The Water Cooler - 2016-05-03

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8:00 AM

0

Q: How can I engineer my own firing?

NY/USA if jurisdiction matters here for some strange reason. I absolute abhor my current job and have an open offer from an amazing company to come join them for better salary and with numerous other perks. However, for reasons outside the scope of this question, I simply cannot quit/resign my ...

united-states termination

keeps me puzzled

goes well with the other troll questions lately I guess

This is my initial thought too

Being fired is very often preferable to quitting for various reasons. — gnasher729 10 mins ago

I wish they provided some examples..

@bilbo_pingouin not losing face to whoever friend/family helped you to get the job in the first place is a pretty common one

The only reason I can think of, is having obligations to fulfull to the employer if leaving the job

but the OP was clear that wasn't the case

8:14 AM

@PavelJanicek going through all the questions of that user, the topics are all over the place, something is off there

@PlasmaHH yeah like it's better to be fired for being an ass, than resign because you get some other job... for your friends who helped you get the job

I would not call it a friends then

let's say you work in your mother's company. What would she prefer? That you got fired because you misbehaved? Or that you left for a better opportunity?

My ex colleague did just quit the job because one previous quitter found him a job in new company

@bilbo_pingouin you don't have to be an ass, you can just underperform and pretend to your family that you have no idea why they fired you and they all lie about your performance and you are still working well.

8:19 AM

@bilbo_pingouin Ok, this makes sense now. But you cannot leave without looking bad...

@PlasmaHH that might work, but depending on how long you've been in the company, it will show...

@bilbo_pingouin sure, it always depends on circumstances, which is another reason why that question is, uhm, well...

your boss is likely to notice a difference... or you'd have to make it really slow

yep... it got my first DV on the site :D

0

Q: Is this question OK ? Why, why not?

I understand Meta is the place to ask about specific questions, so here we go. It is about the question "How can I engineer my own firing". This question seems to be well-written, on-topic, and the question asked is quite clear. However, OP is asking something unusual, without giving much contex...

discussion questions asking-questions

sometimes there are opportunities, like a new boss

bwahahahaha

8:29 AM

and contrary to what the OP claims boldy, it isn't a self-contained example... and it sounds like a very specific case... unlikely to be useful to other people.

yep, very underspecified. I can think of lots of reasons to fire people, so could come up with lots of ways to get you fired, but it all has big ifs

the problem I have is you can come up with many ways... but due to the imprecision of the question, you'll just have to hope it works for the OP

exactly

and the OP does not show any indication of being reasonable in discussing their question.

On the other hand, that might be the answer: behave at work like you do on SE, and you'll get what you want ;-)

Thanks MarioTrucco but you are wrong. All StackExchange sites have specific rules they ask their community members to abide by when casting downvotes. If you read that link, nowhere does it say "Hey, feel free to downvote any question you want, just because you don't like it." Of course users are legally allowed to do whatever they want, but they would be doing so outside the scope of the community rules

^^ The above comment made me think the same as bilbo said. Keep behaving on the job like you behave in the question ad you get fired easily

8:35 AM

@PavelJanicek German keyboard?

@bilbo_pingouin English. The czech one is German-based, so it has swapped Y and Z too, while adding more features

ok... I'm not familiar with the Czech layout... and since you were working in a German company until recently... ;)

Czech keyboard is basically taking the German one and drop German specific symbols while adding Czech specific symbols

And I switched layouts from czech to English because I needed this symbol: ^^^ which is non existent on Czech layout

Hm, I wonder if I should farm some rep here to downvote it ... ^^

@PlasmaHH ah ah ah :D that would be overdoing it... ;-)

@PavelJanicek hm... layout missing programming keys... are bad IMHO.

8:42 AM

It is bad. There is something called "czech keyboard layout for programmers" in the system options, but I rather switch between English and czech than learning yet another layout

I'm sorry you are annoyed and/or frustrated by my comments @PavelJanicek however I am just staying within the bounds of community rules. I am not being offensive to anyone at all. I am even upvoting other users ever single time they solicit a possible solution. I corrected one user because he/she seemed to be uncertain about the community downvoting rules. And I flagged your comment for removal because I considered it to be "life coaching" and not relevant to the given problem at hand

yaay, my first flagged comment :)

@bilbo_pingouin then I have to chose among the alternatives: doing work, or searching fora new job. Both suboptimal as I am hungry ^^

best part on it is that flagging is based on madde up rule and not community rules :D

I feel the urge to remind the user that "life coaching" is not among accepted flagging reasons in the community :D

@PavelJanicek so good with community rules, but forgot that hovering over DV says: "question unclear or not useful", both of which apply here, IMO

plus you always have to keep the sites goal in mind, to compile a Q&A style knowledge base that is useful for other people

@PavelJanicek yeah, that's why I refrained from commenting. Nothing is going to come out of it.

