Fired for a cock up when dying of a cold at work

Kaner2004

I just wanted some opinions on this. I just heard this morning that a colleague has been fired. Here is the story.
Where I work you come in even when you are dying. Its looked down on to take a sick day, even though its not said.

About a month ago one of the guys was in, and had a very, very bad cold. Clearly not fit for his work (programmer). He muddled through the week (giving his dose to the rest of us) and then it turned out that he made a mistake which cost us a customer. There were a few very late nights for him that week too which didnt help either.

There was a big stink made and now he has been fired. If you ask me having him work when he was like that is equal to having a drunk person driving a car, and while he made the mistake, it was not his fault at all.
i hear he is thinking about taking a case. i think he is right.

Any views?

Should you be responsible for actions performed while you are unfit for work (not able to concentrate 100% in this case), yet are only in because it is expected that you come in when sick.

Also, i've been working in many places where you work late at a computer and are very fatigued. Whose fault are mistakes made when you are like that because the company expects you to work late when over tired.

Elvis_Presley

Code was sent out without being tested or checked by someone else? Sounds like very bad management. Everyone makes mistakes, especially on programming.

partyguinness

How long was he working there? He may be able to take unfair dismissal proceedings. All dismissals are unfair and it is up to the emplyer to show why it was warranted. But it depends if he was there for over 12 months.

When you say late nights what do you mean? Out on the piss?

In terms of health and safety at the workplace, employees are also under an obligation to ensure they do not endanger themselves. Acting the martyr is all well and good but employers cannot read minds.

There is not alot he can do unless he wishes to pursue the unfair dismissal route.

Kaner2004

Elvis_Presley wrote: »

Code was sent out without being tested or checked by someone else? Sounds like very bad management. Everyone makes mistakes, especially on programming.

You know yourself. "Testing" is what they look for when something goes wrong.
There are no testers in this place. Just some random someone from the company does a quick run through and then its considered tested. This is good enough for the management. Then when things go wrong its the developers fault for not catching it in his their, because the person from the company is not considered IT.

More and more small companies are acting like testing is a function that can be carried out by people who are not qualified testers. And then they wonder why things go wrong.

omega666

Kaner2004 wrote: »

I just wanted some opinions on this. I just heard this morning that a colleague has been fired. Here is the story.
Where I work you come in even when you are dying. Its looked down on to take a sick day, even though its not said.

About a month ago one of the guys was in, and had a very, very bad cold. Clearly not fit for his work (programmer). He muddled through the week (giving his dose to the rest of us) and then it turned out that he made a mistake which cost us a customer. There were a few very late nights for him that week too which didnt help either.

There was a big stink made and now he has been fired. If you ask me having him work when he was like that is equal to having a drunk person driving a car, and while he made the mistake, it was not his fault at all.
i hear he is thinking about taking a case. i think he is right.

Any views?

Should you be responsible for actions performed while you are unfit for work (not able to concentrate 100% in this case), yet are only in because it is expected that you come in when sick.

Also, i've been working in many places where you work late at a computer and are very fatigued. Whose fault are mistakes made when you are like that because the company expects you to work late when over tired.

The company did not or cannot force anyone to come into work sick.
The employee declared himself fit to work by going in so should be responsible for any mistakes he makes.
He should have had more back bone and just told the company he was
sick.

Kaner2004

partyguinness wrote: »

How long was he working there? He may be able to take unfair dismissal proceedings. All dismissals are unfair and it is up to the emplyer to show why it was warranted. But it depends if he was there for over 12 months.

When you say late nights what do you mean? Out on the piss?

In terms of health and safety at the workplace, employees are also under an obligation to ensure they do not endanger themselves. Acting the martyr is all well and good but employers cannot read minds.

There is not alot he can do unless he wishes to pursue the unfair dismissal route.

He has been there longer than I have, which is 3.5 years.
When I say late nights I mean working from 8:30am to 8 or 9 a few days in a row. .Sometime even 18 hour shifts. I know I have difficulty concentrating even after 8 hours.. I can do it, but i'm definitely prone to more stupid mistakes after that time.

I haven spoken to him yet, but I presume thats the route he is going. I agree completely with him if he is. I'll even be a witness if he needs one. I'll just say what I saw.

Kaner2004

omega666 wrote: »

The company did not or cannot force anyone to come into work sick.
The employee declared himself fit to work by going in so should be responsible for any mistakes he makes.
He should have had more back bone and just told the company he was
sick.

Easier said than done. If you havent been in an environment where this happens then im afraid you dont know.

partyguinness

Kaner2004 wrote: »

He has been there longer than I have, which is 3.5 years.
When I say late nights I mean working from 8:30am to 8 or 9 a few days in a row. .Sometime even 18 hour shifts. I know I have difficulty concentrating even after 8 hours.. I can do it, but i'm definitely prone to more stupid mistakes after that time.

