Had to fire somone today

[pinkytoe]

Although it was my supervisor's call, I had to be involved in firing a 50yr old man who had worked for my organization for just under six months. She and a few others felt he was not a good fit. It was the most unpleasant thing I have done in a long time. Knowing he has to go home and tell his wife he has lost another job...He was shocked and I could tell very upset. So hard...

[KayLR]

Man, that sucks big time.

[CathyA]

Bummer......... Must have made you sad. I know it would have me.

[SteveinMN]

Having to fire someone was one of the worst experiences of my life.

Everybody feels like $&*@ afterward -- the fired for obvious reasons, the remaining for having had to do it and implicitly acknowledging that the organization did a bad job in hiring.

Think of it as releasing this guy to achieve success elsewhere. You just knew it was very unlikely for him at your workplace.

[catherine]

pinkytoe, your experience mirrors mine.. my boss didn't like an analyst who was hired to work for me--I was fine with her, after she underwent a performance improvement plan. He still felt we needed to fire her and I had the job of doing it. Nothing worse than having to fire someone when you disagree with the action.

I actually quit my job the next day.. for a few reasons, but this was an example of the main one.

So sorry.. but trust that he will move on and find a position works better for him.

[bae]

Think of it as releasing this guy to achieve success elsewhere. You just knew it was very unlikely for him at your workplace.

I used to have to fire a great many people. I had a special group in my department, which was called "The Island of Misfit Toys" - it was made up of people who just weren't working out elsewhere in the company. Since we had spent a great deal of effort recruiting and training these people, simply firing them was a poor plan, so they were assigned to my special group to see if I could find *something* they could do well, or reform them in some useful fashion. We had a pretty high success rate in that group, and some of our best work came out of them, some people just don't handle traditional organizations all that well.

However, some of them even in this situation couldn't make the cut. And my job was to fire them.

At first, I was a bit depressed by this. Eventually I came to realize that I was doing them, and us, a great favor by getting them out of a situation in which they would not be happy or successful. People know when things are bad, and it is no good for their long-term health and career to tough it out in a failing situation. I went a step further, and spent time working with people I was going to fire to figure out what they *could* do well, elsewhere, and helped them find those jobs, and recruiters to place them. Some of those folks I ended up hiring back after a few years when they'd worked out whatever their problem was.

Now, sometimes you had to fire a person because they were outrageous in their conduct, and that's a different thing entirely.

[puglogic]

Sorry, pinkytoe. In my previous corporate life, I had to fire two employees -- and actually hover over them while they packed their desks and walk them out, while they cried -- and it was traumatic. Both, however, went on to much better positions where they were FAR happier, fit in better, and made more money than they had been for my company. I hope it's the same for your guy there.

[herbgeek]

I've had to fire a few employees, and every one has been just awful for me. Although even worse were the layoffs, where there wasn't even a performance issue, just a matter of the numbers and I had to decide who had to go. One time it was the most recently hired, even though I thought long term she would have likely been a better performer than some people I kept, but at the time she was adding the least amount of value. Just yuck all around.

[pinkytoe]

and actually hover over them while they packed their desks and walk them out
Yes, this was my role in the whole process. My supervisor said I had the least threatening personality so I would be the best choice for the final parting. He was visibly upset and I had to remind him not to forget the photo of his wife on the wall. I just don't understand why it has to be such a cold process, ie as if the employee has done something wrong. I keep thinking I should send him an email and wish him well but I guess that is not the protocol to follow. Once gone, that's it:(

[Float On]

That was always my least favorite thing to do when I was in banking management.

[Tammy]

It's my opinion that the person making the decision should be the person doing the firing. Not how the worlds works, i know, and probably one reason i stay where i'm at in my work and don't want to promote.

[Miss Cellane]

I went through something similar this week. My company hires large groups of temporary workers to work on projects lasting a week to a month. We have a lot of "steady" temps--people who work for us whenever there's a project on. Mostly, they are retirees who like to get out of the house or earn a little extra cash or freelancers who like to have more than one income stream. It's skilled work in that it requires a college degree and usually some expertise in a specific field.

This new project, we had one man with whom I've worked before. He's a retired college professor. He doesn't get as much work done as most, but his work is very accurate and that's more important than speed. But something just didn't click with this project--he had trouble with the actual work, the computer software and the paperwork. I spent an extra two hours with him on two separate days, trying to figure out what the problem was, but I just couldn't help. In fact, at one point, I think I just confused him more.

Fortunately for me, the project manager was the one who had to give him the bad news, even though I was the one to make the call--backed up by someone else who had observed him. I just had to help him with his time card and see him out of the building.

He will be asked back for other projects, just not this one. But I hardly got any sleep the night before I had to make the call--he's a nice guy, it's not his fault he couldn't grasp what was going on, he does great work on other projects.

But he had to go. I have 5 other people I'm supervising for the project and I have to have some of my time free to answer their questions, double-check their work, and get my own work done. He was absorbing 50% of my time, but not producing anything. To let him stay would have meant that the other workers would have been shortchanged, and I would have been doing a lot of overtime to complete my part of the project on time.

But I hated doing it all the same.