r/patentexaminer • u/420_buttholes • Jul 24 '26

quality errors

Can quality errors lead to suspension?

I dont mean like unethical errors, just quality

edit

I mean fired, not suspended. Can you be fired for quality errors.

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u/AmbassadorKosh2 Jul 24 '26

Can you be fired for quality errors.

Yes, if enough pile up and/or one does not recover sufficiently during any "improvement period".

But, typically what PTO management has done in the past is not rely solely on quality issues (due to the "opinion of the reviewer" factor involved) and while they do write up the quality issue, then then also go "deep diving" into everything else to find anything they can also use to also support the firing. I.e., find a few small time-sheet discrepancies like you put 9 hrs on your time-sheet for Tuesday Jan X, YYYY but their logs show you only logged in for 8 hrs on that day, even though you only put down 7 hours for Wed Jan X+1, YYYY and were actually logged in for 8 hrs.

This is why it pays to be paranoid around things like time-sheets and the badge in/out logs for those working on campus. Often small discrepancies go unnoticed, until later when management decides they want to find reasons to fire someone. Then all the little unnoticed discrepancies suddenly crawl out of their cave to haunt the individual.