Has anyone here ever had to fire someone? Well today was the first time I have ever had to let someone go. It was a humbling experience and frankly made me sick, but it had to be done. Seeing another human being falling apart in front of you when they are let go does not leave you feeling happy. I feel horrible, but this employee had to be let go for clocking hours they did not even work........

I know this was justified, but it has really bought me down, has anyone else had an experience like this?

Sorry for this challenge in your life today. I'm sure you had no other choice.

One last year and one the previous year.

The oldest was a black girl that was very nice but would come to work early take two lunches, and go workout in our workout area for an hour all under the clock and then sometimes would claim she didn't get a lunch to leave early. We had witnesses and timesheet that basically ended it for her. She felt "slided by a white guy." Later did I come to find out she was a member of several white hate groups.

More Recently I hired a girl who was supposed to know computers very well. Ended up finding out she did not know anything. Her husband had to help her out to burn a DVD, she was scared to punch in her security code to open the building so she would wait till someone came in and she never ever used her company blackberry (she said it was to advanced). Fired her after two months and one week. She had just bought a car and refied her house. I felt bad for about two seconds then remembered what my father used to say when he fired someone.

Pop: "Son when you fire someone don't worry about them. If they didn't fit into this job it gives them the opportunity to find someplace they will fit in and they will be much happier."

Yes. They exist. Here is a list that includes some I am aware of. Remember, minorities aren't immune to hate, it is just harder for them to "get away" with it.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_supremacy

oh yes. there are many out there. They're teaching white guilt a.k.a. "white privileged" in schools now too. White people are responsible for ALL world problems don'tcha know?

if she refied her house it was a privelige to improve the terms and she needed to do so- what a gift to have had the provided opportunity sufficient to improve, for a long time, no matter where she worked- her already financed home put into a long term improved situation! What a gift. Which will benefit her where ever she goes.
Car = meh. eh. oh well. but the home. refi- I'm glad she had the position to do so c hanging her financial position far into the future. She was lucky to have had you just the right while.

and start hiring grownup women.

That was before there was something called "lawsuits", now people can sue for just about anything.

I am probably THE manager you want to have...I will back you up, stick my neck out for you, and even care about the reason you seem to be 5 minutes late everyday---IF YOU ARE DOING YOUR JOB!

You do not need to be perfect...just try your best. I will arrange for you to be retrained (and document that you were)!

I arranged an advance in salary for a staff member of mine that could not meet his mortgage. He was an excellent example of someone who took their job seriously! He more than deserved the help I could give him.

On the other hand I had a staff member that had the nerve to give a vice-president the finger. I spent a lot of time on this fellow. I was very upfront and told him that the policy was that he got 3 chances. (Do not want to bore you with the policies and procedures...you have just been through this)!

That last fellow could not step up and do his job. The day I had to fire him (no pleasure for me!)...he actually thanked me! I was shocked! He returned at least 3 more times to my office to say "hello" when he was in the neighborhood.

I know this was hard for you, but you would not have had to do it if it was not what you had to do!!!

As you wrote, "It was justified." He created this you just had to follow directions. This is not your fault!

Take Care.

I have two people I need to fire. We caught one of our sales reps selling our competitors services to our client. He made about $20 commission. What a stupid amount to lose your job over. Stealing is stealing and he most likely has been doing it for quite some time. The other one I need to let go will not follow our sales program and has sold nothing. Our sales program is nothing done. How hard can that be?

Stealing work hours is so common.

It always brought him down. Even though they always gave someone the benefit of a doubt (they had to really deserve it), he hated doing it.

It would've been hard for me. I always loved this Cheers episode where Norm Peterson gets promoted to hatchet man. One of the funnier episodes. Anyway, maybe a little irreverent to laugh after having to fire someone but here it is just in case.
http://youtu.be/85DtKlEgayM



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/2013 05:00PM by snuckafoodberry.

Had to actually fire 2 people today and it was my first time firing anyone, let alone 2. It is by far one of the most sickening feelings I'm going through. They tried hard bit just not at the right pace and repeated mistakes. But they are still human.

I have always wanted to tell this story.

There was a lot of favoritism in the organization that I joined. The man (I am a woman), who had the job before me was there 22 years...that's not a typo.

I had charge of several departments and well over 200 people.

In one department I had the wife of another guy that worked in another department. So, I was in charge of both the husband and wife!

The dispute started over vacations. They were used to feeding one of our insane VPs because at one time they owned a restaurant but it had failed. This VP allowed the "COUPLE" to take vacation whenever they asked. This did not seem fair to me. Many of the staff that were overlooked for the prime vacation times were employed much longer and frankly worked much harder. The same VP ordered me to give them their usual vacation and I told her that I had no problem with it as long as she was willing to come to my next staff meeting and explain it to my staff! She dropped the subject, the couple did not get what they wanted...they got what they had earned.

