Do I tell him he is about to get fired 22

[nutengineer]

I am somewhat of Senior Manager in a very large company - 3,500+.

Through a VERY reliable source I have found out that a co-worker junior my status but not a "report" is going to be let go - probability 99.99%. While I consider him a friend - he is probably more an acquaintance - he lives 700 miles away.

Question: Do I tell him??

 

[dik]

Excellent advice Cass...

Dik

 

[SNORGY]

josephv:

To which I respond:

(1) My opinion is that the context surrounding what you have quoted is different and not intended to apply specifically to a situation such as this; and even if it did:
(2) If someone tells me, "By the way, we intend to fire (so-and-so) next week / month...keep it a secret and don't tell anyone...", when they are already armed with the knowledge that it is a decision that I have no control or influence over, then why should they be telling me? I would suggest that *they* are in breach of thics, or at least in breach of confidence, not *me*.

Ethics or not, professional or not, I give the friend the heads-up. Probably in a manner suggested by patprimmer, but I do it nonetheless.

Regards,

SNORGY.

 

[patprimmer]

The ethics of keeping confidence on unethical/illegal conduct is a subject in itself. Things like doctor/priest or even journalists obligation to protect confidentiality/source come to mind as stronger than HR issues.

The ethics of keeping confidential information from friends is another issue. Friendship alone should not outweigh keeping a legitimate confidence. In my opinion, general good advice covered so as not to be a hint is as far as you can go.

Regards
Pat
See FAQ731-376 for tips on use of eng-tips by professional engineers &

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for site rules

 

[SNORGY]

The operative phrase being "...legitimate confidence...".

Telling someone who has no say, control or influence in the matter, "By the way, keep this under your hat, but we are firing (so and so)." is not a legitimate confidence. It is a stupid, inappropriate message that serves only to draw attention to an upcoming blind-siding ambush. The kind of thing that friends are supposed to warn friends about.

I have seen too many friends get ambushed like that. I'd rather sell out what the corporation perceives as a definition of ethics than see it happen again. I personally prefer my standards of conduct to those of any employer I have ever had.

But, I am jaded, and my glasses do have a distinct red bias.

Regards,

SNORGY.

 

[zdas04]

This is why I said "hearsay" in my first post. If you are not part of the decision loop and if you do not have a legitimate reason for being informed, then it is just hallway gossip, regardless of the source--hearsay by definition. You do not have a confidentiality obligation to not repeat gossip.

On the other hand who gets hurt and who benefits from telling the guy? Let's say you call him and say "the suits have it in for you and they're canning you first of the month". Possible outcomes: (1) he gets an extra few weeks to mope; (2) he goes to his boss and says "nutengineer told me that I'm getting fired, why?"; (3) he gets upset and destroy's company property and when caught says "nutengineer told me that I was getting fired so I wanted you jerks to pay"; or (4)he sends out 300 resumes and one of them goes to a friend of his boss who calls his boss and says "I just got a resume from Joe, what kind of guy is he?"; to which the boss calls Joe in and Joe says "nutengineer said I was getting fired so I was getting ahead of the game".

In scenario 1, no one wins. In all of the other scenarios nutengineer gets tagged as untrustworthy and his rise in the company reverses itself, so the looser is the guy repeating gossip.

It is amazing how often the messenger is the one with his head cut off his shoulders. It is also amazing how often the best course is to not repeat gossip.

David

 

[jmw]

It is also amazing how often we find we have more concern for the people we think we are helping than they have for us when asked to give up the responsible person.

There is a good expression here:

No good deed goes unpunished.
The person you help can probably rely on a reasonable excuse for being moved on and get a good job relatively easily compared to the guy who gets fired for breeching confidentiality rules.

I suspect some companies regard confidentiality rather more highly than some other character traits. Confidential information is often commercially sensitive and they need to know that people are capable of treating sensitive information with proper respect no matter how they came by it.

The origins of the information are irrelevant. If you have confidential company information you have to treat it as confidential even if some other employee is blabbing it all over the shop. He is the one who will be tagged, not you.

Plus, supposing he has given you a heads up on something for whatever reason, he presumes you will treat it as confidential. You owe him a duty just as much as the employee to be fired.
Once you lose trust you are a gonner.
It may be tough to watch some colleague knowing he may be about to be fired, but his prospects are probably better than yours if you blab.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[IRstuff]

If you want to play out a conspiracy theory, this might be a test of your ability to keep a confidence, given that you are "somewhat of Senior Manager."

TTFN
faq731-376

 

[SNORGY]

It sucks that stuff like this happens in the workplace.

I am just glad people I work with now know me well enough to know what not to tell me.

And...if it's bad...I don't want to know. That's why I left management.

Regards,

SNORGY.

 

[zdas04]

I worked for a guy once who was a terrible gossip. Once he said "if I tell you something, will you keep it to yourself?" I answered "Of course not, if it doesn't impact my responsibilities don't tell me or I will repeat it early and often". He looked at me a long time and told me anyway. I don't remember what it was now, but it wasn't enough fun to repeat.

David

 

[msquared48]

I keep my mouth shut. That way, I don't have to lie.

But, then again, I work for myself, so I tend not to believe what I tell myself.

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering

http://mmcengineering.tripod.com

 

[patprimmer]

I sometimes surprised and disappoint people by NOT repeating things they told me in confidence but expected me to repeat. You know when people are trying to white-ant someone but don't want it attributed to them, so they try to abuse you. Keeping the secret really annoys them, but what can they do about it. Accuse you of not spreading vicious rumpurs they where trying to start?

