I joined a new team 4 weeks ago as Team Lead. My first big task: manager wants me to get our scrum master fired. I told my manager that the scrum master meets all the expectations for his role, but she wants me to find/manufacture “reasons”to fire him. Our scrum master is an older person (age = ~55), an immigrant, and has a teenage son who is just starting college. It’s going to be hard for him to find employment in tech at this point in his life. I don’t feel it’s right. What should I do? ** I’m new to the team and don’t know what history the manager and scrum master share** TC 400k **Update (1 month later):** My manager never followed up with me. Two weeks after she started all of this, she abruptly transferred to another team, surprising everyone, including myself. I feel like the bad person for investigating the issue (which included questioning the scrum master about what’s going on and documenting areas he could potentially improve). So I guess our scrum master stays. He is actually very good at what he does. Lesson: 1. don’t try to be too efficient/high-speed when you’re new 2. if you don’t like doing something, just play dumb and drag it on for as long as possible #hrissues #google #amazon #pip #tc #apple #uber #netflix #facebook #meta #bloomberg #citadel #jpmorgan #goldman #goldmansachs
Working Parents
Yesterday
530
What do you think is wrong with a kid who got rejected by 9 colleges?
India
Yesterday
721
Who are these retards asking for dictatorship in India?
Tech Industry
Yesterday
1995
Quitting this Slave life
2024 Presidential Election
Yesterday
214
Which candidate will do something about offshoring and getting more homes built?
Tech Industry
Yesterday
1573
The end of Backdoor Roth?!
Tough position to be put in but wtf is Bloomberg doing with a scrum master ? That’s a made up role !
Woof. Awful take. Apparently you've never had a good one.
why you barking zendesk? he’s right scrum master is a 🤡 role
Please stop with all this politics BS and do what’s right. Fire your manager
Agreed. You could also end up at the other end of an EEOC lawsuit for age discrimination. Who knows why your manager wants you to do their unethical dirty work (throwing you under the bus).
Exactly!!! Why he can’t do it himself??? Very shady. You are a new guy so it will be easy for him to blame you if the company gets in trouble for age discrimination
Jfc… why does manager hate them? Is it cause they’re just old now?
Document *everything*. If your manager is duplicitous enough to get someone else to do their dirty work, then who’s to say they won’t do it to you down the road if you fail to be loyal enough. Personally, I wouldn’t do it and would immediately start looking for another team. But, you have to make the best decision for you.
If the manager says this in 1:1 what proofs does op have? Just document what the manager said?
Take notes in the 1-1. If the manager asks why, just explain that you want to get it right.
Scrum master is a needless, made up position that everyone has to coddle to make feel important while they slow everyone down. I hate having a scrum master. Just eliminate the position itself
A lot of people haven't read the scrum guide or use it. If they did, and actually conducted real kick off meetings, they'd get why it's so incredible to have a scrum master.
Woof. Awful take. Apparently you've never had a good one.
All scrum masters should be fired. Age is irrelevant here.
Why so much hate?
I don't think they should be fired unless they are a bottleneck for the team or having performance issues. If scrum masters are unnecessary, they should be repurposed rather than fired.
Tell the manager that losing the SM would badly impact the team. Also try to find out from him what the history is, while clarifying to him that this looks ageist and the company could end up being sued. See if there is a middle ground where you can put the SM in a PIP if there are clear improvement objectives laid down by your manager. Separately, talk to the SM and be frank about there being some contention around his work and the manager. Try to find out the history from his end. Finally, make a judgement call on where you want to stand on this. If you’re willing to go to HR and report your manager’s ageism and tell them the company maybe sued for it. If you’re willing to tell the manager “i disagree and I should be the decision maker for things that impact my team, and if he’s going to call the shots, then it is not your team and their performance is no longer your responsibility” etc. I’ve been in this tough spot and saved my team member in such a situation by putting him on a PIP instead of firing and working with him to get him successfully out of PIP, however, 6 months later my manager removed me from that position, hired someone else and fired that guy. I quit after that without giving notice. Glad to not have his firing on my conscience and he is doing well elsewhere and so am I.
Thanks for your encouraging story. Manager is determined to get SM out. She’s not even open to talking about it. It’s fairly easy to get a replacement SM over here. But not sure if the replacement will be as good.
if SM is not needed or easily replaceable, perhaps this person can transition to another role within the company? As long as he is not in the sight of your manager, he should be okay. At least give him a chance to redeem himself.
Your manager is a snake. What he's doing to others, he'll do to you. Ask him to send the request in email. Until he does that, keep ignoring his request. Say, "Oh, I didn't see your request. Did you send an email? That's the best way to get things done". There is a 99% chance he will not send an email with this request. So you keep dallying around. But you are also nuking your relationship with your manager. Have a skip 1:1 specifically to chat about this. If the skip wants it too, you are fucked and left with no choice. But keep insisting on request in writing. In the meantime, try talking to the scrum master and figure out his relay with your manager. Start giving hints that this might be coming because of asshole management. Assure him that he finds another team within or outside Bloomberg, you will give him the best references.
I hope we get to work together someday. You have an actual human soul.
I’m officially applying to Datadog because of this. Can I get a referral?
Why doesn’t the manager just say the scrum master role has been eliminated on his/her team due to lack of business need and allow this person 4-6 weeks to interview internally for a different role within the company or externally with a set exit date of 8 weeks if no role is found and 4 weeks base salary severance thereafter. Three months notice should be plenty for someone to find a new job, particularly with Bloomberg on there resume, even if their only experience is being a scrum master and they are in fact middle aged.
most folks over 50 are not an economic burden
Wow. Harsh. WhT next, kill everyone off at 40???