Necessary Roughness

Our Information Technology department in Houston announced a reorganization and the release of seven individuals. My boss was understandably upset when the order came from above, and she had to do the informing. Most of them were good people that had worked on the project as long as I have, and they will be hard to replace when the cycle comes and we feel the the need to expand again. I was not let go and have the budget to go to at least the end of the year, for which I am thankful.

I understand how hiring and firing are necessary, even when the motivation is well known and even honorable. The most annoying aspect of it, though, has to be the lack of notice. It is inconsistent that employees are asked to give the company two weeks notice, while the company can inform a person of termination and have them out of the building in minutes.

I understand the general reason behind that, that an employee knowing that they will no longer have employment will cause harm to the company. But if we are that paranoid about a person, should that person have been hired in the first place?

Reducing the number of privileges during the period of transition might also be preferable. Sure, you may not want a person to write code that they have no plans on maintaining, but they can at least document what they have done and log their experiences and lessons learned. Letting someone go doesn’t have to make an already stressful situation worse.