What to do with a poor performing sysadmin

Generally do the needed, bring up and escalating as relevant and appropriate. And *most* of the time if done properly, also shouldn't surprise the person. But there are exceptions, e.g. if it's instafire offense, then the element of surprise may be most appropriate (along with security, full lockout, and escorted out the door). So, more generally, something roughly like: * Let 'em know they should be doing better, cite specific examples, ask 'em if they need help or whatever, also explain why the stuff is important / important to get/handle correctly, etc. * If/as it continues, let 'em know even more clearly, and if you haven't already, let 'em know will need to bring it up to manager/management if it doesn't improve * if it doesn't satisfactorily improve, clue in management, let 'em know what's going on. Have manager/management also talk to 'em or whatever manager/management wants to do. * manager/management should generally follow-through, and you should call to manager/management's attention when there are additional things you think they ought know of * can also guid manager/management on your suggestions/evaluation, e.g. when you think would be much better off letting the person go, rather than continuing to pull along the underperforming or problematic worker, etc. * ultimately it'll be manager/management's decision, but our job is to generally try and have and help things work as well as feasible, and appropriately, so, typically neither worker nor manager/management should be blindsided, and folks should know what they best ought be doing ... to improve so it's non-issue ... or manager/management removing the person so it ceases to be issue - whatever's most appropriate that can be done and at the appropriate times, and as relevant also based upon specific event(s), etc. Some semi-random (anonymized) examples from experience: * significantly underperforming contractor, well inform them they need to better, offer assistance, encourage them to ask if they've got questions, etc. ... pattern continues, no improvement, clue management in ... contract comes up for renewal, manager informs me rate is going up very substantially (I already knew what it was), and from what to what (or told me % increase), asked me if we should renew, I inform manager only marginally worth it now, certainly not worth that much higher rate - in my opinion not worth renewing - didn't renew, bye-bye contractor. * another contractor, started out pretty dang well ... but over months their work getting increasingly problematic - sloppy, late, unreliable, etc. I start when this begins happening letting 'em know about their mistakes/errors and that their works is noticeably slipping, and if there's anything I can do, or if they need assistance or information or whatever, pattern continues slipping worse, I clue management in, keeps getting worse, I update manager and recommend we don't renew contract term - contract term runs out, not renewed, bye-bye contractor. * another coworker, and alas, rather hazardous to production - not too uncommonly seriously breaking things far beyond their capability to undo their damage, and despite that they had machine and same OS on their desktop that's non-production and theirs to use and test things out on first ... but did they ever do same there first and break their desktop rather than production? No, was always the other way around, breaking production. Despite many attempts to help 'em improve, repeatedly going over that with 'em, cluing manager/management in, etc., things didn't improve, but stayed quite the same on that. But when it came time for layoffs, guess who was one of the first to be laid off? Yeah, finally ... and I think most of us were like, "Thank goodness, *finally*!" * pair of coworkers were getting into an escalating dispute (e.g. about how to manage systems and what to do and not do) ... and were doing inappropriate things to each other and on the systems. Most everybody else wasn't paying sufficient attention ... eventually one of those two complains ... manager, etc. investigates, looks at all that both were doing and terminates both of them (and alas, leaves zero sysadmins in one group that used to be running excellently and takes about four to reasonably cover - but that's another story) * coworker - not quite a work situation but ... we were I believe walking back from lunch - I think it was more than just the two of us - but probably not more than four, all same gender, coworker said some utterly horrible grossly sexist sh\*t. I basically called 'em on that and told them very clearly that they shouldn't even be *thinking* like that, let alone say something like that. What they said wasn't directed at anyone in particular, but it was quite deplorable and inappropriate. Anyway, kept my eye on things and ears open ... stuff apparently very much continued ... but I never directly witnessed it ... also those talking/whispering about what had happened weren't even saying exactly what happened ... but whole lot of folks getting majorly uncomfortable and/or quite creeped out by the person. If I'd actually witnessed something that was clearly reportable and ought be reported, or quite knew of such, I would've reported ... but mostly just heard more generally talk/whispers, with no direct witnessing nor details as to exactly what happened and had and was going on. But in any case, somebody must've reported, or maybe manager/management or HR caught on to something or something quite specific ... because highly suddenly that person got terminated so fast ... your head couldn't even spin that fast - they were booted out the door so fast I don't think it would've been speedier final exit if they'd been shot out of a cannon. * brand new contractor, day one. They screw something up ... quite significantly ... in production - their first and last day there (I think manager/management also screwed up for something like that to happen and to production that quickly, but regardless, that's how it went). * another contractor, great performer, going out of their way to well do the work ... and they messed up slightly on a minor technicality (a rather overburdensome quite frequent and rather onerous reporting requirement while handling production incidents) - not some huge deal, easy for anyone to not get it quite right ... well, they got it not quite right - even while they were in the middle of bending over backward to help manager/management and their coworkers ... manager instantly terminated 'em. Pretty crud, but, well, management wanted to continue to impress upon all how important they considered that reporting throughout production incident. Anyway, not all ideal handlings of the various scenarios ... but you hopefully get the general idea. It gets dealt with, not swept under the rug nor ignored. And generally better/best practices, are with appropriate communications/notifications, opportunities to improve, and reasonably consistent and appropriate follow-through.