Otdfbt

Brief story: I work as IT support in a bank. I am an analyst who just graduated from university and my boss is a VP

• 10-May-2019: My boss told me they will put me on an informal "performance improvement plan"(i.e. PIP) due to my recent poor performance (I did make a few small mistakes in previous months).


• 13-17 May 2019: I was sick for the whole week and clarified with my boss on PIP's expectations and measurements.


• 20-24 May 2019: I followed the plan and reported progress to my boss. She asked me some really strange questions which I couldn't answer (e.g. to recite all column names in a feed text file with nearly 50 columns)


• 27-May-2019: my boss declared improvement plan failed since I didn't make enough progress (i.e. I couldn't answer her above query)


• 27 May: I understood from HR that the next step is my boss would put me into a formal PIP with HR and this will be recorded into my P-file.


• 28-May-2019: I told my boss not to put me into formal PIP as I don't want to be recorded (PIP record may affect me during reference check). My boss agreed and asked me to tell her when I would resign.


• 29-May-2019 to 5-June-2019: I took a long leave and went for multiple interviews (I started to apply for jobs since 10 May 2019)


• 6 June 2019: my boss chased me on resignation-date. I told her I need to discuss with my family and she agreed.

I know I can't drag much longer. I either have to resign or my boss will submit me to HR for PIP. I can't sue my boss or my company since they are not doing anything illegal.

I have 2 verbal offers since the start of this week but no written offer yet. Besides, I am also interviewing with other companies. All these take time.

Can anyone advise me on what I should do now? As you can see, my boss really wants to get rid of me and this 1 week PIP is just an excuse to fire me legally.

I'm going to try to be gentle here but I think you've taken this as far as you can - you talk about your boss "wanting to get rid of" you and the PIP being an "excuse to fire" but let's be realistic here your boss has so far gone to some pretty substantial lengths to help you.

The first "PIP" wasn't formal - presumably to avoid the negative associations of having it on your record (that you acknowledge are a possiblity), you didn't improve on that so they gave you the option to resign and avoid having a firing on your employment history, they gave you the onus of when to resign and over a week later are still giving you more time to discuss it with your family! And all you can do is act as if they are persecuting you!

Unless you need to avoid resigning (say to qualify for unemployment benefits or similar) then I think you just need to resign now. You mention some verbal offers already - you only need one of those to pan out during your notice period and you're fine. It's either that or you are going to get that PIP, and a firing, and probably an ex-boss whose good will with you has run out - and you might need a bit more of that good will when it comes time to be getting references.

It's really not worth riding that horse into the ground and exhausting their good will completely for the sake of what at most is going to be another week's worth of being employed there.

The optimal path for your CV / future interviews is typically you leaving for another job, rather than you being fired or you leaving without any job lined up.

So, since you already have verbal offers, next time you meet your boss you should let them know that you are in negotiations with another company for a follow-up contract. You can ask her how flexible you can be, e.g. whether it would be okay to mutually agree on leaving faster than the notice period once you have lined up the next contract.

That way your boss knows you are actually working on leaving. For your boss it's way less hassle if you leave on your own than if she has to go through company processes to have you fired, so she might not be thaaat concerned whether it's a month earlier or later if she at least knows it's gonna happen.

This would also allow you to sweeten the deal for a future employer - in case they need you fast, you can switch quickly after signing the contract. As soon as you have a written offer and signed it, you can quit your job.

As I see, you have two choices:

• Keep stalling and end up being put into PIP (and most likely the outcome will be negative anyways, based on the previous experiences), and finally end up being terminated.




• Resign, leave gracefully and search for other opportunities.

Point to note, in current scenario, in either of the cases, you might run into the situation of staying unemployed after quitting / being let go, but in second case, you won't have PIP in your record.

You also mention that there is a notice period of one month, so at least you have got that much time to find you a new job, considering you submit your resignation letter immediately.

I'd say, your boss is actually handling the situation very gracefully and with sort of a preferential treatment towards you - you were given a chance of informal PIP, they respected your request to avoid formal PIP, they even allowed you to decide on the resignation date with two times extension period to allow you to think (and to probably find another job in the meantime) - I'd not discount that. They could have been more formal and process-oriented, if they wished. So, leave in good terms, announce the day of your resignation on the next meeting.

You need to take the final call, anyways.

Unfortunately in the world of IT you often have influences, including supervisors, who have a very limited scope of rationale when it comes to their demands - such as demanding you memorize all of the columns in a query.

Most IT Managers/Leaders understand that it is our job to break things every single day then take the figurative "hammer" and "fix it".

Getting released from a job almost insures that you cannot use them as a reference for future applications.

My advice is to hit the applications as hard as possible, do not use this position as a reference (you can always say unless I am a final candidate) - and FYI - at least in the U.S. - it is illegal for your current employer to say anything that is opinionated outside of the specific scope of your job duties.