalities clicked immediately. So I'm hoping this will be the one. The only concern I have is when it's time to check references.

scaredoftests

You don't put that manager as a reference

TheFORCE

Why go and talk to an employment attorney when you can go to your HR department and talk to them?

Danielm7

TheFORCE wrote: »

Why go and talk to an employment attorney when you can go to your HR department and talk to them?

If the company is small enough that they expect the IT person to also do financial analysis, the HR person might also be very close to the manager. In a situation like this, HR wouldn't be my first stop.

soccarplayer29

New2ITinCali wrote: »

The only concern I have is when it's time to check references.

As scaredoftests suggested, don't put your current manager as a reference. Put your previous manager and if asked say because you worked with that manager longer and they have a better understanding of your performance and daily duties.

I think references rarely get contacted these days anyways so probably won't be an issue--don't stress about it!

cshkuru

He's on a PIP and actively looking for another job. How is talking to HR going to make things worse?

I would talk to HR file a written appeal to the PIP, that way if he does get fired and the company contests unemployed youve already laid the ground work to fight it. Also request a copy of your personnel record in writing. Finally document everything and send copies to HR as things happen. That makes it harder for them to claim misconduct on your part when you are let go. If you have an attorney send copies to them also and make sure its in the CC line.

You are at war now and your goal is to get out with a decent recommendation from HR and any benefits you might have had intact. Especially document all the ways you are trying to meet the PIP goals. Make it difficult for them to claim non-compliance.

One last thing, if you can show you a being treated differently than other employees make sure to document that too. This manager sounds like the type that will challenge an unemployment claim and this is all stuff the state will look at.

dhay13

Sounds similar to my last job. I was hired as a System Admin for a smaller company (about 90 employees). I was there 3.5 years and after about 3 years she demanded I take an accounting course, which I did. The only thing I had to do with accounting was to review the month end reports from JD Edwards and make sure the totals balanced. Shortly after that she demanded that I go back to school and get an accounting degree and I refused. I was called to her office and given one last chance and was told if I refused that it would be my last day there. So I told her I wasn't hired to do accounting and wouldn't do it so was terminated. She refused my unemployment so I fought it and the 'judge' told her she had no right to terminate me and that I wasn't hired for accounting and she was out of line to force me to take the courses.

Turn out shortly after I left they fired the AR girl. My replacement was an IT guy and they had him do AR. I heard AR was so messed up that they will probably never get it fixed. Nothing against my replacement but they should have known better than to have an IT guy take over and accounting function.

A few months later I got my current job and absolutely love it so I'm glad things happened the way they did.

Good luck!

EANx

That last story reminds my of my first real job in IT. A company started by someone whose name would be familiar to most, he had a hobby and started a company around it. They were having a software engineer do network admin work until they realized they needed someone specifically for the server and 100 users. It was a good first IT job for me for the first year or so then had a big management shift. In my first year there I went from working for the guy who managed the "factory" floor to the CFO to an IT Director that reported to the CFO. With the shakeup, the CFO and new director went away and I ended up reporting to the corporate lawyer. That's when I started looking elsewhere, I figured they were close to letting me go and I was right, I was shown the door along with the comptroller. I was replaced with a guy who had a background in accounting who had an interest in IT, they figured he could run the finance section as well as do the IT, boy were they wrong. My friends who remained (engineering types) said he spent 80% of his time on the IT and wasn't as good at it as I had been. Company tanked and was later sold.

Any time there's a sudden unexplained shift in how a company manages itself, it's usually a bad sign.

Paycheck

I'm sure this isn't the absolute best way to handle it, but if it looks like you are truly in a no-win situation, then sometimes these managers need to be reminded that their power ends when they pull out of the parking lot at work. For example, after a little reconnaissance, you "accidentally" bang your shopping cart into theirs at the local supermarket, then you and a couple friends follow them around the place, eyeballing them and making it clear they are being watched.

It probably won't help, but it'd give me a little personal satisfaction to know that I'm getting under their skin in one way or another, and showing them that they are NOT all what they think they are.

Don't play the victim and expect HR to make everything right. Take charge.

Blucodex

Paycheck wrote: »

I'm sure this isn't the absolute best way to handle it, but if it looks like you are truly in a no-win situation, then sometimes these managers need to be reminded that their power ends when they pull out of the parking lot at work. For example, after a little reconnaissance, you "accidentally" bang your shopping cart into theirs at the local supermarket, then you and a couple friends follow them around the place, eyeballing them and making it clear they are being watched.

It probably won't help, but it'd give me a little personal satisfaction to know that I'm getting under their skin in one way or another, and showing them that they are NOT all what they think they are.

Don't play the victim and expect HR to make everything right. Take charge.

Completely inappropriate and some would say psychotic. I like it.