I have been at my company for a few months, my wife works full time, and we have a young child who was in full time preschool until it closed. Life is stressful and chaotic for us at the moment. My company is saying all the right things about the company being flexible with work hours and expectations, but my manager seems to be behaving differently. The company is very small, so my manager is actually an executive at the company, with a lot of money on the line. I recently received a document outlining a bunch of work, with an expected delivery date for that work. The document was discussed via Zoom, not recorded, and then I received a follow-up email asking me to agree that the work would be delivered by the expected date. It seemed so carefully worded that I'm concerned it's actually an ultimatum. The email expects a yes or no answer to delivering a sprint of work, but our company frequently underestimates tasks, and we carry them between sprints all the time, and I've never been asked to provide written agreement to tasks before. If I agree to the delivery date, and miss it, I feel like I agreed to my own firing. If I disagree, as an at-will employee, I suspect I might just get fired on the spot. I think I should be able to do the work by the expected time, but developers often think that about things they don't deliver "on time." I'm trying to be cautious and to avoid over-promising and under-delivering. How should I respond to this email? Should I involve HR (one person who knows the company execs very well, so might not really be impartial at such a small company)? Should I avoid saying yes/no? Provide a heavily caveated response? #hrissues #advice
I would acknowledge the email, but also make it clear in the email that all your deliverables are dependent on variety of factors and other people. You can even list the dependencies (other developers completing their part on time, no urgent fires coming up that would pull your attention away from the current sprint, no change in priority from the product owner, etc). I would also state that historically the team collectively has always taken on more than they can complete in a given sprint, which makes it hard to say with 100% certainly everything can be completed in one cycle. Since your boss is asking for written repose, lay everything on the table, and any manager should understand that any deliverable that is dependent on several people is subject to volatility. That being said, I would also in the same email ask for the priority on all your deliverables, so you can work on the most important items first. That way, you can stay laser focused on the top priority ones throughout the sprint and if any of those start taking longer than expected, pull in your manager right away.
Seems like the company is trying to manage you out. Definitely start looking. Even if this was harmless, I wouldn't rest easy anymore. Ask for clarifications. Explain the milestones and risks if any and give a substantiated delivery estimate with caveats around areas you consider risky. Instead of answering yes / no, answer with what your delivery plan is. If the process is unintentionally scary without reason, your response will make sense. If they come back asking for the yes / no then you know it is going to be over soon.
I would reply with a similarly worded email detailing carry over work, history of underestimation, add a buffer for wfh communication lead time and provide a new estimate based on that. You’re in a situation that you can’t win anyway, so might as well do this and start looking.
If you feel things are going south, don’t wait until it gets uglier and hurts you more. If your wife is working, hopefully you can afford going without paycheck for 1-2 months. Quit and start a concentrated interview prep. The damage getting managed out will make is not worth another paycheck or two.
Also, talk to people you trust snd try to understand what is going on. You may try to talk to other people who ‘left’ recently.
Start looking for another job. This pools like something they might use later for a written warning. Not much point in justifying yourself at this point. Ask questions regarding the change in policy and keep your ears open for information
My boss has been acting like this too. She has been extra hawkish, insulting and stressed. Truth is, I saved half of what I made since 14, so quitting and enjoying life doesnt seem so bad.
You are right. He is creating a documentary evidence of giving you said tasks and you not being able to meet expectations. Look out, if possible try to find out how much time do you have is it 15 days or a month based on the sprint?
Wow, small company and they actually spent the time to create a document? My take is just do your best, document your daily work, and at the end of the timeframe, submit whatever you have and be transparent. Then it's really up to them to fire you or not. Sometimes these execs have no clue what they are doing and at the end of the day, they may still rely on you to finish the job (with a more realistic timeline) and not fire you.