It's never fun....for either side, both were justified but that look on their face....knowing you changed their life is a kick in the gut.

On one it literally was my 2nd day meeting him......took him and his team to dinner last night.......sucks

And people ask why I am not more socialable witb my employees....

My wife did one yesterday, different company, " she was so understanding, told I was a great boss"...."that made it worse"

There's a huge difference in having to let someone go due to downsizing or business losses. It's quite another due to incompetence, inability to get along with coworkers, repeated lack of meeting agreed upon goals, malfeasance, etc.

I never had a problem with the later but certainly did with the former.

Its never easy.

I try and give them enough rope, I figure I haven't fired anyone, they fired themselves. Its still not easy, you know you are messing up someone's life.

quote:

There's a huge difference in having to let someone go due to downsizing or business losses

The current buzzword is Modernization.

I have no problem with it...its business but it does affect me .....

But I have been RIF'ed, I knew it was coming so I worked remote that day.....still it threw our life into a mess for 2 years....it worked out....better possibly....still .....it sucked


And even since one electronically stalked me.....sent an email to the CEO on down accusing me of everything but working with OBL ....and posting under a fake name on Linkedin I am a little nervous


Its actually easy when they are an asshole....today the resource just looked as though I proved the world was flat.....

quote:

Originally posted by Lord Vaalic:
Its never easy.

I try and give them enough rope, I figure I haven't fired anyone, they fired themselves. Its still not easy, you know you are messing up someone's life.

Exactly....both did it to themselves......and the first, a kid, if he cleans up his act I might hire him again.

I've had to do it plenty of times. I've had grown men cry, scream at me and some have just accepted it and moved on.

It's never easy, but every one was deserved; whether for time/attendance, insubordination or safety issues.

Hopefully your cyber stalker will leave you alone dewhorse.

Only fired people due to performance, those are no problem for me, they get plenty of warning. Firing someone due to RIF/Layoffs has to be painful.

Not long before I retired the company I was working for decided to do a RIF for the first time in its history. My group was in government contracting, doing tech manual development for nuke attack boats.

Had contracts signed and funded to cover my department for 3 years.

Personnel decided that the RIF had to hit every department, regardless of funding, contracts, etc.

Told me I had to RIF 5 people.

Senior management lacked the balls to stand up to HR and tell to fuck off.

So, after a bloody battle, which I lost, I had to lay them off.

I went on a road trip and found jobs for 3 of the 5 in another company division within driving distance.

Not enough time to get deals lined up for the remaining 2 guys, but had contact info for them.

Both decided to just retire as they had enough time.

Still hurt, a loooooooooot! when I had to let them go.

I don't know how well the delivery schedule for my contract worked out as I decided I had had enough bullshit from fucking bean counters and retired, too.

For the first time in over 15 years I am no longer in management by my choice and career change. Unfortunately, I have had to fire a lot of people in my time. I have worked for bosses who seemed to take extreme pleasure in firing people. To me I have always taken it very serious as you are affecting a person’s life when you have to let them go for any reason. If they messed up then it is on them. I had problems at my last job because I refused to fire some people because people well above just did not like the people and wanted me to fire them, but I refused. I told them there needed to be just cause and a history of documentation. Needless to say, they made my life hell and I had to change jobs. I am sure I will go into management again, but right now I just enjoy being a worker bee.

I've done the background investigations that lead to the termination of employees for various reasons. all of whom have deserved it. some were easy. a couple were tough. more of the "you're a good worker and a good human - why the hell did you do (stupid terminable offense)" type hard.

I've had people thank me and tell me it was a relief. Others, I've helped them find where their skills and talents lie and helped them find other jobs. One threatened my life and another swung on me. Go figure.

This opens a lot of loose ends. While I can't say I enjoyed it, I was really relieved that I wouldn't need to put up with some peoples shit if I got rid of them.

But what I've found is the best workers, the ones most creative or who will jump in and work a ton of overtime also can be kind of edgy. Not really hard to get along with, but they're also unwilling to put up with any shit. Often those you may have just cause to terminate, but you don't want to because you'll be stuck with covering the vacancy when they leave.

