Had to fire someone tonight

sharke
How in the hell do these big honchos hire and fire at the drop of a hat? 

Start by buying a hat to drop? 

sharke
So why do I still feel like crap about it?

Because you're human, with the human capacity for compassion.

I've had to fire quite a few people too, and it never gets easier, at least not for me. I always feel like the biggest scumbag after it's done. I try to remind myself of all the reasons that it was necessary, but it doesn't help. You'll feel better in a couple weeks when it's not so fresh. For what it's worth, you did the right thing. Best wishes.

Thanks for the nice comments.  I know I'll feel better about it in a few days. To tell you the truth he's only the second person I've ever fired. The first one was equally as depressing because it was a pregnant woman. But pregnant or not, she repeatedly displayed gross incompetence and dishonesty at a level which if tolerated for a second longer, would have put me out of business. Oh I felt crap about that one for weeks lol...
 
The worst part of being a boss is when you go out of your way to look after someone and they turn around and throw it back in your face. I employed a guy for two years one time and lent him money whenever he was short (hundreds of dollars) and gave him a laptop because he didn't have a computer (actually gave him a second one when he broke that one, lol). And then out of the blue he tells me he had to quit his job to go spend time with his sick father. When he quit, most of the clients he was servicing quit on me too. How strange! I subsequently found out that the sick father thing was BS and that he quit to start up in business himself, taking my clients with him (he even lifted parts of my website for his own). It's like being cheated on, you feel sick.
 
This guy tonight...he didn't have enough work on of late and since they're on a piecemeal pay structure, I was giving him a lot of money out of my own pocket every week to supplement his wage. And still the attitude! When I got ordered to garnish his wage for the child support he hadn't been paying, I felt bad about that so I started slipping him a little extra to make up for it (basically taking over his financial duties as a parent). Gratitude? Nil! When I had it out with him tonight he called me an a-hole, a bad boss, a bad person etc. And I realized how utterly futile it is to try and work with people like this. Like Jerry Seinfeld said, "You should just do it like a Band-Aid. One motion, right off!"

(For the record, if anyone would like to give me more than I could ever wish for, I promise never to resent you.)

I do wear hats, and I do smoke cigars.
 
But this is exactly why I've engineered my life and livelihood in such a way as to never be in a position to fire anyone. I find it very hard to do, and have to be pushed into it by conditions getting so bad that I had no choice.
 
My son, however, hires and fires people on a weekly basis as part of his job. Every time, it's agonizing for him. I think his boss makes him do it so the boss won't have to.
 
I truly believe that if you don't find it difficult then there's something seriously wrong with you - you might in fact be a psychopath. So take some comfort in the knowledge that you are probably not a psychopath.
 
UB's right: parenting your employees is not your job. Look out for them, sure. Have their back as you'd want them to have yours. But you will never have enough time or influence to substantially change a person's fundamental character.

These days I work alone -  thankfully -  but when I ran a sign company (1988-2004), I had up to 15 staff to deal with. Without a doubt, they were far and away the biggest cause of stress. I put it down to the chemicals they were breathing in on a daily basis.. (Bapu will be getting used to those screenprint inks now..)
 
Making someone redundant on their birthday was a stand-out. Having another threaten me with a knife was also interesting.

I've had to fire people and didn't care for it. Sharke I think the fact that this bothers you only points to your compassion as a human being. So I say +1 to you for caring and then another +1 for finally doing what needed to be done.
 
I hope when you find the replacement that they work out for you, not only in their attitude (i.e. they should be saying: "how can I help?") but in their abilities to do the job. And I hope that your current regret goes away soon.
 
Regards,

I run a business and for the better part of that 22+ years have run it solo. At times it's really a pain since I have to do it all, but in the long run, no headaches from employees.
 
However.... on one big job, the customer insisted that I hire at least a helper to expedite the job and finish quicker. I estimated it was a 12 month job.
 
