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Just got fired from my project, WTF?

cabaiguan juan

cabaiguan juan

Fucking Pandas
Joined
Aug 30, 2006
Messages
10,305
Location
Zamunda
I have been insanely busy the last two weeks since I returned from my friends wedding. To give you some back ground, I work in construction and was doing a stint in the scheduling department when I heard that we were awarded a Joint Venture contract to build a major project. I wanted to apply my newly learned skill on this project since I was ready to go back out on a project and since I wanted to do so as a scheduler. Well, since July, I have been busting my butt to not only get the Baseline schedule approved, but to also get the first update done, and also to build several mini schedules to later bring into the project’s schedule. According to what my boss was having me do, I though I was doing a good job. However, the project director decided that he needed the entire scheduling department on the project, so when I returned from Maui, I found my old boss, and coworkers on site. Each one had taken over one of the items I was working on. So today my scheduling boss asked me to head over to the main office after lunch and he brought me into the Director of HR's office. Apparently, the top guys, a few levels above my boss at WR, had questioned my desire, productivity and commitment to the project and basically asked HR to remove me from the project. I found out that I was to be replaced by 2 full time people and one part time person! Apperantly i was doing the work for 2.5 people and had somehow F'ed up?!?! Amazing how that could happen! After explaining this to me, and listening and giving me a chance to explain why all of those schedules were not done, in addition to other activities thrown upon my, I was told that while I wasn't being fired completely, I would need to improve or else. I could not believe what I had heard! I had had great Performance Reviews prior to this job, and all indications from my immediate boss at this project were all positive. This came out of left field! Afterwards I had a candid talk with my scheduling dept. boss and asked him why I had been sandbagged like this. All he could figure out was that I had bitten off more then I could chew with this project and my experience in scheduling (1 year in the department) and that the personalities of the top guys on the project plus my boss had not made for a successful situation for me. WTF!?!? So many questions are swirling in my head right now about today’s meeting. Needles to say, the project director asked me to be removed from the project effective Monday. So back to the scheduling department I go. While it is difficult to explain the whole picture in this post, I feel like I have been screwed over in a major way. In hindsight, I probably didn't have the experience for this project now knowing what it needed, but to hear that from the Director of HR is unnecessary, and inappropriate in my opinion. I have been losing fait in my company over the last two years with how they treat people and this is not helping my opinion one bit.
 
dude that sucks i feel ya,
i've been losing faith in my company too they got me doing a job basically for free while stringing me along about hiring me for the position

keep your head up it will probably work out for the best
 
Sorry to read this. Sounds like maybe some office politics involved. Maybe you didn't kiss enough ass, or enough of the right one. :(
 
Oh man, hate to hear this has happened to ya. I can definitely relate with working your azz off and being treated like a total nothing. Hoping it all works out!
 
You have to know that your boss has your back. Guess this one didn't. Get over it, and be careful who you work for in the future.
 
In most cases where something like this happens, such as loading you up and then giving the same job to three people, they just wanted you to fail. When you didn't, they finally manned up, and got rid of you. Is the company a small family company? Sounds like it. Keep the faith, if you worked as hard as you said you did, everyone in the company knows it. Not everybody is a bad guy, talk to someone you trust and find out the truth. Try to get a good referral from the company.
 
sack said:
In most cases where something like this happens, such as loading you up and then giving the same job to three people, they just wanted you to fail. When you didn't, they finally manned up, and got rid of you. Is the company a small family company? Sounds like it. Keep the faith, if you worked as hard as you said you did, everyone in the company knows it. Not everybody is a bad guy, talk to someone you trust and find out the truth. Try to get a good referral from the company.
Click to expand...
Actually, its a pretty big, company though it often feels like a small company. I'm beginign to question a lot of things about my company.
 
Sorry to hear about this Jon. Keep your head up and make sure you do your resume. Start looking around, with your experience you should be able to land a better position if you decide to!
 
On the plus side you have more time for cigars and to look for another job.
 
I've been in similar situations - and I've been in similar situations to your manager too.

It's not really about you. It's about the work. The project manager needs the work done, and doesn't care who does it.

If you're well behind, it's always up to you to speak up and kick up a fuss. Yeah, it sucks, and it can sound disloyal, but if you're working major hours and can't keep up, you owe it to your PM to let them know as soon and as often as possible. That lets them finesse it. In one of my past jobs, I fired a developer for a similar problem; he kept on telling me that everything was ok and on schedule up until the time that it was due and not done.

If you were letting him or her know that you were behind schedule, you were putting in the hours and more, and they let you hang anyway, then they need to grow a pair AND consider a new career. And you need to find a new place to work. Trust goes both ways after all.

What your PM did wrong (as a PM) was to not take responsibility. You delegate authority; you retain responsibility, and therefore your PM should grow a pair. I was the barrier between the client and the team when I was working as a PM. I was responsible. Want to yell at someone, yell at me. Whose fault was it that the program didn't run/we were behind/we went over budget this reporting period? Mine. Does it matter that I didn't do any of these things personally? Nope - because I was responsible for getting people to get them done.
 
