Episode 120: Layoff Decisions and Overworking Peers

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

How do managers make firing decision during company wide cuts? Recently our company went through spending cuts and x percentage of people were laid off as part of this exercise. On one fateful day, our manager informed us that he let go John Doe as he had to fire someone. Overall John Doe was a decent senior developer and was with the company for 10 plus years. My gut feeling is that he was let go because he simply didn’t (or couldn’t) move to management and was too old for a developer position. Does ageism play a role when a firing decision has to be made based on non-performance reasons?

I’m in my early 30s, I have a spouse and a small child, and work remotely as a software engineer. One of my peers, let’s call him James, is about 10 years younger than me, works on-site, and is single. He’s a good developer and really friendly. The problem I have with him is that this job is his life. It isn’t uncommon for James to work 14 hour days (including weekends sometimes), submitting code for review at midnight, then back in to work bright and early the next day. This is not at all encouraged at my company. Most everyone comes in at 9 and leaves at 6. I feel a little bad for James because I get the sense that he’s lonely, and doesn’t have much going for him outside of work.

However, it’s frustrating working with a peer who puts in way more time at work when my home life literally makes that level of dedication impossible. James receives a lot of praise for the hard problems he works on after-hours. I know my performance is fine and I don’t need the praise per se, but it’s frustrating to feel that I’m going to be compared to him informally by my co-workers in terms of what we get done, and formally, as promotion opportunities come up. I honestly wish someone in management would ask him not to work after-hours, but that’s probably not going to happen. Thoughts on how to handle this?