Fire Me! Please!

Updated Sunday, January 17, 2010

Recently I had to replace a programmer. It was an easy decision, but that doesn’t make it fun.
It seemed that his actions were saying “please, can you fire me?”. After I let him go, I gave him some notes on where I thought he could improve. All of which were communicated multiple times during his employment of course. I have put the list below, with a few modifications.

• version control reports have no detail
• disruptive comments during meetings
• need to be convinced of what the client/Bixly wants too often
• quick to put down very well educated programmers
• missed sprint review meeting
• delayed large project because couldn’t fulfill time commitment
• OOP skills lacking
• sporadic daily logs
• will not head coaching

Before I learned to fire fast and hire slow, I would have kept this programmer around for far too long. The situation could have ebbed the speedy growth of Bixly.