You're not unemployed as of now, correct? Irregardless, it does sound like the proverbial writing is on the wall. Tone-ny is correct. Time to update your resume and start firing it and a cover letter off to other businesses in your field. A Letter of Recommendation from your current employer would be really good to have as well, but it doesn't sound like that would be a possibility. The best time to look for a new job is before you are handed your pink slip.

Just remember to do your homework and try to tailor your letter and resume to the business that you're sending it to. Most employers can sniff out a 'canned' resume. It's a lot of work, but you're trying to get them to bite on your resume and invite you in for an interview. You need to make yourself stand apart from the other applicants. That seems like it would be common sense, but I can't tell you how many resumes have come across my desk that have had little relevancy to the job openings I've advertised.

Don't just send resumes to businesses that are advertising. Target anything in your field. Just because it's not posted doesn't necessarily mean they aren't about to hire. Many business will also keep resumes on file for a period of time and then go through them when there is an opening. And for heavens sake, PROOF READ EVERYTHING!!! Seplling errors stikc outt lke soor thumms. If you can't take the time to make sure your spelling and grammer is correct on something as important as your resume, then I don't want you on my staff.

Didn't mean to lecture. Just trying to give a few job search tips. I certainly hope things work out where you're at.
 
I've decided that after this, it’s probably time to update the resume. I appreciate the advice given here, even though it’s hard not to take this sort of thing personally. I'm still employed, but I think the writing is definitely on the wall. One thing that still bothers me is why this went through HR, instead of talking to me directly. Also, until yesterday, I thought I was doing a good job, and this completely blindsided me. Lastly, no matter what I had to say to HR, the decision was already made, and even facts that were irrelevant to this were getting dragged in to 'support' the decision to remove me from this particular project.
 
Don't take it personally. Remember, the bottom line is that this is a business. I had a Personnel Director tell me one time that staff are like tools to be used when they're useful and discarded when they aren't. I never forgot that. I'm not saying that all companies are bad. I am saying that there are people in companies who think like that.

And for the record, I totally disagreed with that person's idiotic comment.
 
Sorry to hear about your work troubles, makes me appreciate where I am all the more. I hope everything works out for you in the end.
 
You might want to rethink having frank job issue discussions on multiple boards - could have a very serious affect on current and future employment opportunities... ;)
 
Im in sort of a similar situation on my project as well. Im an IT Consultant/Contractor, and a got a job for a huge corporation that is doing a corporate wide refresh of their PCs. I was hired last year as part of the deployment team to roll out the PCs. Shortly after I started, I was put in charge of erasing the data of the hard drives and inventorying all the old equipment while still doing the deployments as well. So I basically I have 2 full time jobs that I am required to do. At the time it was fine as we had 7 or 8 people on the team, and at least 2 or 3 were always available to help me with inventory. We started out with one process that allowed use to roll out about 30 machines a night, with little to no support needed the next day for the user. So by Friday each week I had about 120 machines that needed data erased and inventoried. And each week we had about the same number and Fridays usually free to work on it. Now the wipe process to erase the data on the hard drives takes about 3 hrs per machine and several minutes to get a machine running. So it does end up being quite a bit of work and very time consuming, with the man power we had coupled with being able to do some during the week, if we finished early, we were able to mange.

Fast froward to this spring we were down to 5 people and we switched the deployment process around and it now requires ~10x more time to prepare the machines for each night and to support the next day. Though we cut our numbers down to about 15 PCs a night. I also switched from deploying PCs to providing support the next day which takes up more of my time. So now I have less time to do inventory and no one dedicated to help me with it. My supervisor has been trying for the past several months to get our PM to realize that we are at the end of our rope and we need more people. But he wont listen to us or read the writing on the wall. I have not been able to put the time in needed for inventory as I am spending most of my day doing support, and there is no one else who can take it over. I get some help every so often, but not much. And to top it all off, our team's 2nd hand man got a new job a few weeks ago and that has severely impacted us. Our supervisor had a meeting earlier this week with the PM and the PM plans to replace him with another manager not someone that will be doing the work that is needed. Morale has been horrible the last few months, nothing has been done to alleviate the situation, the planners and PM have NO idea what it is we actually do and how much time it takes. And to top it all off the guy who left was probably the most important person on the team. So ya, our moral and the project is in the shitter.

That part of the situation is a bit similar to yours, but fortunately for me I will be gone in about 2 weeks! Luckily for me, an opportunity arose about two months ago where one of my friends works and he let me know to put my resume in. At the time I was unsure of how I felt about the project and where it was heading, though I still had hope for it. I decided to put my resume in even though I didnt really think I would get the job, I wanted to at least see where it would go. Well after a few phone discussions and a trip down to the office I was offered the position, and it should be a great opportunity for me.

Keep your head and hopes high! And best of luck!
 
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