Interesting times

Today a colleague resigned. Or that’s the official story anyway. We’ll call him L. Whether he resigned or was pushed I don’t know. He was a senior developer who started in August (I started in November), but it was obvious to me that he was struggling with the work and the job in general. Last Friday my manager had a one to one meeting with him because he’d caught him sleeping at his desk twice. He was an odd person. L told me that he left his previous job without giving any notice because it was a bad environment, and also mentioned that they used to “watch them like hawks” in case anyone fell asleep. That seemed like a strange comment at the time, which gained a lot of context in the last few days.

I had a look at his LinkedIn profile, which is detailed to the point that he documents his activities from years ago during periods of unemployment. He’s in his 60s but hasn’t held a job for longer than two years in the past ten. It’s an odd CV and actually I’m a bit surprised he was hired.

Today L finished some work (a report/document), and my manager asked to go through it with him in a meeting room. After a little while, another manager turned up and removed his coat and bag from the room.

Eventually my manager came back and announced he’d resigned. I’m not sure I believe it, but equally, if he was given a warning on Friday it would be odd if the company terminated him only two days later. It’s probably more likely that he did quit, but it doesn’t entirely add up, because it looked like he was making an extra effort yesterday and this morning. On the other hand, he was an odd guy.

I felt a bit unsettled about it anyway. I don’t know if or how it may affect me. I think I’m doing OK. I think I’m doing a lot better than he was, and he was nominally of a much more senior level than me.

I’m still on my probation period and it’s a bit unsettling for someone to suddenly disappear, but on the other hand, I’m also contractually promised a salary review after six months of employment, and their budget just got looser.

I live in interesting times.