This is a very important realization. Firing someone is bad all around. They lose their job, they probably quit another job to join, they feel shame' etc. For the company: you not only need to go hire someone but the person you fired was probably not productive so it’s a double whammy. And you didn’t manage to somehow (if it was even possible) give this person what they needed to succeed. Bad bad bad all around. Hiring someone is a responsibility not only to the company but to them; terminating someone who can’t be productive is the right thing to do but is the company’s failure.
The converse to the “don’t joke about firing someone” is, when firing someone don’t mention how you feel about it; also be unambiguous and don’t accidentally give false hope.
Individual firings seem a bit more predictable.
But for something more actionable, if your manager is constantly pressing you for "what happened with this one" when dates are slipping, or reminding you "you know, you're one of the highest paid people here..."
Take a deep breath, go in, say nothing, sign nothing, demand your last paycheck. The decision has been made, and anything you say only hurts your case if you sue later.
My two examples:
Worked at a telecom company during the CLEC, deregulation days. Group of private investors devised a scheme whereas they would grow this small existing telecom company and then sell it off to a larger company and make millions. They had about $3M altogether invested. CEO burned through $2M in 6 months for stupid stuff like sky boxes at the local sports teams arena's and other frivolous stuff. Sales were slumping, we were getting a lot of calls from unhappy customers during installs. There were multiple closed door meetings with the investors. The funny part was the conference room had really thin walls and there were a lot of yelling during those meetings. You didn't have to be a genius to know whatever they had planned, wasn't happening. The final coffin was when one of the network guys told me he overheard one of the closed door meetings. He said the group was split on whether to continue the company, or fold up shop. Threats of lawsuits essentially ended the meeting and they all marched out of the office in a hurry. To me, I already felt like this wasn't going to last. Now I had confirmation and started planning to find another job.
I also worked at a huge corporation in their development department. We were a new team working on some big initiatives the company wanted to get going. Everything was going pretty smoothly. Then the recession hit in 2008. Then over the course of several lunches with various people in other departments, I found out several departments were having layoffs, reducing budgets, and putting projects on hold. Pretty soon, a lot of the teams we were working with which had dozens of people working on them, suddenly only had two or three developers. It really felt like the walls were closing in so I started looking. Literally the day I put in my two week notice, my manager said they were planning on putting our two projects on hold and laying everybody off within the next two weeks.
I think it just comes down to paying attention to what's going on around you. There's always signs things are not going well, you just have to recognize them when they present themselves. At both places, there were people who held on until it was too late. One of the techs at the telecom company said he came in one morning and the office was dark, and a security guard told him they had shut down the company and because of legal reasons, nobody could go in the office.
It was an easy few months to find another job, and sure enough a bit later the company was sold to a VC firm and then again to another corp. Things could have been fine for me, but I honestly didn't want to go through the two ownership changes. My lesson? The information usually isn't too hidden, you just have to understand the implications of the emails that you usually pass over.
Around 4 or so weeks before, I started receiving unusual interest in projects I was working on, as in my 2nd line manager (boss's boss) dropping by to make various inquiries - how's it going, remember to write up some documentation/process, do you think you'll get to the XYZ portions). It was unusual since my supervisor and I didn't talk about that during our one-on-one meetings - a more natural flow would be for boss's boss to follow up on issues I raised with my boss, or for him/her to relay their questions through my boss, not for him/her to inquire directly.
Second oddity was that weekend or the next weekend. I stopped by the office for a few hours Sat morning, and saw another even higher level manager, maybe my 3rd line manager (can't remember who reported on up etc). But I was previously a direct report of the 3rd line manager so it wasn't weird to say hi and chat. They asked what I was doing there on a weekend and if anybody specifically asked me to come in. Well no... at the time I thought it was a little odd to ask that.
Third odd sign was I put in a vacation request for Fri and Mon two weeks in advance, and it got denied. With the reason "you are scheduled for XYZ class on that Fri", and oh, I hadn't heard that class was coming or I was added to it. It was weird because typically they'd send email and ask who is interested in XYZ, we're thinking of bringing in a class, of these days which is good, etc. To find out you are in a class next week by denying a vacation request? That was weird. I asked around various coworkers and nobody else was scheduled for that class or even knew it was coming. Big red flag.
Final sign was the Tue before, boss emailed and said I could have Fri off after all. No mention of Mon off too, and no mention of class details the Tue before the class.
I figured out the layoff day moved to Thu so I would get Fri off anyway and of course I would have Mon off too (boss slipped up not mentioning it).
And sure enough, I get in Thu, I hear rumors that layoffs are occurring. After checking email and seeing nothing, I went up to the sales area (errand to run) and saw a few employees in tears while packing up. I return and my boss is looking for me, asking where I was, and oh we need to have a meeting right now. 2nd line manager is there and someone else I didn't recognize (i.e. the HR rep). Suspicions confirmed as I looked in from the hallway.
This is very general advice and you need to correlate it with other events, but it's been a pretty strong indicator something was up: Keep an eye on your manager's priorities especially if they shift in a ways you can't explain.
One example from early in my career: Our manager abruptly became much less interested in product status and overall progress. To his credit he scheduled a call (we were a remote office) a couple weeks later in which he said the following: "Commit your code. Ignore all policies and procedures. Work at your own pace."
We suspected as much, but that call was the confirmation. Ironically, the organization was so large, and the layoffs so huge, they had to arrange financing just to complete the layoffs. This led to a one to two month period where we were employed, but had nothing to do. It was really weird. Generally we'd come to the office, play a bit of Half-Life, then adjourn to my friend's basement to work on the BattleBot we were building.
To anyone who has been working a while, that absolutely stinks of redundancies or other tough measures that have to be discussed en masse without rumours getting ahead.
Turns out they just hired someone new without telling anyone and wanted them to get up to speed so they don't look like a clueless bunch with bad communication. Meanwhile everyone in the office is worried they'll be the one fired.
I mean... yeah, it sucks, but have you tried being fired?
The end of an intensely bad experience can be the beginning of another.
That was the hardest bit - I wasn't even able to tell them WHY they had been selected over others as I had no idea.
Then a few weeks later, they came for me, too.
Source: Been on the receiving end of 2 layoffs (dot-bomb and covid), it _reeeaaaallllyyyy_ sucks to be fired in a down market, like "how am I going to feed my family, how much is in the bank, and when is the mortgage/rent due" level of suckage.
To clarify, the person losing their job has the bigger problem and are worse off. But the person doing the firing pays a cost as well, and between the two, getting fired is easier for me to handle than firing someone.
Layoffs are probably a little different because they're less personal, but I've not experienced those, so I don't know.
I've done both as well, and I agree. I'll take getting fired any day of the week over having to fire someone.
My output wasn't great, so I wasn't shocked, but I'd gotten so little feedback about it that I assumed that low output was normal. It was a small company, and they person doing HR said they had no idea it was going to happen, so I think it was a quick decision. I was pretty bitter because of that, and that I was 9 months in after taking a large pay cut, and no options vested yet.
That place went on to do random firings for a year.
If someone simply isn't working well enough for their role, there is usually some kind of capability process after which their employment might be terminated but we wouldn't usually call that being fired and if that is made clear in the job description and in regular feedback, I don't think most people would consider that unreasonable.
Curiously how did you screw up the interview process?
Are you referring to some clerical error or is this assuming that candidates are only as good as they are at interview time and they're incapable of stepping up to the unexpected demands of a role?
I'd assume they meant the opposite: candidates are at least as good as they are at interview time, so if they're not capable of filling the role, that ought to be obvious in a properly-done interview.