Well, here we go again. Once more, I am told that I am a joy to work with, and do such a good job. Such a good job, that I have to go. Go on, you're "let go", like I've been paroled from prison.
In this case, we have a project where the original developer was burned out and quit in frustration, but not before writing a ridiculously low estimate. The shop goes entirely off the direct-bill, hourly model: you're only okay so long as at least 37 hours of your 40 can be charged to someone else. When Project Lowball runs out of hours, you're hosed. Carry forward the sins of the last person, and dump them on the next.
This also happened to a friend of mine: he went to a shop of 100% billability. They told him they'd give him his first billable project next week, but first they needed him to help them configure some in-house stuff. He believed them until he saw his first 2-week paycheck. They paid him for the Thursday and Friday of week two where he'd started working on a project, but the week and a half they had him working on their architecture, he didn't get paid for. When he quit, his supervisor actually blew up on him, yelling about what a "traitor" he was and telling him the company would sue.
That's the big thing--my (now former) company tells its ex-employees they'll be sued, too. As does another company I know of. All of them see people as "a drop in the bucket. If we don't fill it up fast enough, dump it out and go back to the ocean for more." And they know that as a business, they have to pay for lawyers, while the average person doesn't. I had strange voice-mails and e-mails contradicting the "you don't have to go home, but you can't work here" conversation I'd had. These are documented things, and they're designed for lawyers to use against you when they draft the threatening letter reminding you what a bad person you are.
Strangest of all was being told I'm fired because they can't afford to pay me when I'm not billable...then wanting to know if I was planning on working for two more weeks on the project.
It's good for morale if you tell your employees that the guy that left is going to be sued: it instantly turns a good person into a bad one. Damn, he must have been stealing, doing coke, and having sex in the conference room if my boss says they're going to court. People will easily believe bad things about others because that's what they're used to: it confirms the general cynicism that comes from being an adult.
About that bucket: are those drops water? Or blood? Time will tell...
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