@PlasmaHH yep that's the "not useful" part there

8:45 AM

imho that point is most often violated everywhere because people insist on them being in focus and needing a solution now, no matter if they are at the right place

@PlasmaHH then having lunch is probably your best option ;-)

@bilbo_pingouin a bit too early, I need to go out and buy something at the bakery around the corner and until ~11-11:15 they still sell stuff from yesterday so I wait until it is more likely the new stuff is out

@PlasmaHH well it is a tricky point. Because if they are too general, their question becomes not-answerable. If they are too specific it's not useful. Asking a good question is finding the right balance between close and DV.

@bilbo_pingouin indeed, and it means to put effort into writing a question, not something many people want to do

I saw an answer to this and im genuenly shocked that someone would recommend some of those

like deliberately breaking a non compete agreement

:/

8:53 AM

or have sex with your boss...

or have sex with your boss while breaking things

Thats gross abuse of the feelings of someone else

while reading non related book

Imagine you are the coworker with feelings in this scenario and you find out the other person has just been using you to get fired

@PavelJanicek depending on how you do it, that might come together... ;-)

8:55 AM

what an infinitely shitty thing do to

@Magisch yeah, horrible question bad answer.

The only ethical ways out really are make yourself redundant or hire someone who will do your work for cheaper

@Magisch chances are that when you go the wanting to get fired route, you are a sociopath and won't care about that detail anyways ;)

In that case

I don't want to help that person

Take laxatives, develop a bowel issue and a weak bladder and mess yourself several times every day. Apologize profusely of course.

Shouldn't take long at all.

best trolling response for trolling question "D

8:59 AM

Terminated for repeat soiling of self on the job

depending on the jurisdiction getting someone fired for health issues is a problem ^^

not sure that'd go well as references ;)

Just stop washing yourself, same effect I guess

I guess the idea behind that is that the employer cant openly fire you for it, but intensely will want you gone anyways

which could work out to exactly what OP wants

In fact, im upvoting that

I did upvote that. Just for trolling reasons

And honestly, I find it very strange that such question has already +5 votes while I know about at least two downvotes

My rep does not allow me to show overall score, but my gut feeling tells me its not that good question to get +5 score on this site

9:07 AM

@PavelJanicek Its +7/-2 atm

Unfortunately a while ago the timeline code was fixed so there is no way anymore to use it to get to the individual vote counts that way :/

Anyone who takes this site seriously should not upvote this, although it is admittedly hilarious. — smeeb 9 mins ago

that is also valid for their question... well maybe the hilarious part aside

Yeah, had a good laugh at that ^^

@PlasmaHH not sure what you mean

@bilbo_pingouin this one: workplace.stackexchange.com/posts/66352/timeline in the earlier version you saw individual votes (without who cast them of course) in there and could count the +/- yourself at all rep levels

9:13 AM

I see... I wasn't aware of that feature...

A very useful one, I wrote me some greasemonkey script to add a link to all questions ^^

It was once scheduled to be disabled, but I guess someone took the maintenance over now

can you also see the deleted comments?

nope, that was never possible this way

Also, for anyone whose really interested, replace all my uses of the phrase "future employer" or "future prospective employer" with "wife", and suddenly, this whole question should make complete sense :-) well, to anyone whose married that is — smeeb 7 mins ago

...

I dont even know anymore

this Q is a wreck

9:19 AM

yep, true

yep, I'm happy I DVed it, really well spent rep

As someone whose wife is in business, I still do not understand why he needs to be fired

@PavelJanicek he wants to get divorced to be able to marry someone else

In my family we talked about it and once my wife's business is good enough to feed us both, I will just quit the job I am doing

but would rather have the initiative of the divorce coming from his wife

9:20 AM

Self deleting answers isn't a thing when they're accepted

sad :(

you can flag it to a mod

or hack into the database

hacking is better choice I would guess

better is relative... if you can do it, that's probably more fun, albeit less legal... and only deleting one answer is likely to be a giveaway

I would delete that user :D

9:25 AM

who cares? It is not as if they would restore from backups because of one queston

flag attention to moderators saying: I feel like I don't want to be answering that question due to the user's activity, but can't delete myself.

And pinging them here might work as well... though the only mod I know here isn't likely to be available at this hour

maybe enderland...

anyway. From the question as it stands I can hear this: "My relatives are running a business and would most probably hire me if I lost a job. But would not hire me if I just quit a job. I want to work for my relatives. How to fake my job quitting?"

