Okay, cost yourself some money. Choose to never talk to someone you employ? Don’t know about that. Not giving a bonus? That’s good management. If that is what you meant by harassment, I withdraw my comment. But some bosses do a lot worse.
I don’t think anyone in this thread has advocating firing offhang without any warning, except for the worst kinds of issues (fraud, theft, violence).
Are all job skills trained? No. At times, you’re expecting people to come in. Someone who puts down “proficient with Windows” but turns out in training to barely know how to move a mouse? Why should I have to train them when they’ve already misled me?
Yep, and I’m “brutal” for firing someone with due cause because it hurts their feelings.
I don’t disagree that we should make some attempt, but I don’t think that it’s unethical to do otherwise. If someone can’t show up to work on time, for a schedule they agreed to before hire, why should I adjust when they haven’t proven to me through past performance to be a good employee?
You just said you would fire them after a warning, then jab at me for not bringing about alcohol treatment programs (in fact we do have these for employees who develop a problem later – if you show up drunk the first day, goodbye.
Apples and oranges? I asked what you would do if a contractor stole from you. I have had employees steal, either from the company or from co-workers. Should I hold their hand, comfort them and tell them not to worry, and send them to a “Let’s Please Not Steal” class on company time?
There is absolutely nothing brutal about not wanting to pay for someone not doing their job. If you get a bad product or a bad service from a company, is it brutal to not give them your business anymore? Companies are made out of people too. What if they go out of business? What if all of those people are laid off because customers like you didn’t realize that even though that bagger threw your eggs in your sack cracking them and spit in your coffee, that they need a job too?
It’s brutal to deny good employees raises because all the money is being spent in lost productivity and missed work. It’s brutal to ignore that some people are better workers than others.
It is not my, nor my company’s responsibility to give anyone a living. Just because you made it through the interview doesn’t mean I have any responsibility for you.
Show up to work on time next time.
Now, to go give raises to my employees that actually, you know, work.
Geez. How do you go on with life, surrounded as you are by a world filled with brutal jerks?
Which is what happened in the case in question: she was talked to about her problems in timeliness, she promised to fix them, and then she failed again and was fired. Which you wailed and gnashed your teeth about.
There’s a job more convenient to where you live or Metro. Find that one, or come to work on time. It is not your employer’s responsibility to provide transportation for you.
Bullshit. I work in an urban area. I have to travel through lots of shitty roads and congested traffic. And I wake up early and listen to the fucking new report on the radio so that I know when to leave. This isn’t fucking rocket science. It’s the basic level of responsibility requried by a job.
Which need to be brought up with the employer in advance, not written off after ten episodes of tardiness without notice by saying, “Oh, yeah, I’ve got family responsibilities.”
Oh, fuck you with a rusty spork. I know all about problems that can cause serious problems in being able to attend to a regular schedule. But I don’t know of a single problem that can’t be worked out with management in advance, and have never run into a manager who wasn’t perfectly willing to work out those matters.
But if a person isn’t willing to take the responsibility of accepting that they have problems getting to work on time and to work that out with the employer in advance (or after the first episode), then they have no right to complain about being fired.
You are everything that is wrong with America, Evil Captor.
Look guys. A lot of the misunderstanding here appears to relate to my use of the word “brutal.”
It is brutal to lock someone in a cage for years. It does not matter if they have committed a horrendous crime, or if they are completely innocent. The level of brutality remains the same. That is the source of the peculiar horror of sending innocent people to prison – we know we have brutalized a person who has done no wrong, and whatever we do subsequently, we can’t UNBRUTALIZE them. We can’t give them the years they spent in prison back. We can’t reunite their families. We can’t magically tell everyone who thought they were a scumbag for doing what they are accused of that they are in fact not a scumbag. Prison is brutal, period, no matter if it’s deserved or not.
Furthermore, the outcome of a brutal act does not change its brutality. If a guy is a total asshole who does something that totally ruins my life, if I subsequently take a baseball bat and break his knees, I’ve done a brutal thing. Even if that guy subsequently recovers his ability to walk after months of painful recuperation and struggle, in the process discovering new reserves of character he didn’t know he had, and learning to care for others as others care for him, so that he emerges from the process a new, better and much happier person, it doesn’t change brutality of what I’ve done.
Butal is brutal even if others have brutalized you. Just because mobster Johnny Tightlips cut off three of mobster Joey Two Fingers’ fingers, it doesn’t mean that Joey Two Fingers is justified in slitting Pigeon Pete’s throat.
Brutal is brutal, we have to be honest about that.It’s not an emotional thing, as some have implied, it’s a basic matter of honesty.
Now, i understand that some employees can and do wear out their welcome to such an extent that there’s just not much possibility of feeling for them when they’re fired. But I don’t believe that’s the case in the majority of firings. I think the majority of firings are like The Gaspodes’ case, brutal necessities, and that most of what I’m hearing on this thread is the psychological defense mechanisms people have erected to make such brutality possible.
