I am getting pushed out! Help!

By Lance Haun • Apr 28th, 2008 • Category: Adventures in (Mis)Management

From the mailbag:

I know that I’m about to be fired. My boss has started the paper trail. I’m being written up and “counseled” for every tiny thing. For example, I forgot to sign one form out of 30 that I complete each day and was written up for not following procedure.

My question is: How do I handle this and what steps should I take to combat the manager from hell?

My first piece of advice: get started on revising and updating your resume. Even if you do weather it, you may not wish to stay that much longer.

Here is what I am guessing happened:

Your manager decided, fairly or unfairly, that it was time to let you go. This could be for a variety of logical and illogical reasons. Your HR lead said “Have you documented anything?” Your boss said “No.” And your HR lead said “Okay, bye bye!”

I do this at times with managers that don’t ever document anything to make a point: I don’t fire without documentation. And you can’t make documentation up after the fact.

Now this probably pissed your boss off enough to where they decided to document everything with you. The problem with that? It is likely you are the only one being documented.

Now what should happen is that your boss is going to get all of these flaky write ups to your HR lead and they will call them out. They have to apply the same level of standards and documentation to all employees. If there are instances of them not writing up someone for doing something that you got wrote up for, bam. That’s it.

I would not bank on that though. Even though I am in HR, I wouldn’t bank on them saving your ass, even when appropriate.

What I would try to do is talk to the boss from hell and figure out what happened initially that got them on the documentation trip from nowhere. You need to ask them in a way that won’t make them immediately defensive (i.e. “Why are you trying to get me fired?”). Here is what I would suggest:

“I noticed that since (beginning date of extra documentation) you have started documenting me repeatedly for small mistakes that have happened in the past without issue and that happen with co-workers that aren’t being documented consistently. I am just wondering if there is a bigger issue here and what we can do to solve it.”

Obviously not an easy conversation to have but it is better to try this route first than to go to HR first and complain and completely blindside him or her. Go to HR if you don’t resolve it and drop some words that you are suspicious of being treated as a non-equal in order to have your employment terminated and that you have tried speaking with your boss and that it went nowhere.

Obviously, my issue answering this is that I don’t know the other side. I am assuming that you deserve the job and that you didn’t do anything to permanently mar your position there. So this advice is going to be very pro employee.

Lance Haun is the principle blogger for YourHRGuy.com. He is a 26 year old Human Resources Generalist practicing in the field for the past five years. His professional interests include recruitment, team building, training and development, employee relations and restraining himself from beating the crap out of bad managers and employees. He is a proud product of the Washington State University School of Business. In his spare time, he likes to recreate outdoors in the beautiful Northwest US with his flawless wife and tell stories about his co-workers with friends over a beer after work. Your HR Guy is a regular blogger on Vault.com as well as being featured on Wall Street Journal's Career Journal and MSNBC.com
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One Response »

  1. Ann on May 5th, 2008 at 4:59 am:

    My husband is going through a similar situation… with a twist.

    My husband has been at a company for a little over a year, and has had 5 different managers during this time. It is widely rumored that his new manager (male) is sleeping with the woman above him (a director). This same woman director originally hired my husband. My husband has an advanced degree and several years more experience than his new manager. His manager has been at the company longer, but I suspect he is not as well paid as my husband.

    During my husband’s performance review last month, he earned “on target” or “above target” ratings and a 5% merit increase. This was his manager’s first week on the job. He received some feedback on one or two areas to improve, such as delegation (he has no direct reports), but nothing extraordinary that made my husband believe his performance was declining.

    Three weeks later, my husband found himself in the new HR woman’s office listening to the second step of progressive discipline. The previous HR woman was allegedly “let go” because she didn’t “side with management.” Some of the feedback was repeated from his original performance review.

    I am a Performance Improvement / HR Consultant with an advanced degree myself. I see my husband working 60+ hours a week - often nights and weekends. He discusses many work scenarios with me, and I often play devil’s advocate with him and agree with how he approaches certain situations. I know he is a strong performer. He was told, on the side, that he was taking “a hit” for another individual’s mistake in another department because he is the low man on the totem pole, so to speak. The individual who really made the mistake is a golfing buddy of another director. This mistake was not noted on his performance review or in his performance feedback.

    From where I’m sitting, he is being targeted by his boss because of his higher compensation, jealousy, and because he is an easy target working remotely in another city. I fully understand that this is a toxic workplace, and he needs to find another employment situation. On the other hand, decently paid positions for attorneys are difficult to find, especially in this economy. I find it extremely hard to imagine a Fortune 200 company would let this occur and not have any repercussions. I’m at a loss at how to counsel my husband in this situation, especially because I hear only one side of the story. Your advice does help – is there anything else I need to consider?

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