@PavelJanicek no, I think it's no business at all

where correct answer is: "Grow a pair and ask your relatives directly. If they like you, you will be abvle just to qwuit the job and get hired"

"I don't like my wife, but I'd rather she leaves me than me leaving her. Furthermore I already found someone else, so it'll looks much better if my wife left me for other reasons"

9:28 AM

In that case its totally out of scope for this site

yep

And still, "grow a pair and talk to her" is still valid

yep :D

because at the end, it does not really matter who did leave whom

im sorry for the other girl OP is trying to marry

9:30 AM

I am going to update my meta answer

for that situation, there is an obvious win win question; just ask if she wants a threesome. If not, she is going to leave, if yes, even better than the original plan

hm... moderators are all based in the US... except maybe JaneS, but I don't know what AU means exactly

Australia

read: quite some time before one shows up

and what time is it in Australia right now?

like 1900-2000?

@bilbo_pingouin I think also there they already have the 21st century

9:33 AM

I guess they do :D

I was talking about hours ;)

2

Q: Is this question OK ? Why, why not?

I understand Meta is the place to ask about specific questions, so here we go. It is about the question "How can I engineer my own firing". This question seems to be well-written, on-topic, and the question asked is quite clear. However, OP is asking something unusual, without giving much contex...

discussion questions asking-questions

edited my answer

I flagged the question

I just did the same

1 hour later…

10:50 AM

everyone else is out of the office, time for a nap

2 hours later…

12:32 PM

That's awesome if you can take naps in the afternoon at work!

@JoeStrazzere When I first saw that Q about wanting to be fired, the terrible advice in the at the time one answer compelled me to answer something. Now that the author's true intentions came out, I wish I hadn't.

@Magisch what are his "true" intentions? I still can't figure out why someone want to get fired...

@HamZa Either he wants to quit and his wife wont let him or he wants his wife to leave him, because of a prenup presumably

I dont know but what I do know is that none of it is even remotely on topic

@Magisch haha I see. I just started reading the comments from your answer

12:47 PM

Makes me really thankful for my wife who was supportive of my recent job change :)

That said, the whole question/situation is sickening me

same here

To me, ranting on meta helps me

For me, everything fits when we think about it as the OP having an affair (or an "offer"), but wanting to separate from his current wife/partner. however socially he'd rather not be leaving one girl for the other one. Instead he'd rather appear as being left aside, and then get the other girl.

which has nothing to do with TW

0

Q: We need flags to show our biases

I am constantly thinking about cultural influences here. In my opinion every question and every answer (almost) would be greatly improved by prominently displaying the cultural perspective of the person asking/answering/commenting. Most of what is discussed here in WorkPlace is about what is the ...

feature-request

The request for flags is cool, but whatif I refuse to show my country for whatever reason?

Or what if I decide to lie?

1:02 PM

@Pavel in fine, it's up to what you want to get. The more precise your question is, the best will be the answer.

So if you live in India and say that you are in an American culture, the answer might not be fitting.

yep. Thats true

@PavelJanicek Well, I think a small reminder while writing a question would suffice. What if I moved to another country after 2 years?

but sometimes, being from Europe, I find it interesting / eye opening how would US person resolve the same issue I am facing

1:25 PM

For the whole question, I'm actually waiting for the mods to show up and see what they do of it... I guess that question's been flagged a few times by now...

I love the vote war on the question itself

Definitely gaining more and more interest

I got 123 Points from my answer on it

my snarky comment has already 16 upvotes :)

1:40 PM

and the same user posted yet another question

0

Q: Being progressive in the work zone without alienating yourself

HR recently announced a contest for ideas to improve the workplace and make it one of the best employers in the area. I submitted my own idea, and am now worried about potential side effects. My idea is for so-called "weeping rooms" for women in the workforce, where they can go to cry or have pe...

politics gender

now I know exactly that we are dealing with a troll

Monica is now there, so let's see how the authority deals with that :)

I'm confident she'll find a good way about it

flagged the question just to be sure

On the second question, I'm not sure whether he still mean that he talked to his current wife and she asked how they can improve everything, and resolve the issues... but then I am not sure I understand the analogy of alienating to other males. Or there's really no analogy (at least in this question)... in any case, that does not sound like a real experienced situation.

I know im feeding the troll, but I answered that

on the off chance its not getting deleted and some other poor soul stumbles across this in the future, I made an answer rebutting the idea

2:00 PM

Somehow whenever I see the wage gap card being pulled I forgot to read whatever is around it and wander away...