I’m not at all sure such mechanisms are a good thing.
I think that your perspective on firing is incredibly flawed and fundamentally rests on the notion that people are entitled to being paid by private companies despite their behavior. I’m very sure that such a nition is not a good thing.
I’m all for charity, and even social programs that everyone pays for to help people on their feet. I just can’t see how breaking a contract because one side won’t live up to it is “brutal”. If an employee leaves a company because they’re not paid what they were promised, or because they aren’t given as many hours as agreed, or they plain just don’t like it – why isn’t that brutal?
You seem to be caught up in the effect on people making something brutal. Therefore, even completely justified and necessary actions are brutal if they hurt someone. Bullshit. Let’s look at all human relationships. If your girlfriend decides to cheat on you, or pour nail polish on your car, are you brutal for breaking up with her because it hurts her precious feelings? If someone desperately wants to go out with you, but you find them abhorrent, are you required to date them (once? indefinitely?) because to do otherwise would cause tragic psychic damage?
The fact is that rejection hurts. Being criticized hurts, even if it’s justified. That doesn’t make it brutal to do so and I don’t feel that having an honest and pragmatic opinion of firing someone for due cause, for a rule that they had clear reason to know, is a “defense mechanism”.
I’ve had a few firings that bothered me because the person genuinely was trying hard but simply didn’t have what was needed to do the job. They just couldn’t understand how to do it, and even after months and months of me and others trying to help, it didn’t get better. There’s a point where we have to say, I’m sorry, but this isn’t for you.
I still don’t think it’s brutal; I just think it’s the real world. In order to have a business that makes money, employees have to produce. If the business doesn’t make money, then everyone’s laid off. Ignoring this seems to have a far more brutal result, don’t you think?
No, but the “feel good about firing” meme that seemed to be floating around here has me a bit worried. (To be fair, the OP clearly felt uneasy about the firing, which you may recall I agree was justified.) If the employee had been beaten vigorously, would we all feel good about that?
If someone totally misrepresents their level of skill in an interview or on an application, and can’t do what they said they could do, I agree, that’s like a contractor who can’t do what they claim they can do. You shouldn’t have to train them under those circumstances. I was just under the impression that, when one of the posters said “She couldn’t learn her job no matter” that there had been some training need implied there.
Yes, you are, but not just because you hurt their feelings. You hurt their ability to survive. If we had a decent social safety net, it would be a much less brutal thing to do. As it is, it’s very brutal. I mean, we’re not like some Third World nation where people starve if they can’t find work, but we’ve got families living in shelters because they can’t find a place of their own. We’ve got working people living on the street and in cars. it is not good, and it makes firing potentially … very brutal indeed.
You should do it to avoid being brutal. I know there are times when it can’t be avoided the way things are structured now, but it’s good to avoid it if you can.
If you’ve got such a program, fine. More power to you. If they show up drunk on the first day, it kinda demonstrates that they are either an out-of-control alcoholic or that they have some serious reservations about the job.
Depends on the nature of the infraction. Were they stealing other employees’ wallets? Were they stealing pens? Did they have a history of not stealing and suddenly start? What’s the story? If they walk into a place and start stealing everything that isn’t nailed down on the first day, call the cops. I don’t think the paycheck is their real goal in working there, y’know?
All I’m advocating is looking into the causes of incompetence on the job and curing them if possible before firing. Seems to be an insuperable problem to you.
Somebody who doesn’t get as big a raise as they’d hoped isn’t QUITE as traumatized as someone who’s looking at all their possesisons on the side of the road, are they? Or are they? Perhaps you have a delicacy of feeling which I lack.
Er, so does it matter if they have committed a horrendous crime or not? You’re contradicting yourself.
As for people rationalizing, that’s what I’m hearing from you. Employers are evil and nasty and brutal but they’ll be sweetness and light if you lie to them, despite all evidence to the contrary. Employees are put upon and brutalized and victimized and don’t have any safety net, but they should lie their asses off it it helps them even if it means there is even less of a safety net because they deserve the job even if they don’t want to work or do anything to keep it because employers are mean and nasty and employees are victims and you’re all just mean mean mean taking food from babies and if I do it it’s because I’m nice!
John Corrado, I agree with 99% of your post. However,
I have run into such managers. I, personally, would not work for them long. But then, I always make sure I have a contingency plan. It is not my employers’ jobs to ensure a steady paycheck for me; it is my job to ensure my paycheck. I take responsibility for my work, I take responsibility for keeping my skills up to date, I take responsibility for ensuring that, should my current employer have financial difficulties, I have a backup plan. And Evil Captor can bet his ass that I will be brutal, and I will take your job and your paycheck if I need your job and you are not performing.