The "wife" did something stupid. Several people wanted her fired for what she did. I knew that if she simply worked in another area she could not possibly make this error of judgment again.

I fought for her...the supervisors that reported to me were shocked. They reminded (as if I needed it...that she hated me!). I simply told them that her feelings for me had nothing to do with her job. I put her in another area and she continued her job and kept her benefits. The supervisors were flabbergasted.

I know I did the right thing. You know you did, too!!

I would be honored to work for you or have you work for me. What a class act.

Hiring is definitely more fun than firing. I always have to keep a list of steps to keep ME on track (disbelief stage - say nothing; anger stage - say nothing; sad stage - offer hankie; burgeoning stage - stay firm, don't give false hope; etc).

I think it depends on why you fire someone.

I fired two peopl for theft and did not blink an eye.

I fired two for incompetence. I was able help one find something with a different department.

The hardest was downsizing. Spent hours agonizing over that one. I was lucky I was able to work out an early retirement instead.

Try having to lay off 700 people when the military base on which we worked was closed. It was a two-year process and we worked out a system based on various factors, including time of service and performance history, so that everybody knew almost from the get-go when they would be leaving. We contracted resume building and job search seminars and coordinated with local private and government employment agencies to help find new jobs.

The challenge, in addition to managing the layoffs, was to maintain the quality of work throughout the process.

Not nearly as much fun as the process several years earlier when we won the contact and hired those folks.

I had to fire someone who worked in my sales department but had serious follow through problems. There were many complaints. She was very good at getting customers but very bad at taking care of them.

I gave her two weeks notice and was able to give a good recommendation to the new company because the fit for her talents was perfect.

OMG I had FF (firing Friday) about 6 weeks ago. I too was a virgin. I was caught in a tough spot because I'd thought she already got the word and came to clean out her stuff. Instead she was unaware (I'm her supervisor and its not my job to fire.) She came into say "hi" but was confused that I'd turned off her access to workflow. I thought she was coming to ask me why she got fired and sat "bye, f-you."

Instead I realized I had to tell her. Totally unprepared I was. I think I did alright...since its all about me, not her.

Hard for you, but you did him a favour.

Yes, several times. Several times for theft. Once for drinking on the job - he later thanked me because made him rethink his life and get help.

I had to lay off 42 people out of around 100 because of a budget cut. Picking the first 15 was pretty easy as these were the low performers, after that it was really tough. I had to let go great people because they were senior and made a lot of money because I had to decide if they were worth two junior people. Telling good people they were being let go was horrible, they cry etc… It forever changed my life and I have far less trust and loyalty to any organization which is a good thing. People have to rely on themselves. Most of the people ended up just fine except for the first 15 who continually manage to screw up their own lives.

What helped me get through it is that I am a football fan and I did it as if I was trying to field the best team possible under my salary cap. Silly perhaps but it helped with process emotionally for me.

I managed a retail specialty store. I had to fire two people. Both cases were heart breaking.

The first was a single mom. There was a dress code and the Mall also had a penalty if the store did not lift the gate within 10 minutes of opening time. This poor employed didn't have the clothing that she needed to work retail. She showed up to work in dirty sweats. She also opened the store late and we got a warning that we would be fined. One day, on my day off, I was shopping with my daughters and stopped at the store to check the numbers and found my sales associate's little girl playing in the stock room and the sales associate looked like she had just climbed out of bed. She was wearing sweats, had uncombed greasy looking hair and no makeup. This was a national chain, so I had to answer to a District Manager. I warned the clerk that she needed to wear the appropriate clothing and that I didn't care if she wore the same outfit every day as long as it met the dress code. I warned her about opening on time. I told her she could not bring her child to work with her. This was a terrible situation. This poor mom was not in a position to be a good employee. I suggested that she try to find a job at a daycare, where she could wear her sweats and take her child. I suggested that she call social services and get in to a training program with daycare. The day that Mall Security called to let me know that there was no one in the store nearly an hour after opening, I drove across town and found her in sweats just lifting the gate and I fired her.

The second person I fired was an Honor Student who had received a scholarship to Stanford. This young woman had been a part time employee when I took over management of the store. She was a great kid. A model employee. Then her life fell apart. He father and mother split up and started to fight over which one should be funding the lives of their two teenage children. My employee only worked a few after school hours each week and she started sharing her pay with her younger brother. When her car broke down, she couldn't afford to fix it. She had had the repairs done, but neither of her parents would pay, so the car remained in the shop. She started to steal from the store. She had fictitious customers return items that had never been sold (this was a chain) and then she would pocket the money. By using returns, she left a paper trail that went right back to her. I had to fire her. She was a lucky girl, in that the owner did not press charges and she didn't loose her scholarship. When I hear about parents fighting about child support, I always think of that girl.

