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Antiwork

Employees let go for bad metrics that turned out to be miscalculated by managers

In my department, the managers are required to calculate our monthly production and quality averages and deliver these to the higher-ups. About a month ago, a few people were laid off for not meeting the quota. The decisions are made by the higher-ups — managers just act as middlemen and deliver the numbers up, and, eventually, the bad news down. This week, I got my metrics in an email, along with a reminder of what the expectations are… and that I’m not meeting them. I keep very diligent records of my work, mostly just because it’s repetitive and I often need to reuse what I’ve submitted before. What management sent me was way off from what I had in my own records, and I showed them as much. They said they’d look into it. A few days passed and I got a follow-up email, and lo and behold, my numbers…


In my department, the managers are required to calculate our monthly production and quality averages and deliver these to the higher-ups. About a month ago, a few people were laid off for not meeting the quota. The decisions are made by the higher-ups — managers just act as middlemen and deliver the numbers up, and, eventually, the bad news down.

This week, I got my metrics in an email, along with a reminder of what the expectations are… and that I’m not meeting them. I keep very diligent records of my work, mostly just because it’s repetitive and I often need to reuse what I’ve submitted before. What management sent me was way off from what I had in my own records, and I showed them as much. They said they’d look into it. A few days passed and I got a follow-up email, and lo and behold, my numbers were accurate and theirs weren’t. I asked a few of my coworkers and they said they all experienced the same thing.

Problem is, the managers delegated this to an admin assistant and never bothered to double check the calculations. So they unknowingly sent these false reports up to the big bosses, causing several people to be dismissed (without notice).

Naturally, the managers won’t admit their mistake, and the people who were fired won’t be asked to return. Worst of all, if any of this comes to light, the admin (a kid barely out of college) will take the fall, even though I figured out that this person was most likely given the wrong data in the first place.

Is there any recourse, or is this just one more thing we’ll be forced to swallow and deal with?

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