Why I got laid off During My Probation Period?

Give it a read, and be alert of what worse can happen in your job.

Photo by Dev Asangbam on Unsplash

It was hard for me to write about it, that’s why I have been inactive in the past few months. Sometimes, it will take you a little while to digest where life has hit you.

So, I joined a startup → Yes, Risky but I never underestimated myself. I always wanted to work in a startup, so when I got this opportunity I thought I will use the most out of it and also that was the only opportunity I had. As a fresher I was desperate to work anywhere to get work-experience which led me to join a disastrous company or a disastrous team under a not so wise manager.

My Office life at My First Company :

First two days, I left at 6pm considering that I came at 9am in the morning, but here, people won’t see at what time you came, but they do notice when you leave(if you’re the first person to leave). So, my manager told me that Since, I’m a fresher, I should spend more time in the office and try to learn as many things as I can.

“If you wouldn't have started WFO, you won’t be able to survive for 2 months here”. Yeah! that was his exact words, I was devastated. My first feedback that too not so positive. I cried that day and decided that I will never let him say one single negative thing. After this, I used to come at 9am and leave at 8pm -> I used to come before my manager and leave after he leaves.

I was hired as a Data Analyst, so My work was to extract data from the database using SQL, make some summarized view on Google sheet and if they demands then I have to make a Tableau Dashboard. In the initial days, It was expected that I will write 200 lines of code and deliver everything that is being demanded without telling me how to do it. There was one single senior Analyst with 4+ YOE and whenever she used to give me KT it was hard to grasp because there are things which becomes obvious for an experienced person but not for a fresher like me. But, if things didn’t worked out from that analyst in my team, I went outside and started talking to Product Analyst and Senior Analysts outside my team, and they turned out to be nicer than the people I have to work with. And did I tell you that my first mentor was a revenue manager who literally taught me everything?

I am thankful for those mentors who taught me in my initial days. After 2 weeks, I started writing codes and solving problems and taking responsibilities of tiny tasks in my team. But, I got another setback.

Till that time, My senior analyst has lost faith in me, she thought whatever task I will give it to her, she will commit some mistake and hence she stopped giving me tasks. And everyone in the team, used to cross-check whenever I give my analysis, which I think is fine because they don’t want to screw things because I have lack of experience. So, they needed someone who can deliver outcomes but they were not ready to give me the opportunity for this.

Then my manager decided to hand me some responsibilities so that I will be accountable and answerable. I started picking things faster this time because I wanted to prove them that even a fresher like me can do a lot better. Things were going well, but if it was so well, then why did they laid me off in the first place?

Qualities you should look in your manager

If you’re fresher, then your manager is taking a bet, whether you will perform or not, so he should give you responsibilities and show some faith in you. Because it’s quiet obvious that you will never trust your work until your manager starts doing it, and someone told me that your behavior resembles what you learn from your seniors, so whoever got hired during my time showed the same distrust in me too, so basically, I had no-one in the team who trusts my work and for whom I feel responsible enough to not break their trust. so TRUST is super important.

Moreover, my company has a past record of hiring people and firing people, which I ignored because I thought if I work hard then no one can lay me off, which is wrong. I was somehow made the part of some politics, and don’t get me wrong here, it’s the basic politics which you can see in your day to day life, for example, someone in the team taking credits in front of the entire team, showing your analysis so that other people think that they were the one who put more effort than you. But, now I know how to deal with them so indeed they did gave me something ;)

So, where was I? Qualities of a manager right? So, what should I say in his goodness? Let me tell you, from the very first day at my office I was not feeling secure about this job, Why? because everyone in the team were insecure too. And when I m saying everyone that includes my manager too (keeping in mind that my company hires and fires people). He got hired 7 months back only, so the company can fire him too right? I mean if Elon Musk can fire CEO of twitter then I hope you understand what I mean right?

I got laid off because of budget constraint, and since I was in probation then that’s the easiest way to reduce costs. My manager told me one last thing ,

“I’m sure that you can never fulfill my standards because it was too high for you, since your learning curve is very slow which I mis-anticipated in your interview round, I wanted someone who have more experience than you, that’s why we will not convert your probation into FTE, but we are ready to extend your probation to one more month so that you can get time to look for other opportunities”.

He did a mistake of not measuring my capabilities on right parameters and in turn I lost a job, even at that stage where I was picking things faster and doing things faster, how that’s fair? Later on, I got to know that they purposely hired me for a short time period because the one who actually got hired has 3 months notice period and in the meantime they needed someone immediately who can do the job for them. And I got to know about my lay off 2 days before he was joining our team in my position.

Lessons to take from this read

1. In the interview, interview your manager that’s super important try to know his thought process whether he is okay with hiring a fresher and whether he is okay with your slow learning curve, try to see if he is the one who can teach you how to deal with office politics, how to handle work pressure, if he can give you time to balance your personal and professional life, if he has the habit of micro-managing things because that will not give you the liberty to do your work.
2. Read about the company, since that company got his funding in this year itself but they rather want to spend on employees vacation than their retention. So, this company has a habit of firing people in the past, in fact, in the month when I got hired they fired 100 employees, I should have taken this as a red flag and started applying to jobs long time back.
3. Read whether the company have hired freshers in the past few months or not? Because that will give you an idea whether they really know how to mould a fresher. Try to ask in the interview, during the rounds which was conducted my your future teammates.
4. Know the work-pressure, I used to have nightmares of how to write a query to solve that issue, or may be how to better visualize it. That was definitely not a sound work environment. Ask in the rounds about how their day-to-day at XYZ company looks like. They will not say that he were working 12hours a day or 6–7 days a week, but you have to take these information out.
5. Try to keep a mentor outside the organization who can guide you and with whom you can discuss your day to day office things, and he/she should be an experienced person not someone like you.

Hope you like it do comment your thoughts and tell me if you have experienced something similar to this or if you want to add things which I might not have experienced it.

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