“It is to laugh.”
Is the employer required not only from day one but on day one to invest the time and money in assisting the alcoholic employee to overcome that addiction? Is the employer required to do the same for the alcoholic temp (just an example…I’m not implying that temps are alcoholics as a group) whom the employer hires to fill in for the employee who’s away for treatment? At what point does the employer have your blessing to stop this ridiculous recursion?
How is this kind of stealing that different from the kind of stealing the fired employee in the OP committed? BTW, have you ever heard of kleptomania? Perhaps the thieving employee really does have the paycheck as the real goal but is not overcoming the kleptomania. Shouldn’t the employer, as you seem to suggest, be doing something kinder and gentler than canning them?
Well maybe one of the causes of the incompetence is the person lied on the resume. How is the employer supposed to cure that?
Wrong, in so many ways. The employee is responsible for his or her competence in the task for which he or she is hired, not the employer. If an employee is barely competent to flip burgers, yet somehow gets a job designing rocket engines, the employer shouldn’t “cure” the incompetence. Not only should the employer fire the future hamburger-flipper, it should reprimand or remove the hiring agent. The individual is responsible for his- or herself.
Actually, no it’s not. It’s based on the notion that people are entitled to have a place to live, food to eat, and clothes to wear if they are able and willing to work, or if they’re unable to work. People who can work and don’t want to work, they have problems, and they ARE a problem for the rest of us. Problem is, I see no indication that America is in any way structured to live up to these ideas. I don’t necessarily believe that private companies are responsible for providing these amenities. I think a more well-organized safety net would be able to handle the people who are fired, or who are displaced by technology, outsources, etc. But I see no sign of interest in constructing such a net, so I figure I have to help point out the need.
I think you need to address my point about brutality being independent of its rationale. You seem to think something is not brutal, even if harmful, ie. it’s not brutal to fire someone if they are sufficiently incompetent or whatever. I’ve tried to be very clear on why I think the brutality is independent of its rationale, you need to make clear to me why it isn’t indepent of its rationale, because I’m just not getting it.
Because they don’t destroy the company’s income in the process? Because they can be replaced easily, whereas it’s not always easy to replace one’s livelihood? Don’t tell me you honestly don’t see the difference.
You are muddying the water here. If your girlfriend cheats on you, the relationship has changed markedly, breaking up may well be the proper response to that change. Somehow I don’t think her tender little feelies will be too hurt if she’s getting her jolllies elsewhere.
Now, you’re getting it. The surgeon who slices my flesh to save a damaged organ or whatever is cutting me just like a knife-weilding goon would. I bleed in either case. But the surgeon works to minimize the damage and pain, whereas the goon either doesn’t care or tries to maximize it. We live in primitive times, in certain respects, and we sometimes do some brutal things. Let’s all be surgeons, not goons, in our approach to these things.
The defense mechanism lies in asserting that all firings are the product of the best efforts of management. Sometimes they are brutal necessity caused by economic conditions or corporate interests, regardless of the employees’ performance. Sometimes they may be the natural inclination of an evil person in management (I know, perish the thought and all. (I am willing to give all who participate in this thread a blanket proviso of having the best intentions but I still intend to hold their feet to the fire on the issue, brutal though that is.)
Good, such firings should be bothersome, but it does sound like you made a best effort before you got brutal.
We live in a brutal society, hence the real world is brutal. Even a fair, delicate flower such as I have had to develop a patina of toughness in order to survive. That does not mean the brutality is a good thing, or something not to be recognized for what it is and absolutely minimized.
Employers should generally avoid hiring burger flippers as rocket scientists in the first place. Your argument is invalid because it assumes I’ve made a ridiculous argument. If you hire someone to work in Microsoft Works, and they do OK in the Word module but they have a problem formatting spreadsheets in Excel, the smart thing to do is to assign someone to sit with them and see if they can help them figure out Excel. If they just can’t do it, maybe you have to let them go. But first you try. Is that so hard?
Well, great, you’re an asshole. Congratulations. Toaster’s in the mail.
I don’t dispute the need, only your sense that the responsibility lies on the employer because a need exists.
Brutal, adj.:
1.) Extremely ruthless or cruel.
2.) Crude or unfeeling in manner or speech.
3.) Harsh; unrelenting: a brutal winter in the Arctic.
4.) Disagreeably precise or penetrating: spoke with brutal honesty.
Tell me which meaning of brutal you find is most apt with your perception.
The difference is only in degree. It is expensive to replace employees. If a lot of employees leave, it can bring down the company. Certainly, it will impact the income of the company significantly. Attrition and turnover can become huge losses and reducing them is of great interest to companies. Firing an employee is a costly process, as is one quitting.
And if an employee is missing half of their shifts after being put on an attendance warning, being unpaid for it, I tend to think that they don’t put a huge priority on keeping their job and they probably don’t need the income terribly well. Granted there are exceptions, just as in my example that someone who cheats might still be hurt from the breakup.
