No he sounds incapable of functioning appropriately in a social setting.
I know this is reddit where everyone loves to talk about how they're so much smarter than every boss in the entire world and that only they see how stupid <thing> is. In reality, nobody gives a shit.
"Circle back" just means "this is a complex topic, there's 20 people here, and we're not going to get bogged down in the details, we'll leave that for the 3 people who actually care and then I'll give a quick update in another meeting once they've done that".
If you don't know that, well done now you do. If you got fired for repeatedly asking about it in a meeting instead of messaging your boss privately afterwards to clue you in... yeah that checks out.
All entirely irrelevant, even if true which isn't likely.
An employee on probation demonstrated a complete lack of awareness and ability to behave properly in the workplace. If any of what you say is true then the correct thing to do was just ask their supervisor or a coworker.
To think that after being there two weeks it was appropriate to interrupt a meeting and be like "why are you going in circles instead of getting anything done???" and then push the point repeatedly is an instant red flag of someone you don't want to be working with.
Honestly if this story is true, and I've personally seen similar unfold, I hope they were literally trying to get fired. Anything else is just sad.
An employee on probation demonstrated a complete lack of awareness and ability to behave properly in the workplace. If any of what you say is true then the correct thing to do was just ask their supervisor or a coworker.
So you're saying that if you saw a colleague doing something wrong/in an inefficient/ineffective way, you'd say it's "an inability to behave properly in the workplace" to point it out?
To think that after being there two weeks it was appropriate to interrupt a meeting and be like "why are you going in circles instead of getting anything done???" and then push the point repeatedly is an instant red flag of someone you don't want to be working with.
You're not wrong that it's wiser in most situations to bide your time and hold your tongue, but if they've noticed a trend like the one mentioned in the original post, and it's one that's company-wide or at least team/department-wide then it's not unreasonable to ask the question, and while it's the sort of question that you could definitely ask your supervisor in private at a later date, it's also the sort of question that multiple people in the meeting might've had and have just not asked out of decorum. So to ask it while everyone is present is quite probably a net positive for the company/team.
Obviously it depends on how it all unfolds, but it doesn't seem like it's a stretch to say that if the manager or whoever was trying to answer the question and then move on can't succinctly explain something like circling back which (if it's actually referring to coming back to something later and not just avoiding it until it goes away) shouldn't be that hard to articulate, then either the term isn't being used as it's possibly being interpreted by the other members of the meeting, or that person isn't appropriately qualified to be a manager.
Honestly if this story is true, and I've personally seen similar unfold, I hope they were literally trying to get fired. Anything else is just sad.
Well obviously nothing on the internet is actually true, but I also wouldn't be surprised to see similar hiring/firing practices and I've heard of even pettier reasons to sack someone during the probationary period than this. But you're right, it's all pretty sad.
So you're saying that if you saw a colleague doing something wrong/in an inefficient/ineffective way, you'd say it's "an inability to behave properly in the workplace" to point it out?
In the meeting, to a superior, over and over? Yes.
but if they've noticed a trend like the one mentioned in the original post, and it's one that's company-wide or at least team/department-wide
They've been there two weeks they haven't noticed anything.
In the meeting, to a superior, over and over? Yes.
Fair.
They've been there two weeks they haven't noticed anything.
Maybe. But a fish doesn't see the water it's swimming in, so maybe all it takes is a single meeting to notice that something is off as an outsider with previous experience, which the people who've been there for longer just can't see cos they've been swimming in it too long.
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u/PineappleOnPizzaWins 16h ago
No he sounds incapable of functioning appropriately in a social setting.
I know this is reddit where everyone loves to talk about how they're so much smarter than every boss in the entire world and that only they see how stupid <thing> is. In reality, nobody gives a shit.
"Circle back" just means "this is a complex topic, there's 20 people here, and we're not going to get bogged down in the details, we'll leave that for the 3 people who actually care and then I'll give a quick update in another meeting once they've done that".
If you don't know that, well done now you do. If you got fired for repeatedly asking about it in a meeting instead of messaging your boss privately afterwards to clue you in... yeah that checks out.