I haven spoken to him yet, but I presume thats the route he is going. I agree completely with him if he is. I'll even be a witness if he needs one. I'll just say what I saw.

Then he should take unfair dismissal proceedings and let the employer explain why they allow employees to work 18 hour shifts and mistakes are inevitable. The company should be more vigilant.

I do not know what his past record with the company was like but I have taken unfair dismissal proceedings on behalf of workers and I would have a field day on this one.

Kaner2004

partyguinness wrote: »

Then he should take unfair dismissal proceedings and let the employer explain why they allow employees to work 18 hour shifts and mistakes are inevitable. The company should be more vigilant.

I do not know what his past record with the company was like but I have taken unfair dismissal proceedings on behalf of workers and I would have a field day on this one.

Like us all, he is good at his job. But the nature of the job means bugs are released at times, even if everything is done right. So even then they shouldnt be able to sack him. Especially if he is sick on the job.
Personally, I think they want the headcount down. One of the girls on our team is pregnant, so this will reduce the headcount even more, leaving more work for the rest of us. I think i'll just leave tbh. IT jobs are easy to get. But it riles me up that they fire someone for a situation they brought about.

syklops

Where I work you come in even when you are dying. Its looked down on to take a sick day, even though its not said.

If its not said, then whats the problem? Take the day off, sort yourself out, even if its to go buy remedies and vitamins.

If you take a sick day, then its official you are not capable of work. Heroic "I was sick but came in any way but dont expect great work out of me" type excuses dont work on management.

To me it sounds like he got scape goated. It happens. Move on, but try not to get yourself into that position again.

As for your question regarding fatigue at a computer, it would be nice if there was laws against it like there is for truck drivers, but driving a truck and writing code are very different. No matter how tired or distracted a person is, he will never kill someone because of bad code. A truck driver could kill people because of bad driving. As someone else pointed out, if it wasn't tested right, and went to production without being cleared properly, then it wasnt just his eff up, it was a joint effort, and therefore a joint eff up, but management wanted to see a head roll so they could say to the board, "The person who did this has been dealt with and no longer works here". It sucks but thats IT for you.

Denerick

These kinds of companies have a productivity fetish. They mistakenly believe that working people to the bone will drive productivity, lower costs, and raise standards. Quite often the standard of work declines as a result. If I was in your colleagues shoes, I would sue them for every penny they have.

seamus

syklops wrote: »

but management wanted to see a head roll so they could say to the board, "The person who did this has been dealt with and no longer works here". It sucks but thats IT for you.

I wouldn't really accept that. Fine, that's the outcome and "I was sick at the time" isn't an excuse, but at the same time, "He made a programming mistake" doesn't cut it as a reason to fire someone.

The legislation is there for this very reason, so employers can't just fire someone for practically nothing.

Any basis of an unfair dismissal would hinge on the employer showing that the employee was either already on a final warning, or that the error made was extremely negligent.
The outcome of the error (losing a customer) isn't that important in determining whether it was a big mistake. It's accepted as fact that errors occur while programming, so the fact that he made an error is itself irrelevant. What's important would be the relative simplicity of the error (i.e. would a competent programmer have spotted it a million miles away), and foreseeable consequences of such an error - in programming terms it could have been a very minor bug/mistake, but the customer just decided to up sticks.

There's not enough information here to say that he should suck it up and move on.

Though looking at it from a purely pragmatic point of view, it's never been a better time to be an out-of-work programmer, so finding a job with better pay and conditions shouldn't be an issue, and going to court is stress he may not need.

Kaner2004

His solicitor must have been in touch.
They hauled us all into the office today and asked what we thought of the situation. The other younger lads said nothing and towed the company line even though when they came out they all said they couldnt bring themselves to say how they really felt under pressure for 3 HR people and a company director.
I was last in and told them exactly what I thought and by the way I quit. They begged me to stay, but ~I just said I'll work out the month and i'm gone.
They dont really treat me the way they treat the others because i'm a bit stronger than them, but I see it every day and it pisses me off big time.

I dont need the job. I could get one in the morning if I wanted or I could take the next 20 years off and I would still be grand, so im not as exposed as the other guys are. Feels great. Time for a long trip around the world staring next month
Or even a move out of Ireland altogether. Too much tax bled out of me in this country.

Duggys Housemate

Kaner2004 wrote: »

His solicitor must have been in touch.
They hauled us all into the office today and asked what we thought of the situation. The other younger lads said nothing and towed the company line even though when they came out they all said they couldnt bring themselves to say how they really felt under pressure for 3 HR people and a company director.
I was last in and told them exactly what I thought and by the way I quit. They begged me to stay, but ~I just said I'll work out the month and i'm gone.
They dont really treat me the way they treat the others because i'm a bit stronger than them, but I see it every day and it pisses me off big time.

I dont need the job. I could get one in the morning if I wanted or I could take the next 20 years off and I would still be grand, so im not as exposed as the other guys are. Feels great. Time for a long trip around the world staring next month
Or even a move out of Ireland altogether. Too much tax bled out of me in this country.

