from Hacker News

Pips are disingenuous. If you get put on one, find a new job as fast as possible

by JSeymourATL on 6/11/24, 9:24 PM with 80 comments

• by alphazard on 6/11/24, 10:36 PM

  Companies with PIPs stand firmly on the "Adult Day Care" side of the industry.

  When serious professionals try to work together and it doesn't work out, someone is asked to leave, and they do. They get to play it off as a reason other than performance. Egos and careers remain undamaged, and everyone can move on.

  Adult Day Care centers have very low bars to clear, and most roles could be performed by basically anyone. Firing someone requires a lot of pomp and circumstance in order to seem fair. After all, everyone else is barely doing anything, and they will get to keep their jobs.

  If you get put on a PIP, you know what game you're playing, and you absolutely should not quit. Make them fire you, and collect unemployment. Then move on to the next host.

• by jwsteigerwalt on 6/11/24, 11:38 PM

  Both times I put someone on a pip it was heartbreaking. They were hired to do X, Y, and Z. Their cv indicated they were capable of X, Y, and Z. Both desperately needed the job. The pip was “you must complete X, Y, and Z each week. I can’t do your work for you, but I want you to be successful and I’m here to support you”. One was a payroll related position where the lens in which they were evaluated was clear (we need less than a certain number of paycheck errors each month).

  Both failed… I would have much preferred keeping them to finding and training someone new.

• by throw141292 on 6/11/24, 11:38 PM

  They are not all in bad faith. Maybe it depends on the company.

  Once I had a really bad family issue. Won't go into it, but I took a bunch of time off. Coming back to work, I wasn't fully engaged, because there was a lot of chaos. So I got put on a pip.

  My manager did this in good faith. He gave me a bunch of things to do, a bunch of milestones to meet, deadlines.

  Honestly, it was a lifeline I needed. And better, I didn't have to guess on schedule, make promises on tight deadlines. So I worked specifically to the milestones. Helped people after things were done. Didn't take on extra, but added it to my notes. And I got through it.

  Now I was worried. Was this just gathering evidence for something inevitable. Was it pre-decided? I just took it on good faith, did the work, and when I accomplished the goals, I was off the pip.

  I was good after that. I think I'm better for it.

  (that said, I've been told a second pip might be impossible to pull off)

• by vhodges on 6/11/24, 10:11 PM

  I have been on both sides

  1) got a talking too about performance - it wasn't called a pip (my mom was dying and I was taking too much time out for medical appointments for her. Note the discussion was shortly after she had passed)

  2) As a fairly new manager (at the time) I had to put my first hire as a manager onto a pip. It was painfully obvious to everyone they were not capable and struggled with the most basic things.

  While I didn't hold out much hope they would turn it around, I gave them every opportunity to prove to me they could do the job (or learn at least to) they were hired to do, instead they cheated their way through the pip, passing others peoples work off as their own.

• by adumbthrowaway on 6/12/24, 1:08 AM

  Dumb throwaway here as stupidly my real name is attached to my primary account.

  I just got PIP'd, and then fired. The objectives of the PIP were impossible to complete, dependent on externalities that I couldn't control. A box checking process indeed. Although, I dont think my boss entered it in bad faith, I'm pretty sure his boss made the decision.

  WHat sucks is that I've been fighting some medical issues for the past 1.5 years thats made it difficult to focus and think. Things are starting to resolve, but I've had to completely change care teams. And, I was shitcanned despite letting management/HR know about the issues, having letters from two different docs.

  I did my best to complete the objectives, even knowing I wouldn't. I did use the time to look for work, but unfortunately, didnt get anything nailed down before the termination.

• by randerson on 6/12/24, 12:25 AM

  PIPs can be the result of a bad manager. I think "low performers" should be given a 2nd chance on a different team. If their new manager says the same thing, then fire them. I've seen people who didn't gel with their assigned team or project for whatever reason, only to be transferred elsewhere in the company and do well.

• by JohnMakin on 6/11/24, 11:39 PM

  Better to be put on a PIP than this other weird thing that can happen sometimes, where you’re “unassigned” from a team, maybe due to layoffs or restructuring or performance, but report to essentially no one and have no real work to do. Eventually they expect you to get frustrated and quit, but it can be very difficult when you are in that situation to figure out where you stand.

• by samaltmanfried on 6/11/24, 11:58 PM

  I got put on a PIP once. It happened because a project I was leading suffered from a huge scope blowout in the 11th hour, and I missed the deadline. To be honest, it actually really hurt my self-esteem. I had a pretty hard time dealing with it at the time. I now look back and realize that the project couldn't possibly have succeeded even if they had two of me working overtime. I ended up moving on from that position a few weeks after.

• by mvdtnz on 6/11/24, 10:32 PM

  I work with two people who survived PIPs and are now productive members of my teams. I wasn't the manager involved, but I think she made a good choice, both when she PIP'ed them and by passing them when they picked up their game. This is going to vary company to company, but from my perspective there's absolutely no reason a capable person can't get themselves out of a PIP and remain at a company.

• by hackeraccount on 6/11/24, 10:59 PM

  Not true; my wife has seen dozen's put on pip's and one of them both didn't leave and wasn't fired within 30 days. So it's only mostly hopeless.

• by jarsin on 6/11/24, 10:01 PM

  Or in more general terms "HR is not your friend!"

• by kstrauser on 6/11/24, 11:22 PM

  I remember the first time hearing a coworker was getting a PIP without knowing what it meant. I thought the description sounded awesome. “He works with his manager to find ways to get better at his job, level up his skills, and maybe get a mentor? Sign me up!”

  PIP is such a bullshit term. Their “official” description sounds like a great thing that all employees could benefit from. If a company waits until the last moment to give their struggling employees the kinds of tools they should be freely offering in good faith to everyone, then they suck.

• by talldayo on 6/11/24, 9:26 PM

  No shit, next you're going to tell me water is wet.

  If you're the sort of person that cannot decode what a "Performance Improvement Plan" means then you're going to be eaten by the industry alive. It's insane to me that we even need qualified people to reassure anyone about that.