Because of all of the internet drama (and being called horrible names and doxed for disagreement) I've become weirdly allergic to gender discussions

weeping rooms is funny idea

Luckily in our new company we have man cave rooms where men can go and do manly things

(sarcasm)

oooo, justice served

We have two creative rooms where people can go to if they need a time out

that question has -6 votes in total

We have one break room / kitchen

aaaand the question got deleted :)

@Magisch do you want me to delete your answer on that "get me fired" one?

2:06 PM

@PavelJanicek and the other one got closed

today feels like good day

@enderland Im not sure

In my previous job, whenever I need "a time out" I took my half billiard queue (the other half was broken of) placed some objects on a styrofoam stand in the middle of the office and propelled them into the opposide wall.. ^^

I just closed it (cast the 4th/5th votes). I am not sure what to do with it overall, but I can tell you that leaving it on the Hot Network Questions to accumulate even more flags? Not high on the "ways the question will be good" list. — enderland ♦ 7 secs ago

@enderland I can't see a future for this Q

Its contrived and weird and off topic but at the same time most other answers recommend some seriously unethical stuff so I'd like mine to stay (also because its essentially my entire daily repcap)

2:11 PM

@enderland yeah it's certainly a hard to deal with one. I'd have closed it as unclear. Because it is objectively unclear. Or OT, taking into account the comment of the OP. But important thing is that it is closed, IMHO.

Also Kilisi's answer to take laxatives and soil themselfes at work is quite lol but maybe a tad inappropiate

bashing\ a troll with even more trolling

@Magisch I guess it got flagged as well...

what a mess

This entire thing is just a soiled mess

And it makes the entire workplace SE look bad

2:15 PM

Now I feel personally happy that I did not even candidate for a worldbuilding mod

@enderland I don't envy you having to deal with the shitstorm you are walking into

@Magisch workplace is fun to mod :D

Luckily you see it as fun

for me this situation would bee very hard nut to crack

I would be entirely unable to mod this place since I'm not very big on assuming good intent

I am continually astounded by my patience that I seem to have when it comes to here, hah

2:22 PM

I edited my answer a bit though

and removed the two suggestions that could be easily seen as unethical

I don't think the question is inherently bad, but the OP won't clarify and is playing games in the comments

frankly I've thought a ton about this question and could write a good answer

Go for it

yep

If you don't want to delete the question, having a superior answer is one of the few ways to salvage this mess.

btw great mod cleanup on the question itself

While my witty comment was deleted, I totally agree with the action

anyway, see you tomorrow

2:35 PM

@Magisch eh, good answers cannot fix crappy questions

the main thing here is we don't know the actual problem

2:56 PM

0

A: Is this question OK ? Why, why not?

I think this type of question is fine. Generally speaking. Asking a question like this is fine, but the way in which it is asked is really important. In fact, I think had this been asked in a less cryptic way it would have been a good question. But the way it was asked failed a lot of "sanity" ...

related to prior discussion, my thoughts at least

3 hours later…

5:43 PM

@PavelJanicek yeah, that (now-deleted) question removed any doubts about what's going on here, IMO. A question about how to get fired instead of quitting could be a good fit here, but this question has problems. @Magisch has said he'd delete his answer if he could (but can't because it was accepted). Should we just delete the whole thing?

@MonicaCellio Im okay with you killing the whole thing

Just my answer would be a bit counterproductive but the whole thing doesn't really need to be on here

@Magisch thanks for the feedback.

Its a convoluted mess with half the answers recommending seriously unethical stuff and nobody in there knows what exactly the OP meant

depending on which all or none of the answers could apply

Yeah. :-(

I can see mountains of salt when you delete it though

since lots of people got lots of rep from it

6:18 PM

I do not mind deleting that question but as said earlier: There will be a lot of sad users

eh. welcome to the internet - can't please everyone ;)

thanks for the welcoming. Am I at least millionth user of this website? :)

And I must say I like your style ;)

180 5

colleagues ethics feedback probation professionalism resume team

27375 according to your profile ;)

meh. So far I have been clicking on all the links claiming I won

Somewhere out there is a company that has actually figured out how to enlarge penises, and it's helpless to reach potential customers.

@PavelJanicek yeah, this is why I wanted to see what kind of community support the idea has first. :-)

6:23 PM

I would not call myself part of Workplace community

@MonicaCellio can I be the token protest vote? Not a strong or serious one, just a token.

datar... impohtant... sigh...

6:51 PM

@RichardU sure, and not looking for tokens either way -- it's a real query. Can you say anything more about the value you see in keeping it?

7:13 PM

@MonicaCellio The only reason I can see for keeping it around is as a prime example of a bad example

5 hours later…

11:47 PM

@MonicaCellio Yes, delete the whole thing. This isn't the kind of question we want to encourage (IMHO).

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