I have a question. I recalled an event that occurred back when I was in Fidelity, a couple of months before I got laid off. I feel like I was being PIPed, but wasn’t sure if I was PIPed. I wanted to ask what a PIP is really like at Fidelity, whether I was really PIPed or just thrown into a weird situation, or a mix of both.
I had a stretch where I wasn’t doing too hot at the firm at the time this happened. My personal life was terrible, and bled into my work life. I wasn’t meeting standards at the time. Frankly, the role I was in was asking for a tech lead, and I was nowhere near close to that. There wasn’t even really any onboarding process to the team. I don’t know how I was placed in that role to this day. My previous manager and I would have conversations where they said “we’re going to move you to a new team, and get you out of a really bad situation.” But now, I just had my second reorg in 3 months, so now I had yet another manager unfamiliar with me, who was taking over me and other engineers to start Q1 of the year. Still, I took accountability for my own performance.
This stretch with my home life began a few days before I met this new manager. We met regularly, talked about work I’m doing, etc. I was honest that I was struggling, but never told them what’s happening in my home life. During quarterly meeting, I saw them in a closed Fidelity office. They looked almost emotionless. Suddenly, I was getting ripped about my performance. I knew it was coming, I didn’t speak during a lot of the scolding because I knew I wasn’t doing good, and held myself accountable. I wasn’t afraid of holding myself to a better standard and wanting to be better. I just lacked the bandwidth at the time.
Then, this manager asked me to sign something. I wasn’t sure what they were asking me to sign, all they said was “you need to sign this on Workday, right in front of me on camera”. I felt weird. I knew something was going on. I asked the manager to tell me what I would be signing. The manager said “just sign it”. Our conversation became me asking them “what happens when I sign the form”, and them just telling me “sign it” for about 10 minutes. Sometimes, I became a little bit hysterical in the conversation, I think they knew I knew something was going on. The manager would sometimes get silent in the call, I saw anxiety in their face. All I knew was that this manager was straight up honest with me for the entirely quarterly meeting, never afraid to speak their mind, up until this point in the conversation. I hate to say it but I gave in and signed the form. They said thank you, geared up to leave for personal leave for about a month and a half, and said we’d talk once they were back.
It’s not like this new manager I had was poor. In fact, they helped out by giving me resources. I took advantage of those resources they gave me, and the performance was like a difference between night and day. I went from performing like IP to EP in under a month. Didn’t matter, though, I got laid off anyway.
The layoff itself was messy. I began delivering work that was high above my grade level. My team lead and I spoke about how well I was doing, and that they and the whole team were proud of this work I was doing. A week later, the VP of tech called me in for a personal conversation to inform me I was laid off. The VP told me I could talk to my manager about any questions, but my manager was OOO until late into my last week at the firm.
I think that new manager I had is a very kind person, who knows how to hold people accountably, but when an uncomfortable conversation happened, they didn't operate best. They were also working with incomplete information about me. I was just in a situation where my BU reorged me multiple times, I was the only one in my product area located in my office, so they didn’t know me like everyone else under them. I was flustered with home life, and this manager did not know me well. This was the first manager that I did not share my home life situation with. A manager can try to help out as much as they can, but it’s on an employee to do what they need to do with that help. Although they’re people like us, they say you can’t trust a Fidelity manager.
When I informed my new manager about how my old manager planned to place me on a new team, you could tell they were confused or was not informed of the ideal change because their eyebrow raised. That made me think somebody in management dropped the ball in communication with this new manager about what plans were for me. Didn’t matter at that point, I was already almost out the door. I had an idea of why I got laid off, I just wasn’t sure if I was formally PIPed. I asked my manager if I accomplished everything they asked me to sign in our conversation, they said I “went above and beyond”.
In my case, I wasn’t sure if I could say this was the first time I was PIPed. Goals were laid out for me to accomplish. It wasn’t like they were unattainable - I was already on a team that was kicking my butt since they needed someone who was a tech lead. But then I started performing really well. I used the resources my manager gave me, I thought everything was gonna be better. Plus, if you’re on a PIP, wouldn’t you just be offered an ultimatum to leave, anyway?
Also, what does it mean if a manager asks you to sign something on Workday? I still speak with Fidelity managers and HR regularly, even though I left a while ago. If I needed a job, I’m not sure if they’d see something on my record that’d prevent me from working there again.
Thanks to whoever read this!