Are You Merrily Unaware That You Are Being Quiet Fired Right Now?

 

Passive aggressive sucks. Not to mention completely unethical. It means you don’t have the balls to say what you mean & mean what you say. Still, many of us resort to passive aggressive behavior rather than take life head on. Toxic organisations that have quiet fired are no exception.

Employees that have been quiet fired have been dealt a passive aggressive hand by their companies.

It reminds me of my father’s stories about the Cold War between USSR & USA. It’s a huge clash of egos & no one wins. If you still haven’t grasped what it means- quiet firing is about an organisation forcing an employee to quit by making her environment unbearable.

Companies that have quiet fired hapless employees ensures their excuses are lined up.

I’ll list out the real reasons for why these companies have quiet fired so we can spot the hypocrisy a mile away.

1. Poor company performance
The top reason to quiet fire. Yes, it often has nothing to do with you! Managements that are unwilling to own their inefficiency cut costs by quiet firing.

2. Underperformance
But trust me, more often than not this is never the real reason. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

3. Overperformance
Another shocker. Corporates resort to this tactic to get rid of exceptional employees when they can no longer support their ambitions.

4. Workplace conflicts
The predominant reason. Managers who cannot see eye to eye with an employee may quiet fire them.

5. Workplace bullying/ harassment
Toxic cultures lead to workplace bullying/ harassment/ sexual harassment. Companies sometimes quiet fire the perpetrator/ target or both to keep their clean image. Crazy that a target is unwanted, but hey that’s the imperfect world we work in!

So how do these companies mess around & quiet fire? The short of it. They kill your spirit.

The longer version, read- the signs you need to look out for if you feel you are being quiet fired:

1. They pluck the meat off the work
The crème de la crème work in your department goes to anyone but you. Of course you are capable of handling much more than arranging folders & formatting the occasional excel sheet. But they seem to go out of their way to deny you work that’s fulfilling. Infact all you’re doing in your place of work is clocking in time & wasting your potential. The obvious tactic is to frustrate the living daylights out of you so you opt to walk out.

2. You are as stagnant as a bucket of water
I mean you’ve been in the same place for too long. While you may like to boast about your designation to friends, you know you’ve been holding the tag for the last 6 years. A company does have a standard tenure most employees have to serve before they are levelled up. But if you aren’t getting promoted while your peers have, it could be a red flag.

3. Your salary is in a hare & tortoise race with inflation
Which it will never win in the current place you’re working at. Every company has an increment policy. Factors like the role, designation & organisation performance do count. Its common knowledge that vintaged employees draw salaries lesser than new recruits. But companies dole out increments to normalise salaries & placate everybody. If you haven’t heard your increment counter ring in a long time or they grossly underpay you for your role & refuse to acknowledge it, that’s a red flag.

4. They exclude you from the popular clique
A no brainer. Team lunches, office parties, offsite events, you are uninvited from the works. You feel like the weird kid in school no one wants to be seen with. It could be to push you away.

5. They keep you in the dark
You are not clued in to the latest cool project that’s taken your company by storm. Because no one told you. You aren’t a part of meetings with the senior executive team (but you should be). Watch for such repeated insults & patterns as well denial when confronted. Go with your gut feel, it normally doesn’t lie.

6. Petty (or not-so-petty) politics
No organisation is completely apolitical. People form their cliques & others are either in or out. But you are unable to find your place. You are bullied by your superior/ peers in subtle or overt ways. Your good performance makes no difference & they can’t wait to give you a shitty appraisal. You are actively blocked & tackled (like they play football with you every day) from doing your best work. Your complaints to (in) Human Resources has fallen on deaf ears. The plan may be to quite fire you with HR consent.

Hey now don’t panic.

You may not necessarily be quiet fired.

Maybe its just a toxic workplace or a toxic boss having bad days in a row. Also, there may still be time to save your job. In any case I got you covered.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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