On firing people
The power of firing is underestimated. I had a chance to fire people & got fired as well. I can admit that experience was great!
I got fired when my vision of future did not align with vision of the company I’ve been dourly working for. I am kind of masochist person — I enjoy putting painful questions on the table immediately, otherwise sooner or later the pain will be demolishing. It requires some degree of courage & self-confidence. You’re risking being disliked by someone (or everyone). Of course it is times easier to just blindly “flow” with everyone else, close your eyes & turn on “I don’t give a fuck” mode, pokerface, whatever. However, I believe you’re paid well because company expects you to be facilitator of change, serve as a safety pillow, become inconvenient when you think it’s necessary.
In reality, most companies are not ready to think soberly and face reality with courage & pride:
Their natural reaction is to hide. If they’re powerful enough, they eliminate wrong stimulus & prolong their agonising way towards failure. They save their face this way. Funny, such companies can't even manage firing with respect & honesty. According to Latvian laws, in order to fire someone you have to find provable reasons for that. The reasons why I've been chopped-out were burning JIRA in fire in favour of simpler Trello, fighting against enterprise-grade bullshit called “SAFE” in favour of lightweight & lean Kanban, stopping CIO from bringing myriads of ScrumMasters that will “solve all our problems” etc. *LOL*.
For all these years I was blind. I didn't recognised rotten vegetables. I didn't recognise the ship was sinking starting from day one. I was 100% immersed in people development, IT hiring, advertising, spending nights tackling complex problems in order to bring solutions next morning so to “unlock” value stream. I've hired exceptional people which were working for the company rotten from the ground up. We had a great time together, but there is a huge “but”. The company itself didn't deserve it. We could do great work for someone else. IT market is over-saturated, but it’s saturated with poorly-fabricated work, broken products & unhappy customers. Many cry for help, but don’t know where to look for it. I knew it before, but I realised the benefits only after leaving. After I started offering independent consulting I found that there are companies on the market with significantly higher amount of gratitude. They’re just better. And they will become even better, because they’re not afraid of harsh reality. Together, we are authors of our reality and if something sucks, waking lazy asses up is the only way to move on.
Fuck the problem or the problem will fuck you.
Interestingly, I was considering leaving the company multiple times but could never decide — good location, good people, good position, good money. I needed some external help to get out of my comfort zone. And now I am in a better shape. Not hungry, but foolish☺
I wish everyone could accept firing with pride & treat it as an opportunity. Those working for shitty enterprises for 10 years sitting on bench must treat firing as a gift from God. If you’re fired because you suck — shut up, learn from it and work on self-improvement. Blaming someone who fired you just because you suck is dishonest and will hit you someday.
So thank you for firing me. I’d love to be fired earlier.
