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It is not fun firing someone.

D1gger

D1gger

Diamond Member
We see threads on this board from people laid off due the economy and some let go for bullshit reasons, but it is rare we see a thread from the other side of the desk.

I had to fire an employee today that has worked for us for about five years. It is not the first time I had to do it but it is never easy. He provided janitorial services for one of our commecial rental properties, and our tenant has been complaining that the work just wasn't getting done. I did a couple of inspections with the tenant and found that he was right, the place wasn't being cleaned properly.

A month ago, I met with my employee onsite and went over the areas that needed improvement and got a whole lot of attitude about why the job wasn't getting done (not the right mops, not the right cleaners, tried his best ...).

After seeming to resolve the issues, including authorizing him to get new supplies, even though the current supplies seemed entirely adequate, we parted ways and I said we would review it in month or six weeks.

A month later I drop by again and there is no improvement. Dust bunnies roll through the office and the windowsills are caked with dust and dead bugs.

When he came in for his paycheck today, I gave him two weeks extra pay in lieu of notice and asked him for his keys. Again a ton of attitude, but no apparant remorse or regret that he hadn't put any additional effort into the work.

I hate having to fire someone, but in some cases there is no other answer.

I've had a few sleepless nights over firing people, when I felt they were doing their best but they just couldn't do the job. I won't leave any sleep over firing this guy.
 
I've had to fire a few guys when working as a foreman.

It's never easy...but sometimes, it just has to be done.

(and sometimes, it just feels good)
 
I've fired several people in retail and I've never felt bad if it was deserved. In your case you gave him due time and all the resources needed, personally I wouldn't have any issue removing him.

I've only felt bad if it was out of my hands, which has also happened.
 
I wouldn't feel remorseful firing someone that not only made no effort to correct deficiencies, but actively acted like a dick to his boss as if he was entitled to that job.
 
OP, perhaps you feel bad because you are a good person ... but from your OP it seems like the guy wanted to get the pink slip.

You may have done him a favor ...
 
I always see those kind of people at my current workplace, they feel entitled to their job.

One department manager "conveniently" took a 2 week vacation before and during inventory. No prep at all and I found a lot of misplaced products that would have been miscounted as something else. 😡

Not sure how "she" managed to get out of that important part as other department managers where all over the place during inventory. Lazy fat ass "b*tch". People under her had to take the beating for that. :\
 
Seems to me you did everything right. Some people cannot stand to be held accountable. You explain what needs to be done, and all they are thinking is, "I'll be damned if he's going to order me around." Then they do a crappy job and laugh to themselves about how they are beating the system.

But when you have to fire someone just because business is slow and they have done nothing wrong, that's something that keeps me up at night for a while. It's the worst part of the job, by far.

We once fired a night cleaning guy after two brand-new company sweatshirts went missing from on top of my desk one night. In their place was a feather duster, obviously forgotten by the cleaning guy who had taken the sweatshirts and was in a hurry to stash them away somewhere. I didn't even report the guy at first. The next day I waited until he showed up in my area and asked him to return the sweatshirts and showed him the feather duster he had left behind. He just denied everything, said he must have laid the feather duster down to empty the trash and he never saw the shirts. I said I was going to have to report him then, he just shrugged.

So I reported the theft, and he got canned. Stupid.
 
What a manager once told me, don't feel bad about firing someone that just can't do the job. You are doing them a favor. They probably don't enjoy it anyway.
 
I don't think firing people would bother me a bit. It would bother me having to lay someone off who is a good worker due to non-performance reasons.
 
I've felt bad laying people off. I've never felt bad firing someone. Someone that's laid off is innocent, someone that's fired deserves it.
 
You seem like a reasonable, conscientious boss, OP.

If he sucked that bad and had attitude to boot, he deserved what he got.
 
BoomerD said:
I've had to fire a few guys when working as a foreman.

It's never easy...but sometimes, it just has to be done.

(and sometimes, it just feels good)
Click to expand...



I worked at my fathers drycleaning plant for several years, and there were at least 2 people I begged to fire because he wouldnt and they were costing us a lot of money

Id hate to have to lay someone off when their performance wasnt bad, but if someone sucks at their job and just isnt trying, i really have a hard time having much sympathy for them.
 
A lot of people use tenure as an excuse to do sloppy work. If you're an employer of a small deadend business with no further opportunity, it should be no surprise that people become bored and lose morale.
 
Final talk before firing, if the person is being resistant and giving attitude:

"I'll be honest with you- I'm not going to spend any more time on reasons why it's not getting done. It's *going* to get done, it's going to get done according to certain standards, and that's going to start tomorrow. That's my decision. Your decision is whether you want to be a part of that.

You don't have to do things my way. You can walk out that door at any time. I'm not forcing my standards on you. I'm just not letting you force your standards on me and on this company, because here, I make the rules. We'll talk again tomorrow, and you can let me know your decision."
 
don't lose any sleep OP; you did the right thing and you went out of your way to be courteous :thumbsup:
 
QuantumPion said:
I wouldn't feel remorseful firing someone that not only made no effort to correct deficiencies, but actively acted like a dick to his boss as if he was entitled to that job.
Click to expand...

I've had to fire two people. One was the nicest goddamn person in the world (He apologized to me about being fired!). The other was an asshole, always denied screwing up and was constantly late. Complete opposite feelings during the two conversations
 
My dad fired some guys working at a power plant because they were picking on other workers. They deflated tires, picked fights, and dumped metal shavings down people's pants...they deserved it. But, believe it or not, thanks to the Union, I think a couple of them came back. Fucking queers.
 
lol when i read your thread title i thought of the cheers episode where norm had to fire people @ his company

good times
 
I had to deliver the bad news to a peer once... I can't remember the exact circumstances, but he and I had the same manager, who was out of the office for illness. The manager's boss called me into his office and said that he had just found out that other guy was unable to acquire a security clearance... he asked me to break the news to the guy that he was immediately released since the job was contingent on the clearance. It sucked; the guy was personable and a good worker, and he seemed kind of desperate for a job.
 
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