You cannot be, I know, nor do I wish to see you an inactive Spectator . . . If we expect to inherit the blessings of our Fathers, we should return a little more to their primitive Simplicity of Manners, and not sink into inglorious ease.
We have too many high sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them.
— Abigail Adams, 16 October 1774
Note: As you’ll find in the image of the letter to executives below.
I contacted HR to raise a code-of-conduct complaint against one of Ecolab’s best, and I was mysteriously fired a month later. I hold no ill-will against my managers — especially since they didn’t support my ouster. Who pulled the plug and why is unclear to me. I sure didn’t see this coming from what I witnessed in week one.
When I started as a contractor in [March] 2023, 3 days into the job I was asked if there was any way we could meet their deadline, to which I replied:
Let me talk to the BA and we’ll see
She had never done a digital whiteboard before, but she accommodated my request and I had everything I needed in no time. Rather than wait until Monday to tell management the good news about what could be done, I just went and did it. But my role in that success is secondary to the person who provided the information in a manner outside their comfort zone.
That I never saw such openness in her again is one thing. That she became increasingly hostile toward me (and that this behavior was tolerated by leadership for months) — is something else entirely. Things started to fall apart after an email I sent to management two days before Christmas, in which I wrote:
Proper allocation of resources is in everybody’s best interest
Had that happened early on or somewhere along the way — it would have changed the course of all that followed. I am not without blame, as the link below will explain. But no one else would have gone so far to rectify the situation: Driving improvements in our processes by implementing an issue-tracking system, retooling our design and development, and putting automation in place on multiple fronts (much of which was on my own time).
On a project of this magnitude, fluid communication between key resources is imperative (all the more so when we’re an ocean away). The overlap in time zones should be capitalized to the fullest so that we maintain some sense of rhythm. As it was, what could be cleared up in 5 minutes on the phone could take 5 days in emails. In some cases, I never got the answers I needed — but I kept moving with what I had. Despite having to decipher her 28-page document with no help, I automated 4 hours of work to as many minutes. And still, she complained.
Two weeks later, not a word from HR (with things worsening by the day). She refused to touch even the tiniest of tasks if not formatted to her liking. At the very least, take a look tonight and we’ll talk about it tomorrow — so we can keep moving.
I would have made her better. Ecolab made her worse.
Though the bridge between the band would become the culprit in question, she was exceptional within her wheelhouse. How she behaved outside of it is how this saga all started (which was avoidable with better decisions by all parties involved). Despite how it went off the rails — you’ve got some dedicated people who deserved a helluva lot better than the fiasco that follows.
However it ended up, this image is in memory of all the good they give (including her).
All that aside . . .
I wouldn’t give you two cents for all your fancy rules if, behind them, they didn’t have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness and a — a little lookin’ out for the other fella, too . . .
— Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
On the image above, ECOLAB looks like a lovely place to work. On a lot of levels, it is. I spent many a morning marveling at how this team of subject matter experts could be so on the ball at 6:00 AM. My job was a cake walk compared to theirs. But since all their efforts flowed through mine — it seems a bit more importance should have been placed on our processes.
It was the easiest thing to get right — and we got it wrong right out of the gate.
Why would a company hire expertise and then hamstring his abilities by catering to a colleague with limited skills in that area? To get this project off the ground in a rush, it was the right call for the BA to crank out code in ways I couldn’t. But to meet the urgency of the moment, we built bad practices into our database design, and what’s worse — we kept doing it.
A younger version of me would have been appalled by the piecemeal approach in which we slapped this stuff together (so I share some blame in how this happened). But by the end of the year, I’d had enough — it was time to right this ship (and make amends for my part in its listing). As I wrote in the opening line of my email Some End-of-Year Thoughts:
Regardless of what I have to share, every mistake I made this year was avoidable and my responsibility. . . . I cannot overstress that ECOLAB’s mistakes do not absolve me of mine, but going forward we need to take a hard look at how we’re doing things on this end.
