43
Angry
151d

The world makes no fucking sense.

In 2013 I had a manager approve a couple days' leave coz my son was having medical issues.

He was super nice about it and told me I could take as much time as I needed. I said, a couple days is enough. I took Thursday and Friday off. I took two days.

On Monday, an emergency meeting was held with the CTO (it was a small company, it went me -> manager -> C suite). I was told that a production deployment happened on Friday that fucked up a few clients' systems and that it had cost said clients hundreds of thousands dollars and are now suing the company.

Turns out on Friday, lead developer was also given the day off for whatever reason and I was being scolded because as the next senior developer, it was my responsibility to review code and make sure shit like this doesn't happen.

I agreed (and still agree) but also explained I had already filed leave weeks prior and I wasn't informed about dev lead's absence. Sure I could've checked my messages but my kid was in the hospital and I was busy. Still I couldn't help but feel a little guilty.

Manager holds a separate meeting with me and talks me into just writing an apology note in the email chain and he'll do the rest of the talking for me and make sure I get minimal punishment. I trusted him, he was the one who found me and brought me into the company (I know, I was naive).

So I wrote the email. It was a small note. I apologized for not checking messages and explained my situation again and mentioned I would've definitely checked if I was informed that the lead dev would be away.

Another meeting was held the next day and after pleasantries the Manager started with this, "Ok so we've all seen the email and understand that this was all Angry's fault right?".

Now, we're not native English speakers and Manager doesn't really do well with grammar. I was alarmed by what he said but wasn't angry because I was pretty sure that's not what he meant. I'm sure he meant to say that "Angry feel's guilty but his actions were understandable given the circumstance" or that he forgot a "not" in there and really meant "not Angry's fault". Surely this is what he meant to say. Right?

But then the rest of the meeting went on and I was unceremoniously let go. Immediately for "failing to accomplish my tasks and costing the client 100Ks of dollars". I wasn't even given a chance to say anything else.

The meeting ended and since we were both in the office, Manager approached me with exit papers and a check (~1200 USD)--it was my month's pay. I was asked to leave that day and was told I didn't need to come back. No handovers, no knowledge transfers, not a even a documentation of open projects I was handling.

I realized I just was made the scapegoat by a management screwup that costed our clients a lot of money.

Of course, I wrote the CEO multiple emails the next couple days. I also cc'd the CTO. No response.

A couple of weeks pass, I get another job at a cool company and i promptly move on.

I write this story now because I just found out today that in 2016, Manager was let go by the company for **sexual harassment**. Apparently, he actually did it too according to friends I still had within the company.

Here's where it gets fucked up. He turns and sues the company for unlawful termination and I guess to avoid a long legal battle? the company settled. They fucking settled and handed this man 2 Million PHP (at the time about 40k USD).

2 fucking million. Life changing money around here. And he got it by being a slimy piece of shit.

The world makes no fucking sense.

Comments
  • 15
    actually this is exactly how I thought it would go

    never take blame for something you didn't do, and be hella weary of people who play games with blame. they're all like that. they get addicted to a lack of accountability
  • 7
    the world never made sense, and never will.

    at least as long as people are around.

    also: "production deployment happened on Friday" - there you have the source of all problems.
  • 6
    Management is the most unnecessary bullshit
  • 5
    You guys violated rule number one:

    Do not push to production on a Friday
  • 5
    If it's any consolation at all, keep in mind that your POS manager probably just made himself unemployable forever. Not many companies are going to hire someone who sued his previous employer. His only hope is a pre-hire screening doesn't turn it up. Granted, he has a decent cushion from the settlement, but that's not exactly "retire forever" money in this day and age unless you want to have a low standard of living.

    So sure, he's in decent shape now, but he probably just set himself up for a big fall even if it takes several years to materialize.

    Take solace in that at least!
  • 2
    @jestdotty Because many companies do proper background checks (often by third-party companies that specialize in such matters), and those will very often turn up court cases, unless they get sealed, which is probably unlikely in a case like that. Hell, in this day and age, all it REALLY takes it a decently-crafted Google search since most legal matters are public record.
  • 2
    Dude, your nickname here is justified.

    Pieces of shit like that make my blood boil.
  • 1
    @fzammetti Oh prepare to be gosh-fucking-darn-it-over-the-wall angry about this.

    This happened in 2016. I only wrote about it now because I only recently found out about the whole story.

    The only reason I found out is because this POS reached out to me on LinkedIn coz he's looking for a dev for their company.

    Granted, this may just be some kind of automated messaging shit on LinkedIn but the fact remains that this human-shaped-shit-stain is still in the industry. UNFAZED by a fucking SEXUAL ASSAULT scandal and suing his former employer.

    And thriving!

    Like I said, this world makes no sense.
  • 0
    @fzammetti This was an Australian company. We live in the Philippines. It's no surprising that not of this would come into light during a background check.

    Not a lot of companies here do extensive background checks, if at all. Even Accenture--a company currently worth 190B USD--doesn't do extensive background checks here.
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