Regards
Pat
See FAQ731-376 for tips on use of eng-tips by professional engineers &

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm

for site rules

 

[TheBlacksmith]

You could assume from my "Poppa isn't happy" post that I'm somewhat self-centered these days, but my answer anytime would be NO. I see no good coming from it and possible harm to you, or even him. As you said, he's 700 miles away and not a direct report; what if your source is wrong and your friend resigns or goes postal for no good reason?

 

[pierdesign]

This situation happened to me.

I was co-manager of a group in a company experiencing dowturn with management request to do the 10% decrease. In management meeting we presented our layoff names. Other groups' layoff names included my car-pool partner.

As smart person above stated, she and everybody knew the company was downsizing. On the next morning's drive we were talking about it and I knew she'd be out of a job within 2 hours. The only thing I said was "It's going to be a very bad day for some" while looking right at her.

The confidence of a management position to know private information is not one to be broken over such things. Now, we were car-pool partners for 2+ years, not social friends, but I was aware she was not about to make a major purchase or wedding or something like that.

A corrolary: in my position I also had reason to know everybodies' salary. Of course from time to time at social gatherings what people earn comes up and there's always someone who bemoans he knows so-and-so makes $$$. It's not something to comment on, confirm or deny, as it would be a major confidence undermine.

 

[nutengineer]

Thanks for ALL your input. Everyone gets a STAR*****

I will just let it ride ans see what happens. Thread done!!

 

[spongebob007]

I don't think there is a correct answer for this one. The answer lies within the individual faced with the situation and it comes down to tough choices. As an slight digression, I had the most interesting ethics training a few years back. At the beginning of the class the instructor said we were not going to waste andy time discussing right vs wrong because we were all adults and professionals and that we should already know the difference between right and wrong and should always do the right thing. Instead the training was focused on how to handle situations of right vs right.

I see this scenario as a situation of right vs right. On one hand we are ethically bound to act as faithful agents to our employers. That means if we have information that was told to us in confidence we have an ethical obligation to our employer to keep our mouth shut. On the other hand, if we know something bad is about to happen to a friend, I believe we have an ethical obligation to warn them. So as I see it, from a strictly ethics standpoint keeping the information to our selves and telling our coworker are both ethically correct decisions. If we spill the beans it could ruin our career, but if we say nothing and our friend loses his job and suffers economic hardships (Imagine if we later found out he ended up losing his home because he couldn'f find another job) we could end up living with guilt because we might have been able to prevent his economic hardship by giving him a heads up.

I think the best way of dealing with situations like this is coming up with a middle ground solution. I like what pierdesign did above. Maybe the best solution would be to drop a strong hint without coming right out and saying it. That way, hopefully if your friend is smart enough, they will get the hint and since you never told them directly you can't really be accused of spilling confidential information.

Personally, regardless of how close of a friend the person was to me, I would only consider hitning at the pending firing if there was enough time for the person to act proactively. If I found out today that they were going to be canned on Friday I would say nothing because at this point there is not much good that would come from telling them anything.

 

[zdas04]

spongebob,
A guy is going to be fired at the end of the month regardless of your actions. That is a given. You learn of it on the first of the month through a blabbermouth peer of yours (you have no business reason to know this, but some people just can't keep their mouths shut).

Scenario 1: You tell him. He spends an extra month bummed out, pissed off, and trying to determine "why?", but never mentions your name. He still gets canned, and loses his house and ends up living under a bridge. Several of your peers know of your relationship and suspect you were the leak, your rate of advancement slows dramatically

Scenario 2: You don't tell him. He has a pretty good month and they reconsider and he keeps his job, house, marriage and never knows that he was on the block.

Scenario 3: You don't tell him. He has an average month and gets canned, loses his house, marriage, and ends up living under a bridge.

Scenario 4: You tell him and he goes to everyone in the company and says "I know I'm getting fired, Bob told me, what can I do to change your minds?" He gets fired, you get fired, you both lose your houses and spouses and live under the bridge together.

Which scenario would you or he prefer? #2 right, but #3 isn't a catastrophe for you?. #1 and #4 are both personal disasters for you. My guess is that all 4 scenarios are about equally as likely. Now do a risk/reward analysis. Scenario 1-3 all have you keeping your job (although #1 kind of sucks). Scenario 4 costs you your job. None of them improve your standing within the company--net reward zero. So you end up with a non-trivial risk for zero possibility of reward. It don't look gray to me.

David

 

[jmw]

Thread done!!

easier said than done on this site.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[zdas04]

Kind of like the "Pirates Code", more a guideline than a code. The only one who "owns" a thread is site management.

 

[controlsdude]

I remember my manager calling me up the day before I got laid off, he asked me if I had everything backed up on the server. To me thats code word for your getting laid off. I knew there was lay offs coming on a certain date and had the good sense to understand what he was saying to me.

I would tell him and would not call it unprofessional, in todays enviroment, "here today, gone tomorrow"


So your all wet, tell the poor fool that he is getting let go, if the guy is going to make a major purchase or not. I don't think most of you have been on both sides of this situation. And what is so ethical about company's nowadays? And worrying that he is going postal is not your concern, that is out of your control and in that guys control.

 

[zdas04]

Now that we've heard from the teenaged, counter-culture set (and I really don't care how old you actually are controlsdude, your positions seem to be straight out of middle school), we can finally call this thread complete.

David