Much to my delight, Manager2 was quite welcoming of what I had to say in my Christmas gift. This guy’s as good as it gets in setting the mood in seconds. He called me shortly after that email and immediately put me at ease.
That — is class!
Note: Manager1 hired me and Manager2 is in charge of the project.
The main point to me is that [the players] have to be coordinated, and the 10 people have to support what that 11th guy is doing, and vice versa. . . .
The only way that can happen is for there to be discipline, for everyone to be disciplined enough to do their job, knowing the guy beside him is doing his, too, so that you can count on him and he can count on you, and go right down the line.
— Bill Belichick
Coaching a subordinate would be a walk in the park for my managers, but she doesn’t work for them — and therein lies the rub. Even without authority over her, if you’re in a managerial capacity and you see an increasingly problematic issue in your purview, you’ve gotta find a way.
But what was in their way is what interests me most.
I’m not excusing their failure to resolve the situation, but it’s only fair to understand all sides of the story. What they did right vastly outweighs where they went wrong — so it’s grossly unfair for this to taint their fine work (under a degree of pressure & responsibility I couldn’t handle and wouldn’t want to).
And let’s face it — they never should have had to deal with this drama in the first place. They had bigger and better things to do, and so did we. Wherever they dropped the ball on a bit of planning in our processes, she and I should have picked it up. Eventually, I’d be moving on — but she’d remain (with a record of impressing the hell out of everyone had she followed my lead). I would have trained her right out of my own job if I could — so how much she wanted to grow was entirely up to her.
I will be happy to teach her everything I can, but she’s not had time to advance her SQL skills much (so she’s mainly relied on her experience from Access). As my career revolved around Access in the early years, I completely understand that (and I still respect that tool). But part of the purpose of going to another platform like SQL Server is to harness the advantages that come with it — and we haven’t come anywhere close to doing that.
But she was having none of it . . .
All the while participating only to the extent of her limited SQL skills (which were capable of much more than her hermetically sealed M.O.). She’d blow her whole morning before she’d add a column to keep moving. My mindset doesn’t compute the Charmin-soft standards of today — as this is more my sentiment:
Step up your game or get out of the way!
Even if she didn’t want to participate outside the confines of her cage: The far-bigger problem is her complete lack of effort in taking an active interest in the needs on my end. That initiative alone would have fostered communication and a better understanding of what I’m trying to do:
And how we can help each other & ECOLAB at large.
To be sure, I should have done some things better from the beginning (just as we all should have). But that’s the past — it’s time to get busy on the present and how we pave the way for the future. But she was having none of it. No matter how many times I went out of my way for her — she never responded in kind.
How I would love to work for people who think like this leader below (though in no way am I implying that the BA falls into the second sentence — and I know she works hard).
If you come here, you are going to need to want to be pushed, to be challenged, to work. If you are here to collect a paycheck, or to show up, don’t come.
— Ric Elias, CEO of Red Ventures
Despite constant resistance and barely any help from management in handling her intransigence — we still were making major strides (and well on our way to a well-oiled machine even without fixing the engine under the hood). I offered ideas for short and long-term solutions to fix those problems:
But it seems the more I had to say, the more of a burden I became.
Predictably — not a peep!
By the way, that manager and I are friends to this day. He didn’t dismiss my concerns — he respected my challenge and openly said so to the team. We had a free-flowing dialogue then got right back to work. See how easy that is? When it comes to my experience at ECOLAB and the aftermath of reporting my concerns: You wildly overcomplicated even the most fundamental of matters.
As explained in We’ve never developed four deployments in parallel — but we just did:
Yet the expectation was as if we were doing one.
Please hear me out as I show you how that expectation could be a reasonable one (and solve all kinds of problems to boot). I’m in a great mood and after I send this, I’m gonna go right back to doing what I’m asked to do. But it’s in ECOLAB’s best interest to adopt at least the bare-minimum option below (which is simple and could be turned around in a few days):
On the surface, some minor structural changes and a few new files seems straightforward (and it should be). But we didn’t design for scalability—we designed to meet [her] skillset (which was fine to get things off the ground, but all development after APW2 should have been in my hands). With a more sophisticated approach, we would have created simplicity: So accommodating the needs of each deployment would have been a breeze.