Luckily for about 15 of the last 30 years we were kind of managed by a jerk that loved to fire others. He like having the power over them and exercising it. I didn't work for him and one time he even decided to fire me. The owner of the company got wind of it and told the guy that everyone here worked for him. Some more than others and everyone knew who they were. I was lucky because I did a lot of things not covered by my job title. The outcome of a meeting with a lot of yelling and shouting was the I in no way worked for the jerk, but I was still employed by the owner. It made my job into a dream job.

An example was I got to take off at noon on Friday of gunshows. The owner liked gunshows. God help anyone who complained. He also liked guns (go figure). One of his grandsons worked for us - sort of and I got along great with him.

An example of how good things were was one day he brought in an old 1911. He plunked it down on my desk and said it needs cleaning. Being a sarcastic jerk, I asked him who he shot. He like that. But said it had just been too long since he cleaned. And on his way back to his office he stuck his head into his grandsons office and told him I needed help. He was afraid I didn't know how to field strip it but would be embarrassed to admit it. I did know how and taught his grandson how. So we had the poor old 1911 (Camp Perry) all apart on a desk blotter and in walked our sorry excuse for a personnel person. She looked, screamed and ran out.

Then they had a meeting of liberal assholes and went to the owner with their concerns. It was a credit to him that he even listened. Then he explained to them how the company was organized. He owned it. No bank loans or no body to report to. He even told them he wouldn't expect them to clean a gun for him. Not because of their feelings but because he knew none of them knew how! He ended by telling them if it upset them, they could have the afternoon off to go job seeking.

He was old at that time, late 80s. So he followed them out of his office and stuck his head into mine and told us to take our time, he wanted it well done. Then he smelled the WD and told us it wasn't lube. We replied we knew, but we preferred using it to clean instead of just using CLP alone. His response was a classic. He old us he didn't believe in telling people how to do a job if it looked like they knew how.

Job security can come in many forms. Doing favors for the owner kind of locks you in if you aren't fucking up someplace else.

I have had to fire a few people over the years and it is never easy (except for the one person who made it impossible to not enjoy it because they were so shitty).

The absolute worst I ever had to do was one of my first management/director jobs. I was pretty young...very much "up and coming" in my market and was woo'd away by a headhunter to go into another compnay that really needed help. After numerous interviews I accepted knowing I was replacing a long term manager who was making some huge mistakes but even worse, was on the take with vendors. My first day of work, I show up early and as the GM was not in yet I sarted to head to my new office to drop off my stuff when I was intercepted by the GM's admin. I was told to go to GM's office and wait onyl to discuover 45 minutes later that no one got around to firing the current guy and that would be my first job except they didnt want him fired...I wss forced to demote him to my assitant so he would quit. It was incredble awkward and he finally told me that he knew it wasnt my faukt but he would not quit so the only way to et him out was to terminate, which I did. After about 6 months I realized that was about normal for the way this place treated people and moved on.

I learned long ago that you never fire people, they fire themselves.

I have always worked at big corporations. There are always one or two people I would love to fire at any given time. There is no reason to put up with incredibly poor workers with bad attitudes when there are plenty of other people that would be willing to do the job right. I am amazed every day how some "professional" people cannot follow the simplest instructions or go out of their way to do as little as possible. They would get no sympathy from me.

quote:

I learned long ago that you never fire people, they fire themselves.

In most cases yes, but what about downsizing or the latest corporate term, modernization?

I had to sit in on monthly meetings between the head commercial guy and each of his area heads.

They would talk about sales projections, campaigns, and costs. If some targets were being missed, there would be drill downs as to why. When it came down to it, people were just a resource just like advertisement dollars, etc. It was only business to them; there weren't any glee or sadness. But it was nonchallant (not that I'm blaming them) how decisions were made that affected some unsuspecting souls come the morrow or the next day.

On the other hand, this company is a stellar performer in terms of the stock market and dividend payments in over 100 years. I'm glad I own their stock but it was rough being owned by them as an employee.

I have empathy for anyone fired. But, at the same time, I wish that management would fire some people right now. One in particular. Or reassign him. It is obvious that this one person cannot do this job.

It's just so challenging to fire people these days.