If there’s one thing worse than getting fired, it’s watching someone else get fired. And worse than that is being forced to participate in the process. That’s what I’ve been asked to do.
The short version is this: she is a very nice person who is totally and completely out of her league in the job she is in. She hasn’t improved at all with the training and courses we’ve given her. She has to go; I know this. The case against her has been painstakingly assembled. Almost.
We are a small office. It is felt that we must protect ourselves from suit by being excruciatingly methodical about the firing process, and that includes written statements from every employee, before she is actually fired. I don’t disagree with this, entirely. I just couldn’t do it.
Now, I have been instructed to write a memo detailing this persons shortcomings and mistakes, tonight, before I leave. I will have to sit in on her dismissal tomorrow, if she shows.
On a personal level, I have found this person to be positive and extremely likable. I care a lot about her, and I fear for her prospects outside of this job.
How do I write my memo? And more importantly, what do I say to her tomorrow? I’m open to suggestions.
I know what you mean, Sofa King, I hated it when I had to fire people. [hijack] I has a great job running operations in a large office, then got “laterally promoted” to personnel - same salary, but I had to do all the hiring, firing, reviews, and raises. After firing about 30, I couldn’t do it anymore - and used the rules that I had learned for the personnel job to arrange an exit for myself with unemployment insurance assured (which only lasted for three weeks, anyway). When I was on my way out my ex-boss muttered something about how this was just like how the last personnel manager had left… [/hijack]
That being said, we need more specific information. Are you her co-worker, or are you in any sort of supervisory capacity over her? If you are not her supervisor, and if it is not explicitly stated in your job description, you cannot generally be compelled to participate in her dismissal. If you are really uncomfortable with it, you might consider refusing - bearing in mind that your employer may remember this refusal for a long, long time.
If it were me, I might consider sandbagging the report, mentioning only the most serious problems. It sounds like there is plenty of evidence otherwise.
Oops, that should have been “I had a great job…” Really, no need to call the grammar police…
Well, I did the sandbagger, as you suggested. My report was rejected, and I was not asked to write another. I carefully explained that in my particular capacity (I can tell her what to do but generally didn’t because I couldn’t trust her to follow my often unusual instructions, so I didn’t ask) I did not encounter the particular problems with attitude and attendance that the others did. That appears to be accepted as what it is: considered truth.
As for more info, I don’t want to give away too much, but this person is genuinely incompetent at a lot of facets of the job–in fact, she’s gone beyond incompetent and borders on inadvertent malign. When I said “small office,” I should have said “tiny,” and my duties far exceed that of a normal researcher. They bleed all over the place, from paralegal to legislative assistant to network administrator. Even a person in her position has to shoulder a lot of responsibility. She was told that, and she just couldn’t pick up on it. I think she tried.
As a result of my own position, I have a participatory role in most of the decisions, and since they want three witnesses for the dismissal, I’m pegged in every possible capacity, especially administrative, a duty I expressly seek to avoid in most cases. But this time I’m the only “senior” administrator who doesn’t tap a lawyer’s salary, so I’m it.
I managed to extract one small concession. I was given the theoretical position of “supervisor” in the event she needs to use us as a reference. That way, I can at least trumpet the great qualities she has while ensuring that no lasting animosity becomes evident. I hope she uses me, and I’ll try to let her know that. That’s the best I can do.
I just want to play the harp here for a minute. We scraped this person from the bottom of the barrel, gave her a lot of chances, tried to get her some education. We spent a lot of time and money on her to try to bring her up to speed, but it just didn’t work. I blame myself, partially, but I believe another culprit is education–she just didn’t get enough of it when she needed it. There were serious problems ranging from a lack of reading skills to memory deficiencies which I believe stemmed straight from her lack of structured learning–she certainly isn’t stupid. But God damn! Do I ever feel awful about this.
I misread the title…
I thought it meant your co-worker was somehow angry with you and was …Getting…The…Axe.
What said co-worker intended to do with the axe set my mind reeling.
No, but I might be seeing some of that tomorrow. Sure hope not.