about that guillotine...

Ok, so I gave y'all the setup, but just in case ya missed it - work, the intro.

There was a reason why I used this phrase: pulled out the guillotine and cut the head off a long-time-but-not-yet-qualified-for-retirement-benefits employee. That employee called me this evening.

The situation: I work in an IT department, consisting of mainly Programmers, Quality Assurance Analysts, Business Analysts (technical writers), etc. So, this employee was formerly a programmer. To make the long story short, he transferred in to my department from a location in another city. He'd been with the company 6 yrs, needed 4 to retire, and has 2 boys in college that are benefiting from company-sponsored scholarships.

SO...w/in say 2 months of transferring into our department, it becomes apparent that there's a problem. A disconnect. This dude is having problems programming. For the über-geeky, his background is in C, on mainframes, and we're a strictly Java shop.

They try to work with the guy, classes, tutorials, one-on-one mentoring. It ain't working - he's not getting it. For about 6-7 months, not only is he not getting it, but slowly it's apparent - this kid ain't that geeky. Lil simple things come up - how to change your browser settings, how to edit your host settings, how to ping a server - nothing. He's a bit clueless. I attribute it to him working on mainframes, but still - it looks bad.

Well, it was worse than we all thought. After one less-than-stellar-performing employee asked & got x-ferred to another group, and this guy's performance evaluation comes out bad - this guy thinks maybe he needs to make a change. He approaches management to x-fer to a less technical position.

So far, the whole thing, seems, well - reasonable. He's provided the company with some kinda value for 6 years, and his sincere intention is to continue to provide value.

Here's where the guillotine comes out.

His boss dodges the bullet - goes on vacation before they can address his problem.

Then, the department head - who for all intents & purposes is a pretty mild-mannered guy - turns into a shark. Not only do they say no to the x-fer, but they give him an ultimatum: Learn Java or Die! Okokok, it wasn't THAT deep. But it was Learn Java & improve your performance eval, or get fired.

Now, the sneaky part. They tell the guy verbally that if he resigns he's eligible for unemployment. But if he's fired, then well....you get the idea, right?

They give him until the end of the week - remember, his boss is still on vacation. Can he wait until the boss gets back? NO.

So, out of frustration, back against wall - he quits. Signs the voluntary resignation, and w/in the hour - he's the newest member of our department's Witness Protection Program.

Back to tonight's call, he needs the boss's cell phone number, because he just got a letter from the Department of Labor - No Unemployment Benefits For You! Seems the dept is saying he quit - voluntarily - when there was suitable work for him (take a peek at page 7).

The whole shyt pissed me off - they did the guy dirty, yanno? I mean, I realize it was a "business decision, based on a business need", but I have also seen plenty of folks get kicked into admin positions on programmers salaries to keep them from having to leave. This guy wanted to work - just couldn't. They intentionally misled him to get him to quit when they told him he could collect unemployment, which just sticks in my craw. Him being from outta state (actually, I'm sure he's from outside the country) - he prolly knew little about Georgia being an "At-Will" state.

And as I type, I'm thinking - Big Bro is prolly watching, and this blog just got more dangerous. And more interesting. ;-)