Asshats Who Fire Employees Right Before the Holidays

The BBQ Pit
1

I wavered between posting this in IMHO and here, because I don’t do justice to the Pit. Decided here because I’d like to let anyone more talented at invective let it out. Please do.

I’ve worked at a job I dearly love, and that’s because of the people I work with, and their dedication to our common love of what we do. It’s a nursery specializing in native plants, and is known nationwide as one of the best.

Recently, the business was sold, and we a all tried to stand behind the new owner. Over the past two months, it’s been making everyone wonder if this was a good decision. Doubts were had, but the bomb was dropped the Thursday before Christmas. The new owner fired the most knowledgeable employee he had, because of “personal differences”, five days before Christmas, and by letter. Here goes:

To my Idiot Employer:

What the fuck are you thinking??? You purchase a business, with no depth of knowledge on the subject, and no great business connections in a small enough pond that requires that, and you go and fire the most able of your employees because she’s smart enough to tell you the problems with your pipedreams. You fire her right before the Holiday break, thinking “Yea, I won’t have to deal with it, so much easier.” Guess what, Fuckwit, that don’t pass muster. The reason that we’ve all worked there for not much money is because we all worktogether, and are the type of people who put that closeness and purpose above high wages. By firing one of our most beloved co-workers in such a shitty, cowardly manner, you’ve alienated everyone. Ya thought you wouldn’t have to deal with it? Well, we all did, because we communicate with each other. You not only ruined G’s holiday, you ruined ours, too, because we love and support her. It would be different is she wasn’t up to her job, but she was, and well beyond what she was paid to do.

You are a fuckwit, and stupid to boot! You’ve demorallized everyone who works for you, fired your best hope for any future, and, it’s a small enough town that word gets around. Happy Fucking New Year!

Well, what the hell can someone be thinking that they fire someone right before Christmas, and by a letter? In talking about it to other folks, they say it happens because it’s an easy time to do it, and the cutoff is considered appropriate, because there’s a “break”. WTF? This is the most innappropriate time to fire anyone. Going to visit family, and telling them you just got laid off? It makes the Holidays miserable. I can’t forgive my employer for this; it is either callous, stupid, or mean.

Any other experiences with this? I hope it isn’t an accepted trend. That’s too depressing to think of.

2

Apart from this specific case, I want to ask you something in return.
I’ve been a sort of semi-manager for a number of years. Sometimes, we had to let people go, as the euphemism says. It quite often happens around the end of the year, when we saw that the budget for next year forced us to cut costs. So the decision was: “Should we really tell them right before Christmas?” And the, the counter argument was: “Well, is it better if we let them go on Christmas vacation, over spend their credit cards, wish them Happy Holidays, and thenfire them when they come back?”

We always opted to play it straight and tell the people affected right away.

3

Gaspode: in the case of a larger business, I can see that point, but here it is a small business, and that doesn’t apply. It has done more damage in employee morale than can possibly be recouped.

4

My father used to have to lay off people before the holidays. Granted he did it with as much dignity as can be mustered, but it’s a reality for a lot of companies.

He made some changes later on where the entire company would be shut down for two weeks during the holiday season. This also was seen as something for everyone to bitch about as they either were forced to take vacation or take the time unpaid.

Shit happens, unfortunately, in the world of business. I can see it from both sides of the fence but when it comes down to it, holidays or not, business decisions are to be made.

The world of business shouldn’t stop because of the holidays.

But that’s just me and no one will ever be satisfied in my view. In a perfect world everyone would have a job they adore and love and everyone would be paid well based on their experience and such.

Life sucks, doesn’t it?

5

Tech, I respect you greatly, but, nope, that attitude doesn’t fly with me. In this case, there would be nothing lost by the employer waiting until after Christmas to send the letter. It would avoid pain to the recipient during the Holidays. Anyone crass enough to not wait a few days is a sad sort of employer.
Does everyone see this as OK behavior? I don’t.

6

Sorry elelle. but count me in the disagree category too.

Last year I was given the same choice by the HR department, and I chose to do it before the holidays for the exact same reasons as The Gaspode listed:

The earlier you tell people the more power they have to make changes. Yeah, it sucks that it might ruin Christmas, but it’s better than them having a wonderful Christmas and then finding out that they’re not only out of work, but deeper in debt than they would otherwise have been.

I based it on what I’d want and I’d want to know as soon as possible. Hell, it’d give me the holidays to start doing job searches on the internet and preparing my resume.

Fenris

7

If I was going to be fired, I’d rather know as soon as possible. IOW, I’d rather know before Christmas than after. YMMV

8

The right way.

The wrong way.

The boss’s way.

Just how did she tell the boss that they didn’t know what they were doing? Was she fighting the boss on policy decisions?