So, according to their wishes, I hired a fellow to help. He was a hard worker and learned the job well enough that he would get the things he needed and go do the job without me standing there to babysit him all day. He was easy to get along with, His down side was that when he got enough money to last him a few months, he'd take off and quit. He lived in his grandmother's house and it was paid for.... no bills other than phone and electricity. And he roomed with his brother.  So he up and quit one day about 3/4 the way through the job.
 
I hired another guy a few days later. This guy was the opposite. Supposed to have experience in all things electrical. So I put him running 40 feet of conduit across a ceiling. I bent the first piece and connected it.... he had to run 2 straight pieces and bend the last one into a box that he would mount on the wall.... maybe a 20 minute job if you took your time. He assured me he could handle it so I left to do something else. The day before it took him all day.... 8 hours to pull 4 cables 200 feet across a lobby and through 2 existing firewall access points. So I figured I'd let him go and see how long THIS little job would take.... it was 8am.  At 10:30, I hadn't seen him. So I walked by and peeked through the window in the door. He had one piece of pipe up and was standing there looking at the ceiling as if the next piece was just going to install itself.  I went back to what I was doing....
 
At 12 noon, still no helper.... I walked to the kitchen and he had installed the second straight piece of conduit, but it was hanging from the coupling. There was a bunch of pipe on the floor he had tried to bend and screwed up. I asked him what was the problem..... he said...Man, this is hard.  I said , no... it's not. You should have been done this by 8:30. I picked up the piece of pipe on the floor, held it in place and cut it to length, added a coupling, a short stub and installed the box.

I told him to go and set down in the lunchroom but not to bother the folks who worked there. Just stay out of my hair and out of trouble. I ended up putting him sweeping up behind me. Everything he did I had to redo and the kind of work we did, wasn't the kind of things you wanted to have to fix..... we drilled holes in doors and if you're off 1/4" you have a mess to try to fix it right....
 
Anyway...I had to fire the guy. As it turned out, in this business, you need a state security check to work in this business and he neglected to disclose an arrest. The state told me I had to fire him anyway. Then, he demanded his paycheck on the spot. I also had a letter from social services demanding that I withhold back child support. I told him I'd pay him next week after I got all the mes sorted out. He threatened to call the police, and I told him to help himself. He bugged me all weekend long. I finally paid him mid week and ended that mess.
 
You have my sympathy..... I understand totally. I didn't want to fire the guy either but I was given no choice.... between the state, and his lack of work ethic or skill level.... he lied to me telling me he had experience..... he had to go.
 
 

Thanks for all the input guys, it's reminded me that I'm not the only one who has to deal with this crap. 

Shorter story:with a real kick in the butt moment.
 
Before I started my business I was a shift supervisor in a factory.  There were a few folks who were always screwing up and costing the company money. I wanted to fire one guy in particular since he would come to work reeking of alcohol and obviously a safety hazard not only to himself (we had some dangerous machines) but also, to those around him.
 
I was told that to fire someone, I had to document, document, document and have another staff person witness the incident and get them to document as well. The guy eventually was terminated due to missed days of work not due to staff writing him up. But that took quite some time to do because the company gave him a lot of chances.
 
Me... on the other hand..... out of the blue.... I was doing a good job as supervisor, had learned the job well, had zero complaints filed against me.....so when staff evaluation came around I was actually feeling good about the meeting and as I walked in the door.... I was planning to ask for a raise. The VP said, come in Herb, close the door and have a seat. I said How are you today?..... he said, Herb, I'm going to get right to the point.... you are fired. 30 minutes later I was in my car, headed home, having been escorted out of the facility by the dept head.
 
That's when I started my own  business a few weeks later.

This thread has helped me.
This week I have been feeling sad that things didn't work out with someone at my work.
It's a painful situation... especially when it's a person you like.
 
I must say, I've been learning to try to keep roles clear. It's helpful if people you have influence over don't take you into their confidence too much. It's hard to recover from a loss of trust.
 
I doubt my own behavior. Was I good leader? Did I make requirements clear? How did the person respond?
 
In the end, it's just a job. There's always another one.