Hacker News Reader

Comment by Joakal | Hacker News Reader

They will be verbal about it. If you request it in writing or email their own request to them, you will be fired or 'burned'.

Source: Worked in finance. Most inappropriate requests was verbalised. They not only came from management but from other members of team (ie, bullying). I had a coworker get really angry at me when I 'confirmed the task' to her and cc'd my manager for a task she was offloading to me that wasn't related to my department.

View on HN

If you're concerned about that, pull it back one step, and go "sure, I'll confirm in an e-email". And watch lots of excuses for why the request suddenly isn't essential anyway.

The point is that if you don't create a paper trail, you risk being set up as a fall guy for much worse than being fired. They know it, and you know it, and your safest way out is to make sure that they know that you know that they're asking you to do something inappropriate and that you're smart enough to ensure there's evidence implicating them if they force the issue.

If they get angry or keep making those kind of requests it's a good reason to look for another job anyway, before they find a way of pinning something else on you.

I've done the "confirm in e-mail" thing. I highly recommend it. I also brought in other folks on the request via email mentioning the name of the person and their request etc. Over communication is key, before you act. NEVER leave it up to just you even if it is typically a one man action

I'll never know what the full story was but the one time I had a request I wasn't comfortable with and communicated like crazy.... sales manager dude who was brought in with lots of fanfare moved on to other opportunities within two weeks.

> If you're concerned about that, pull it back one step, and go "sure, I'll confirm in an e-email".

Or the old, "I'll go ahead and open a ticket."

Yes, pretty much anything that innocently announces your intent to put it in writing somewhere, and gives them an opportunity to back off and pretend the conversation never happened will do.

Hilarious! Can you say more about that situation. I love these kinds of stories and been bullied myself especially by last boss.

It was "regular job" in IT but if you left home before 9pm people were looking wierd at you. Plenty of good folks work there but you know how it is when environment rots you either lower your standard or you out (thats why Im personally out)

My favorite comments by my bullying boss:

If you have family, dont work here.

Everyone here knows they dont see their family till late night, except of you.

You are not C-level managment, you are on a McDonald salary here (altho wasn't tru)

Fine leave at 8 (job description said 8-5), i will write it in your report. Will see how its stacks up against others.

Im a CTO I have a right to be rude.

Im a CTO I can be wrong all the time.

If I heard any of the last five replies, i'd tell the CTO to go fuck himself and quit.

There's a few issues with what you said. People will bully you when you start the paper trail, that's a fact. That shouldn't stop you.

The problem though is that people tend to start the paper trail when something fishy happens. That's too late. You have to "train" management to accept email confirmation on good days. The resistance will be lower, so that on a bad day, when things are fish, they are less inclined to pester you about it. Paper trails in general also help you in legal settlements when you do end up getting fired.

> You have to "train" management to accept email confirmation on good days.

This is a crucial thing for recent college grads to understand. Learn it the easy way before you learn it the hard way.

It's never a bad idea to follow up after all meetings -- both team and 1-1 -- with an email that goes, "As per our discussion, I do X,Y; someone else does Z, 3rd person does W, and project A is blocked on B." Then everyone is definitely on the same page as to DRIs and commitments. Or you can hash out disagreements then and there.

I wish I had this advice sooner. The new part for me here, beyond merely keeping a paper trail, is to make sure that everyone knows about your consistently kept paper trail, so that it wards off bad behavior before it starts.

But this seems like a really toxic place to work. I routinely send a short summary of key points whenever we have a talk with someone that impacts our work/course of action. If not needed, I try to stay polite and relatively informal "Hi Steve, here's a short summary of what we talked about in the morning as my memory tends to fail me these days. If I got something wrong, please correct me." If someone gets back angry at me after receiving such an e-mail, I don't want to work in such a place.

Hence why most meetings have "minutes" sent after them. I don't see what you're doing as any different, so good on you. Also, if someone gets angry about you "confirming" your discussion with them, well then, maybe you want to make sure everything you talk about with them is confirmed.

From what I've read, large parts of finance are toxic workplaces. Source: Swimming with Sharks by Joris Luyendijk.

> I 'confirmed the task' to her and cc'd my manager

That's exactly the way to handle gratuitous or fishy tasks - creates a paper trail and discourages any further attempts of the same kind. It may get you fired though :)

Being fired at will is still better than being fired for a documented reason.

It boils down to risk management =P

Fired or "burned" is the easy things. If they manage to get something illegal pinned on you, you are sitting in jail instead.

I think that in such toxic work-conditions you can only benefit from getting fired. Do not accept bullying. And on many companies and state the paper trail is mandatory and if it doesn't exist, you get frowned upon.

If it gets to that point, you need to quit, because the alternatives are quite clearly headed in a get-fired or do-something-unethical or get-burned direction anyway. Just accepting it remaining verbal is only a temporary option while you're on your way to other options.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com