Good man. There are plenty of jobs out there in IT, and more money elsewhere too. This crowd of idiots at your workplace don't really understand how to run an IT company. Here is the facts.

1) Programming is difficult so programmers will make mistakes, even the best. There may be underlying bugs in the OS, or frameworks, or unique conditions which the programmer could not guess. This is why companies like MS and Apple and all video game companies keep releasing updates. Nobody has released a bug free 1.0 ( but you better believe they test the 1.0 for ages). The big boys know this. I think you can assume a bug every 10-20 lines or something.
2) In proper companies - like the big boys mentioned - there are properly qualified testers. If you cant afford them, outsource ( although it helps to have user cases etc.). A product which is sold without testing is going to fail. All of this is well documented in the literature for software development.
3) Given 2) and 3) the responsibility here lies with the management, and indeed the board for hiring morons to manage. This result will be that that the company collapses because it hired morons.

I don't want to go all dilbertish, but it is always moronic management who feck up IT companies, because there is a specific training for software and hardware engineers, and none for management ( I can assume that the management here is non-technical).

Real IT companies are run, or dominated , by engineers. If you are run by non-techies you will collapse. That or you better have a testing strategy. Not one guy looking it over, not the engineer himself. A bug repotting system. A signing off process. These can slow things down, but smart engineers can also react to emails etc, but in the long term its better to document.

So its good you left, though you should never have stayed that long :-)

Kaner2004

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

Good man. There are plenty of jobs out there in IT, and more money elsewhere too. This crowd of idiots at your workplace don't really understand how to run an IT company. Here is the facts.

1) Programming is difficult so programmers will make mistakes, even the best. There may be underlying bugs in the OS, or frameworks, or unique conditions which the programmer could not guess. This is why companies like MS and Apple and all video game companies keep releasing updates. Nobody has released a bug free 1.0 ( but you better believe they test the 1.0 for ages). The big boys know this. I think you can assume a bug every 10-20 lines or something.
2) In proper companies - like the big boys mentioned - there are properly qualified testers. If you cant afford them, outsource ( although it helps to have user cases etc.). A product which is sold without testing is going to fail. All of this is well documented in the literature for software development.
3) Given 2) and 3) the responsibility here lies with the management, and indeed the board for hiring morons to manage. This result will be that that the company collapses because it hired morons.

I don't want to go all dilbertish, but it is always moronic management who feck up IT companies, because there is a specific training for software and hardware engineers, and none for management ( I can assume that the management here is non-technical).

Real IT companies are run, or dominated , by engineers. If you are run by non-techies you will collapse. That or you better have a testing strategy. Not one guy looking it over, not the engineer himself. A bug repotting system. A sing off process. These can slow things down, but smart engineers can also react to emails etc, its better to document.

So its ggod you left, though you should never have stayed that long.

I agree with everything you said.
I was a contractor for 17 years. And was asked to come into this company full time. At the time it looked like there would be a big pay-off if the company took off. But it hasnt. The CTO as you predicted, is not a techie (well he was, but he must have been sh1t at it because he really doesnt have a clue) . What he is very, very good at is bluffing the directors and bullying the younger lads.
I made a lot of money in property, so thought I'd go for the big gamble with this company, in case the company took off, but its clear now its going down the toilet.
They do pay well. Junior developers get minimum €60k and senior minimum of €80k plus bonuses, pensions etc. So thats why the guys are staying. They could possibly get that money elsewhere but leaving would probably mean a drop of €10k for every level.
I decided the mood in the place wasnt worth it anymore.

Heres a good one. At a meeting last week with the CTO he was giving out that someone released code with a bug in it (like that never ever happens). I said that nobody ever writes bug free code. Its impossible. He hit the roof, saying that "code was 100% predictable. The very nature of writing code means that you can go through every possible scenario and make sure bugs never happen." I just told him to prove it and show us how to do it. He declined.

The whole experience has just sapped the excitement I used to feel from being a techie.

Duggys Housemate

I cant believe that a place which has the money to throw 80K+ at seniors does not have a testing environment. The problem there is the CTO. It is impossible to get all scenarios, even in rigid complete unit testing, and literature to prove that too.

There is an economic theory out there that bad workers kill companies. But never low level bad workers, always high level bad workers. Someone at the top who doesn't know what he is doing. So that company is doomed, no matter how good the engineers it hires, because it isn't set up right.

Having engineers code without a system is like having a junior surgeon do surgery, on his own, with no back up from nurses or doctors, or other surgeons, either in the theatre, or in post-operative care. Then the patient dies and everybody is wondering why.

not even wrong

Kaner2004 wrote: »

I was last in and told them exactly what I thought and by the way I quit. They begged me to stay, but ~I just said I'll work out the month and i'm gone.

The right decision. Plenty of programming jobs out there, no reason to put up with crap employers with no QA or automated tests who then take it out on you when the inevitable happens.