Comment by sokoloff | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sokoloff | Hacker News Reader

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Other than pathological or sociopathic management tendencies, I can't see any common scenario when it would make sense to counter while planning to fire.

Suppose Abel is working for Manny; Abel gets a better offer and tells Manny. Manny decides to counter.

In order for it to make sense for Manny to counter and plan-to-fire Abel, he has to be planning to hire Baker to do Abel's job, but wants to keep Abel around a while for stability and to on-board Baker.

That's enormously expensive and risky compared to just paying Abel more in the first place or to just counter-and-keep Abel. If the job is that critical, pay Abel. If it's not that critical, just let the job stay open until you hire Baker.

Taking on the severance costs to fire Abel later (and pay higher UE insurance) just to "get back at him" is self-defeating more than it could possibly hurt an employee who has just today proven he could get a higher-paying job. So, where's the "win" for any rational Manny?

There was a pretty well-respected guy (we'll call him Sam) known to almost everyone of note in town here, who had built a great team for a company with a fairly boring and unsexy (though profitable) product, who wanted to leave to be part of the founding team of another company. They made a counter, he accepted, and then they secretly began a search for his replacement, eventually axing him some months later.

The epilogue to his story is that most of the team he built worked for Sam, not the company. Within six months the team had disintegrated, with almost all of the senior staff having moved on after seeing the way Sam was treated. Frankly, any management worth their salt would have seen that one coming way before cutting Sam loose.

The lesson here is that even though its against their own self-interests, the counter-and-fire thing happens, and probably more frequently than not (though a single vague anecdote does not evidence make, I admit.) I think any engineer who thinks they ought to be making more should ask for it. But they should also be prepared to move on if they don't get what they want, unless they really trust their managers.

And never take the counter.

I'm fairly certain I know which company you're talking about (check the profile -- we have a friend in common who worked there), and I get the feeling that, given their notoriety, they are the exception rather than the rule. If they were typical, after all, they wouldn't be note-worthy.

> Other than pathological or sociopathic management tendencies, I can't see any common scenario when it would make sense to counter while planning to fire.

Deadlines.

Having you walk out this month may be a big deal while next quarter, not so much. Or I may have found your replacement by then.

It's not about "getting back at" someone. It's about minimizing my risk as a manager. I would rather have 80% the performance with an 80% chance someone will be around in a year rather than 100% the performance and a 50% chance someone will be around in a year.

It's not planning to fire really, but a change in trust level.

Thanks! You and bsder gave labels to a vague feeling that Manny and I might both have. I admit that I wouldn't have the same level of trust initially (and I've been on both sides of that in the past).

That would manifest itself as me being more aware of the risk, but I'm also rational enough to know that unless I find a way to rebuild that trust, I might as well have not made the initial counter-offer. (I'm also writing from a pretty big [by typical HN standards] company perspective. On a sub-10 person technical team, the equation is a lot different.)

Baker will probably be more motivated than Able who apparently started to interview for a new job.

That would be a big motivation for me, especially if his job is critical.

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