But the difference here is not that I’m taking away anything from an employee by firing them; it is that I am not giving them something that I used to. The harm is only in that the person is used to getting this money in exchange for a service. However, they knowingly did not provide the service as agreed.
If you go into a store and want to buy something – even something you desperately need – is it the store’s responsibility to give it to you, just because you need it, even if you don’t or won’t provide the money to purchase the item? What if this is the grocery store you go to every week? Do they have a responsibility to provide for you?
Inherent in your argument is the sense of entitlement that I just don’t feel is justified. Just because I chose to hire someone to do a job, I am not responsible for their welfare.
I’ve never fired someone for that reason, nor defended it, so I’m not sure why you bring it up.
I don’t feel that my feet are being held to the fire. I feel that your expectations are unreasonable – much like many of the employees I fire.
Do I have permission to take all of your future raises and bonuses to provide for employees that don’t show up to work or don’t do their work when they’re here? If so, I’d be happy to arrange this. I have plenty of people who have worked here who would qualify.
Absurd? The point is that it’s my – and all of my GOOD employees – income at stake. Companies don’t make money by magic and if it’s lost in productivity, it has to be made up elsewhere. I would rather that people who do their jobs get that money. Many of them need it quite badly to provide for their families and get out of debt, and are working hard to get promoted and to get raises.
What exactly is your alternate, non-brutal plan?
Why? Because I will take someone’s job if I need it and I can demonstrate better performance? I come into work every day assuming that someone a little smarter and a little better wants my job, and that I have to prove myself, my performance, my knowledge and my experience each day. I take responsibility for keeping my job. And I damn well expect every person working for me and with me to do the same.
When I’m trying to get a project done, I want the best people working on it. Surprisingly, the best people on a team often include young entrants into the workforce open to learning (as opposed to those right out of school who think they should be running projects), people on flex-time, and people working to overcome other difficulties. As long as they are proactive in addressing any issues, and can meet the standards of the job, great. If not, I will put someone who is and who can in place.
I know the line to bitchslap you is getting longer every day, but I’m still waiting for your response to your unfounded accusation here.
And it ain’t about the usage of the word “brutal” either.
And really, that says it all. “What would the Senate Majority Leader do?” * 
I think that there is a graduated scale in plagiarism, as much as it pains me to say that. My elementary school book reviews were cribbed from book jackets. My junior high school reports quoted entire paragraphs from encyclopedias, with the frequent wry comment “You rely heavily on the wording of your sources.” By high school I was starting to write on my own, but was not above cribbing a sentence or two. I can’t ever recall plagiarizing by the time I went to college, but I know folks who did and I found it difficult to find fault with them, given short time frames to produce long papers (this was before word processing and the Internet, kids). (And yeah, I had the same deadlines, and I worked a part time job, but I sympathized with them nevertheless.)
But work - that’s the real world, and cheating doesn’t just get you kicked out of school. It can get you put in jail or can incur enormous fines. This is hardball, even in the nicest company, and one person can sink a company and cause everyone to lose their job. It is, in effect, a cancer on the corporate body that should be removed as quickly as possible.
Bricker, you sound like a kind and concerned manager, and I think that your agonizing over this does you credit. I support your decision. And I also that think that a manager who wrestles with this decision will not take it lightly in the future.
I do have a question, however: Is it possible that this person was in over her head, and could not accomplish the task at hand? It seems unlikely, having four years of experience, but it could be that she was unable to to do what was assigned to her, and too afraid to admit it and ask for help. I work for an engineering firm, and I will occasionally see bright young graduates thrust into projects by managers who can’t recognize that they might need a little hand-holding. The managers end up frustrated, and the new employees start a slow death spiral, imagining that they are incompetent instead of merely inexperienced. It’s about the only thing that *might * mitigate her behavior, and I use might advisedly here.
*Who’s Law is it that states that all threads eventually become political threads?
(a) The person in the OP who got fired was able to work and evidently didn’t want to work. The big problem was she expected (based on the billing sent to management) to get paid for the work she evidently didn’t want to do because she didn’t do the work.
(b) The person in the OP who got fired was fired because she cheated.
From your initial posts in this thread, I really thought you were either just pulling folks’ legs or you were just stupid. Now I realize you’re just a hypocrite. I’m not discounting the stupid thing yet, though, so there’s still hope that you’re not one-dimensional on this issue.
Who knows? Maybe that four years of experience only existed on her resume? Perhaps she was one of EC’s clients back then?
::sigh:: And of course, Who’s = Whose. :smack:
Linguistic regression. Alchohol consumption was not a factor, but the anticipation of that consumption caused me to be post quickly and thoughtlessly. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Gaudere’s revenge is a dish best served cold…