:: shrug ::

I had a boss of a long time that we all had to work around because he was unbendable. we did so and the company grew. We did not get fired, the boss was fair with us, just had to be handled just so.

Am also in the fire me before I go in debt for Christmas camp instead of after.

9

My brother-in-law is losing his job Jan 3.His employer agonized over whether or not to tell him before Christmas.Like people here have stated,it is better to be told before the holiday, than to overspend thinking everything is fine.My sister has told me they were well on their way to buying too much, when the news came.

10

It still sucks. Once, I was fired on the day of the office Christmas party. I was in my good outfit and everything.

11

While I’m in agreement with not letting someone run up their debt, is five days before Christmas really going to prevent that? At that point, your major spending is likely done, isn’t it?

But there’s no good time to fire someone, really, when it comes down to it.

12

Not if you’re a guy :smiley: Finished before 12/23? Girly man!
My next door neighbor just got laid off. He knew it was coming, he freelances and his project was coming to an end. They had said he’d probably be let go around Thanksgiving. He was let go 12/22, and complained about being let go right before Christmas. Whine, whine, WHINE. I then pointed out - “Alan, you’re Jewish, and they know it. You just took off for Chanukah.”

Anyone have some cheese for his whine?

but at least they did it to his face.

13

I wish everyone played it straight, since someone I like really got screwed recently. Her husband was laid off on October 25th with no warning. The problem is that they didn’t close on their new house, with a $1,300/month morgage, until the first week of October or the last week of September, and had just moved in when they got the news. He worked in a little company, and didn’t keep the fact that they were buying a house a secret, so how could someone in the know about the impending lay-offs not had the decency to say something? Asshats.

14

I can only speak to my own experience. I was laid off last year, and was one of two people laid off. It is an easy statement to make that of potential lay off candidates there were two of whom were incompetent of which one person was a thief as well, and another who just coasted through his day. The reason two more experienced folks were laid was due to the fact it was cheaper in terms of severance, and typical of big biz thinking, it was short sited but they took the short term solution over the long term pain they will feel. There were thinks that only I was aware of and now the thief and his twitish friend are dealing with them.

Good luck, cuz they’re gonna need it.

15

Also, when people come back from a one or two week vacation over the holidays, to find out they’re being fired, pretty soon they’re gonna start wondering if management didn’t know about this before Christmas. Since management had the same time off. So they will - correctly - come to the conclusion that the decision was made maybe a month earlier and that they were kept in the dark. I think that’s a really bad way of handling it.
If someone gets fired for personal reasons, it could be another matter, but if it’s cutbacks and downsizing, tell the people affected straight away. Let them start planning ASAP. I think it’s only fair.
Oh, and this happened to my (former) SO, about one year ago, so I know from emotional experience that it’s better to tell the bad news right away.

16

Firing people, breaking up with the SO…there’s never a ‘good’ time.
“I can’t believe you [broke up with/fired] me…before the holidays, after the holidays, before finals, during finals, over the phone, in person, by letter, on a Tuesday, before the weekend, after the ski trip, over the summer, etc.” And then comes “why? why? why? why?”

Best to just do it when you decide to do it. Let the healing begin.

17

I agree with the OP; in this situation, where the firing sounds like it was the result of personality clash, the firing could have waited until after the holidays. Of course, I’m not the kind of person who spends crazy money at Christmas, so overspending then getting fired isn’t really an issue with me.

Let me tell you my worst firing story. I had just bought a townhouse (by myself, no one else helping pay the bills), I took possession Feb. 1, I had surgery Feb. 21 and had to take a week off of work (with no pay), then I was fired (by a message on my answering machine) Feb. 28. No two weeks severance or anything, because I was a temp; just “Don’t come into work tomorrow because you don’t work here anymore”. I look back on this period of my life as “The Dark Time” now - I used my line of credit to pay my mortgage more times than I care to remember.

18

I was a few weeks away from my wedding this past summer when I got my two weeks notice. To make matters more intolerable, the boss, who I considered a friend away from the office (and who I had considered inviting to the wedding), had been planning to dump me for a least a month before he let me go (based on info I gathered during my last few days), but strung me along so he could lock down a replacement. Moreover, rather than just letting me go to find a new job during the busiest time of year for our industry, he required me to put in my final two weeks to train the new guy. That left me just enough time to get married, tell everyone there that I had no job, consider cancelling our honeymoon, and then start looking for a job just after the busy season had ended.

19

My sympathies, vato. Another reason to keep a one man shop.

20

FYI, companies fire people around the holidays because it usually coincides with the end of the fiscal year. It’s basically to make the bean-counters happy.

The general rule is that the boss is the boss, no matter how big of an idiot they are. They usually don’t like people pointing out their mistakes or trying to make them look stupid.