I had to let someone go for the first time a few months ago. At one point I empathised so much that I kind of went in to shock as if It were me being fired. A few monents after I let him go, he looked at me and said "it's okay", despite the fact that I could see that he was in shock also. I had gone to HR to get permission to access information from the Security department to prove significant cheating on hours. I figured I would present him with the evidence and threaten (a valid threat) to fire him if it didn't stop. HR got a copy too and when they saw the evidence, they didn't give me that option. My only choices were for me to let him go with them present, or to have them do it without me. I figured that having them do it with out me would be the coward's path, so I did it with them present. In retrospect, HR did the right thing. I am a new manager and just couldn't stand being lied to every week when I reviewed and approved his time card. But i plead a case for him and told them i wanted to keep him (an honest error on my part). But I knew that this outcome was possible when I went to HR. Looking back, they shouldn't have had to force me to fire the guy. I should have taken ownership of that myself. If you really care about people, learning this lesson isn't easy. This guy lost a pretty good job because he thought he could get away with being gone between a quarter to half of his reported hours. Even when I caught him, he always had a good lie to present that I couldn't disporove without accessing the security logs. I honestly hope for his sake that he's learned his lesson and doesn't do the same on his next job.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/07/2013 01:25PM by azsteve.

fell out of the housing market around 1992. They couldn't keep middle managers managing staff that had temps working for the staff. Many people at all levels were laid off.

They decided that it would not be a good idea to fire people on Fridays because someone told them that people are more likely to commit suicide on Fridays. So, they fired people on Wednesdays. Not sure if their Wednesday policy held any more class than Friday firings.

There was one woman that was tasked with fire people in the division that I was hired in as a temp. When she was finished with her firing assignment, she was laid off.

The company hired temps to fill the jobs of people they were firing/laying off. I was one of them but did not know it at the time. Eventually, I received a rather nasty call from a person claiming that I had taken their job. I reported it to the supervisor and was told the story behind the firings and that temps were filling in until the work could get downsized.

I lasted 3.5 years there and then moved to another state.

Years ago I had to fire a guy who was a former Vietnam Green Beret/Special Ops guy. When I let him go he threatened to break my neck with his own two hands and put my head through the door. Fortunately our meeting was interrupted by a huge construction guy who was doing some work for me. I asked him to hang around until Mr. Green Beret left. On his way out the door though he told me to "grow a set of eyes" in the back of my head.

Mr. Green Beret guy then contacted my business partners and told them that I had been stealing funds from them for several years. My partners were no dummies though and asked him why, if he was aware of this for several years, he waited until he was fired to inform them? Haaa haaa. That pretty much shut him down.

Mr. Happy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Years ago I had to fire a guy who was a former
> Vietnam Green Beret/Special Ops guy. When I let
> him go he threatened to break my neck with his own
> two hands and put my head through the door.
> Fortunately our meeting was interrupted by a huge
> construction guy who was doing some work for me.
> I asked him to hang around until Mr. Green Beret
> left. On his way out the door though he told me
> to "grow a set of eyes" in the back of my head.
>
> Mr. Green Beret guy then contacted my business
> partners and told them that I had been stealing
> funds from them for several years. My partners
> were no dummies though and asked him why, if he
> was aware of this for several years, he waited
> until he was fired to inform them? Haaa haaa.
> That pretty much shut him down.

Glad you came out of this okay!!!

Hey Extbm1324 - I would like to apologize for being a bit of a tit on that other thread.

I'M not apologizing for my opinions and arguments but I am apologizing for my manner in expressing them. I was rude to you and I'm sorry about that.

Cheers.

It is fine spaghetti o. I do not think you are a slut shamer, and if you knew me you would know I am not sexist or that I do not have black velvet paintings.

I had to earlier this summer and it went better than I had expected. I understand there is a learning curve, but as time went on she got worse instead of better. I was loosing customers because of her and my VERY small business can't afford that. Its been better since this gal has been gone.

At one time I was hired to be an assistant in Human Resources. My superior was a member of my ward. Another lady from our ward worked in administration also. I won't go into the details why, but we had to let her go. My boss and I went together into her office and shut the door. She was not only in my ward, but she had also become a friend. Years later, we're all still in the same ward, and are friendly again. But, it was hard for a long time.