But we designed to meet [her] needs (thereby creating complexity through overlap and duplication).
Please hear me out . . .
That I felt the compelled to say, “please” to promote ideas should speak volumes (not to mention that my mood should have nothing to do with it). By the way, I finished that email before I was fired and sent it anyway (offering my assistance with grace):
As for HR . . .
Two weeks later and you’re still working out what to do?
I’m not sure how much more I could have done to impress upon you the urgency of the situation. Why not handle it in stages? Even without reading all the emails, you could pick up the gist pretty quickly then meet with her manager to get her update to speed. Now, this person has authority — so why not exercise it? By all means, set up another meeting with all immediate parties involved — but until then, try this on for size:
We’ve been informed of a complaint about your ongoing behavior. We’re investigating it further and will contact you for discussion at the appropriate time. For now: Knock it off, get on the phone with this guy, and get to work
ECOLAB had other ideas . . .
Incredibly, you needed another 2 weeks — for what seems like a summit meeting for something that should have been tightly contained.
I made it clear that I didn’t want to harm her career. So I’m not just bothered by word getting out because of what happened to me. I don’t like the additional weight of negative impact on her and my managers as well. Jesus, she just needed a good kick in in the ass — and you people blew this whole thing out of proportion.
So what you deem as careful consideration — was sloppily handled in my eyes.
I’m keenly aware that I have no protections as a contractor.
But when I contacted HR for help — I was under the impression that their efforts would reflect something in the realm of What Real Leadership Looks Like:
When you said you’d have an update for me, booting me out the door is not what I had in mind. But it’s all par for the course — including the asinine decision to pull the plug before you even bothered to protect your investment:
Stopping deployments dead in their tracks.
You’ve got a Java programmer who picked up my kind of work pretty well in just a short time of training her months ago. Granted, it was pretty simple stuff as an introduction — but she’d had already built on what I showed her (and pretty impressively, I would add). With just 2-3 days of guiding her along — you’d be in good hands to keep the lights on until you got another developer in my domain:
But you might not even need one — as she’s pretty sharp.
Moreover, she could have contacted me anytime — and I’d do what I could to help her out. So just by thinking it through and knowing the integrity of the person you’re dealing with — you’d make the smart move and reap the rewards:
Keeping the lights on, eliminating the burden, elevating her skills, and in so doing — possibly save a bunch of money to boot.
Once again . . .
Even with all the obstacles in the way and atmosphere of apathy on my input: It was demonstrably clear that things were greatly improving from one deployment to the next. I just needed a little more time to tie up loose ends — and a modicum of courtesy and understanding would have been appreciated
By the way, this notion of “self-validation” had gotten totally out of hand.
Naturally, she didn’t have time to assist on that or anything else I asked her to do (and management catered to her complaints, as always). I’ve never seen anyone spend so much time complaining while citing concerns about efficiency. I know a little somethin’ about efficiency — and that ain’t it! I once turned around a project in 3 days that took someone else 3 months. I relay that story in The Cut of Your Jib — where I showed that guy some grace despite getting none.
It’s under the Listening, Learning & Empathizing menu for a reason.
Lara walked along the tracks following a path worn by pilgrims and then turned into the fields. Here she stopped and, closing her eyes, took a deep breath of the flower-scented air of the broad expanse around her. It was dearer to her than her kin, better than a lover, wiser than a book. For a moment she rediscovered the purpose of her life.
She was here on earth to grasp the meaning of its wild enchantment and to call each thing by its right name, or, if this were not within her power, to give birth out of love for life to successors who would do it in her place.
― Doctor Zhivago (referenced in Into the Wild)
In the spirit of discovery that clarity, curiosity, and courage can inspire:
