You! Yes, you, you psychotic hosebeast! You're FIRED!!

[The_King_of_Soup]

@swampbear

Well, no, cause she’s like a girl and I like boys.

You know, in Georgia (the progressive square foot of it, anyhow) it’s not the liking boys that’ll get you in trouble. It’s the not resenting a girl who’s your boss.

Off topic, isn’t it about time for another swampbear birthday, or did I miss it, or do geezers do everything more slowly, including aging? I know I’m a year older, in a bigger house with a heavier mortgage, and with kids who are beginning to suspect that I don’t know everything any more, and possibly never did. It’s tough, because I’m just the same as always – the damn world started changing on me. Happy birthday anyway, early or late, and a hundred (or a hundred and one) more to come.

Back on topic. I once worked with a man named Hiram, a night janitor, who wouldn’t speak to anyone in the whole company except me (just lucky, thanks), and I was not his boss. Eventually he refused to accept, or even touch, his paychecks, and it fell to me to cash them for him (this was twenty years ago, involving a bank that knew both of us) and give him the money. I was always pretty sure he never counted it, but once he tried to give “back” money he thought I had slipped into the envelope, because he didn’t know or believe he had gotten a raise (we got a new boss one year, and I managed to engage her – yeah, this was in Georgia, too – sympathy on his behalf before she met him). Anyway, eventually he sort of disappeared, and I heard that his family, who may or may not have had some money, reclaimed him (he was probably in his mid-to-late thirties at the time), but I didn’t know and didn’t care enough to find out. For not showing up for work, he got fired, which was unnecessary, and I remember there was someone who asked the boss to process the severance as a resignation and write a sham letter asking him to come back, though there was no chance of it. I don’t know whether it was a family member, a social worker, or just some random person who was a better friend to him than I was. Never really knew him, never really liked him, never really able to quit thinking about him, his unearned trust, and the grace of God. He was a very good janitor.

[Rebo]

Once upon a time, I was a supervisor of a drafting department. This was back around '89 or '90, and we had just gotten COMPUTERS to work on! Using this nifty software called AutoCad.

I hired this kid who seemed to know a bit about computers and drafting. He called in sick his FIRST day of work. It was a bad omen, as it turned out.

One day I was very busy, and he came to me and told me he had “lost” a drawing file. We were all new at this 'puter stuff, and it seems we didn’t have a backup of it. So I told him to start to redraw it, as we did have a paper copy. I told him I would look further for a backup later, but I couldn’t right then.

Ignoring my instructions, he proceeded to use Norton to try to “unerase” the drawing he had undoubtedly deleted. He trashed that computer so bad, it had to be reformatted. We lost a lot of data.

I went to my boss and told him what he had done, and said he wasn’t working out. (He had done some other stuff that I can’t recall, too. Mostly he was a smartass know-it-all.) The boss gave me the go-ahead, and I fired him.

He didn’t believe me! He insisted on speaking to MY boss. So my boss left him hanging out in his office for about three hours, then came in and told him that yes, he was fired. He stormed around gathering his stuff, and stomped out.

I didn’t like being a boss, anyway. Now I’m just a worker bee, and I love it.

[Exgineer]

@Evil Captor

B) There was some sort of remedy short of firing for people who pose the sort of problem Joan did (i.e., disruptive to other employees, won’t quit such behavior even when given sanctions that clearly would indicate to any reasonable person that she’s headed out the door if she doesn’t change) though I don’t know what that option might be.

I’m not going to be as nice as Rilchiam.

This makes absolutely no goddamned sense. I don’t know what planet you live on, but here on Earth adults are responsible for their own actions. Coddling disruptive, ineffectual dipshits is counterproductive in any setting. For some reason you seem to think that poison personalities like Joan are somehow “victims” who haven’t brought the shitstorm down on themselves.

My wife and her productive coworkers are having a Joan-esque problem with a similar dipshit, and I can tell you that her candy-assed management’s failure to can his worthless ass is definitely causing morale and productivity issues. They’re starting to develop problems with motivation, morale and productivity that will have serious long term consequences if they don’t man up and axe the backbiting son of a bitch. That’s the responsible and moral thing to do to protect your productive employees and your organization. I wonder if your failure to appreciate this stems from mere stupidity or if you just haven’t gotten around to moving out of your mom’s basement.

Joan’s firing was a “win” for Maureen, her management, her coworkers, and her company. They all now have a work environment with much less stress and resentment and can get on with business instead of dealing with petty bullshit. In the real world this is good and proper, because they are the only figures in this little drama deserving of sympathy.

Sure Joan took a loss, but it came on an own-goal.

[Evil_Captor]

@fluiddruid

Evil Captor, why is it that you cannot drop this point? I said it several times in a previous thread, and I’ll say it again:

Employers do not owe their employees a job.

Well, since that was never the point I was making, it’s rather hard for me to drop it, seeing as how I never had it to begin with. So your concern is entirely misplaced.

I’m not opposed to firing because I feel workers have an entitlement to their jobs (though I DO see potential merit in such a position, in some cases). I’m opposed to firing because I see firing as a form of violence in a society which has little or nothing in the way of a safety net for its citizens. In fact, I bet most people who have been fired or laid off from a good job would, if given the choice, opt to be beaten severely for 15 minutes over being fired or laid off (provided such a beating involved no permanent injuries). Certainly, the lasting effects of being fired or laid off in a competitive job market is much more serious and arguably more dangerous than a beating, what with the probable loss of health insurance, the possible loss of housing, etc. In fact, unemployment doubles your chances of committing suicide.. The Wikipedia article on unemployment covers the problems associated with unemployment very thoroughly under “Cost” and says in one summary:

Joblessness can hit individual job-seekers hard. Lacking a job often means lacking social contact with fellow employees, a purpose for many hours of the day, lack of self-esteem, mental stress and illness, and of course, the ability to pay bills and to purchase both necessities and luxuries.

Now, firing wouldn’t be so bad if such harsh consequences were not attendant on it. That’s really my only major beef with firing. But still, it’s a MAJOR beef, which is why I am not going to drop it. But you can rest assured that it’s not an “entitlement” issue I’m concerned about, just finding ways of dealing with what i feel is a serious problem, unrecognized as such by many.

If a homeless crackhead breaks into your house as a squatter and takes my things as his own, it might cause him great problems and harm to have him arrested. After all, you are depriving of food, shelter, and clothes. He needs those things, even though his own actions have created the situation that he’s in. Would you be OK with that? Don’t you feel that, lacking a good social support network, that it’s your responsibility?

I think it’s OUR responsibility, on this board, to come up with better solutions to the problem than “jail the fucker” or “fire the fucker” if such exist. Fighting ignorance and all that. You don’t wanna do the hard thinking, fine, I’ll shoulder the load for you.

[Exgineer]

@Evil Captor

You don’t wanna do the hard thinking, fine, I’ll shoulder the load for you.

If I ever find myself in a situation where I have to rely on your “thinking” I’m going to shoot myself in the head before I turn into a homeless crackhead.

[Winston_Smith]

@Evil Captor

In fact, I bet most people who have been fired or laid off from a good job would, if given the choice, opt to be beaten severely for 15 minutes over being fired or laid off (provided such a beating involved no permanent injuries). Certainly, the lasting effects of being fired or laid off in a competitive job market is much more serious and arguably more dangerous than a beating, what with the probable loss of health insurance, the possible loss of housing, etc. In fact, <snip>

Nonsense. I got laid off twice in 14 months: June '04 and August '05, and I’m very good at what I do (let’s just say I have mixed feelings about offshoring and outsourcing. I’ve got a stay-at-home wife, two kids, mortgage, etc. BOTH times I got the axe, I landed better jobs. Yes it was scary. Yes, I worried about supporting my family. Yes, I had moments of anger against those employers. I wanted to spend this past summer working on my new house, landscraping and painting. I ended up spending summer ‘05 the same as summer ‘04: looking for a farkin’ job. But, you know what? That’s the price I pay to be a White Collar Worker. That’s the price I pay to earn a high salary in the Technology Industry. I knew that when I got into it. I could walk away from this right now, and flip burgers for $7/hr, and never worry about being laid off again. Or do DeskTop Support for $10/hr where the jobs are plentiful. But I won’t. I want the fuckin’ money. I’m greedy, and I want my kids to grow up with more than I had.

And trading a severence package for a beating?

Rediculous You, sir, are wrong.

[Khadaji]

Out of curiousity Evil Captor, how old are you?

[tomndebb]

@Evil Captor

I think it’s OUR responsibility, on this board, to come up with better solutions to the problem than “jail the fucker” or “fire the fucker” if such exist. Fighting ignorance and all that. You don’t wanna do the hard thinking, fine, I’ll shoulder the load for you.

I think this would resonate better, with me, if you had actually proposed a solution that went beyond “maybe we can find some make-work program into which to herd the maladjusted” (with no serious proposal regarding where to find the funds to support it and no real life example of how it would really work).

I don’t recall any hard thinking in which a well thought out proposal has been put forth for criticism in GD or IMHO. Instead, I have seen you pop into various threads in which a firing is discussed to cluck your tongue at the barbaraic society and barbarian Dopers who participate in it.

Payroll is the number one expense at the majority of companies and is an enormous burden for smaller outfits. Carrying counter-productive people can literally mean life or death to a smaller company or department within a larger company. If you can come up with a workable alternative, fine, but simply injecting your dismay over what you perceive to be one unfair aspect of life (which, I note, has a lot of unfair aspects) does not strike me as a serious attempt to fight ignorance, but simply a way of letting you vent your spleen on a topic that makes you feel bad.

[Evil_Captor]

@tomndebb

I think this would resonate better, with me, if you had actually proposed a solution that went beyond “maybe we can find some make-work program into which to herd the maladjusted” (with no serious proposal regarding where to find the funds to support it and no real life example of how it would really work).

I don’t recall any hard thinking in which a well thought out proposal has been put forth for criticism in GD or IMHO. Instead, I have seen you pop into various threads in which a firing is discussed to cluck your tongue at the barbaraic society and barbarian Dopers who participate in it.
[/quote]

Well, you’re right, there hasn’t been any hard work done here. But to be fair, I did suggest “Salvation Army” for a model. You wanna see a thread in GD on the topic of how to ameliorate the effects of firing? Or perhaps we should go with first things first: should we attempt to ameliorate the effects of firing?

Payroll is the number one expense at the majority of companies and is an enormous burden for smaller outfits. Carrying counter-productive people can literally mean life or death to a smaller company or department within a larger company. If you can come up with a workable alternative, fine, but simply injecting your dismay over what you perceive to be one unfair aspect of life (which, I note, has a lot of unfair aspects) does not strike me as a serious attempt to fight ignorance, but simply a way of letting you vent your spleen on a topic that makes you feel bad.

I admit there has been more spleen-venting here than logic. But then, I think firing’s a fair thing to be upset about. I’m completely comfortable with being unhappy with the whole firing phenomenon as it occurs in the US. Prolly I have been harder on Maureen than was warranted, given all the hell she got from Joan in the first place, but really, even hopeless losers like Joan are people, and they, and the problems they pose, just don’t go away because you don’t like them. Typically, they continue to cause problems. I’m all about solutions here.

[Evil_Captor]

@Khadaji

Out of curiousity Evil Captor, how old are you?

Your idle curiousity must remain unslaked. Ad hominem and all that.

[Evil_Captor]

@Winston Smith

Nonsense. I got laid off twice in 14 months: June '04 and August '05, and I’m very good at what I do (let’s just say I have mixed feelings about offshoring and outsourcing. I’ve got a stay-at-home wife, two kids, mortgage, etc. BOTH times I got the axe, I landed better jobs. Yes it was scary. Yes, I worried about supporting my family. Yes, I had moments of anger against those employers. I wanted to spend this past summer working on my new house, landscraping and painting. I ended up spending summer ‘05 the same as summer ‘04: looking for a farkin’ job. But, you know what? That’s the price I pay to be a White Collar Worker. That’s the price I pay to earn a high salary in the Technology Industry. I knew that when I got into it. I could walk away from this right now, and flip burgers for $7/hr, and never worry about being laid off again. Or do DeskTop Support for $10/hr where the jobs are plentiful. But I won’t. I want the fuckin’ money. I’m greedy, and I want my kids to grow up with more than I had.

And trading a severence package for a beating?

Rediculous You, sir, are wrong.

I am glad things worked out well for you. But I don’t think I’m wrong.

[Khadaji]

@Evil Captor

Your idle curiousity must remain unslaked. Ad hominem and all that.

Then can I assume you fear there is something in your age that I would use as an attack? Interesting.

[tomndebb]

@Evil Captor

But to be fair, I did suggest “Salvation Army” for a model.

The SA has a good record of providing low-level manual labor employment for people with problems of alcohol abuse or other disabilities. However, I see nowhere in their “model” into which to place the antisocial shit stirrers who are currently employed as accountants, clerks, programmers, or managers who typically show up in Pit threads. Not much of a model, I’m afraid. (Not that I would not experience some schadenfreude at watching any number of jerks with whom I’ve worked relegated to sorting old clothes, but as a means of employing the anti-social, it does not strike me as particularly useful.)

[Hentor_the_Barbarian]

@Evil Captor

B) There was some sort of remedy short of firing for people who pose the sort of problem Joan did (i.e., disruptive to other employees, won’t quit such behavior even when given sanctions that clearly would indicate to any reasonable person that she’s headed out the door if she doesn’t change) though I don’t know what that option might be.

I think it is quite reasonable to acknowledge that you would prefer a better solution, even if you don’t know what it is.

I think it’s OUR responsibility, on this board, to come up with better solutions to the problem than “jail the fucker” or “fire the fucker” if such exist. Fighting ignorance and all that. You don’t wanna do the hard thinking, fine, I’ll shoulder the load for you.

I think it is an asshat move to suggest that you are superior to others in your ability or desire to address the problem after just acknowledging that you are unable to address the problem.

You are certainly correct that there are dire risks for people who are unemployed, although I think that you overstate them to a degree (for example, it is not accurate to say that there is “little or nothing in the way of a safety net…”). This is why people need to moderate their behavior to avoid such consequences, and conversely why such potential consequences help to shape prosocial behavior.

[Ethilrist]

@Khadaji

Then can I assume you fear there is something in your age that I would use as an attack? Interesting.

Or perhaps just maybe there’s something in his age that’s none of your business? :dubious:

[Evil_Captor]

@Khadaji

Then can I assume you fear there is something in your age that I would use as an attack? Interesting.

A more reasonable assumption would be that it is none of your business. May I ask why you think it is? Also, what is your credit card number, it’s expiration date, and that three-number code on the signature strip? I’m just curious.

[Feydeau]

One’s age can speak to one’s potential life-experience, which may or may not color one’s expectations of society as a whole.

Given that, I for one think that Evil Captor is tilting at windmills. Or, maybe just an asshole. I dunno.

[Skywatcher]

@Anaamika

Just two things about Evil Captor:
First of all, as others have said, it is immature to bring up the bondage thing. It has nothing to do with this thread, and it’s just pointless snarking.

In my defense, EC brought it up first. Yes, I know there’s a difference between treating human beings badly in fantasy and in reality but I didn’t see EC making that distinction. The way it was worded, it sounded like EC was claiming any mistreatment of human beings doesn’t make him feel good inside, which we all know is not true.

[E-Sabbath]

I think it is relevant to this discussion the general position of EC’s life experience. Are you under 18, over 26, or over 50?

I am over 26, myself. I have suffered unjustified firings, I have left of my own will, I have had contracts terminated, and I have had companies fold under me. I have seen office politics, and been both a victor and a loser.

[Siege]

I mentioned earlier that I have a history of mental illness, clinical depression to be precise. Three and a half years ago, I was laid off from a good job as a programmer. I wasn’t as fortunate as Winston Smith; after several months of finding few or no jobs in the IT sector, I took a job as an administrative assistant for a significantly lower salary. I’ve since gotten back into an IT job, but my salary still isn’t what it was. Of course I was severely depressed and I owe my survival to a very good therapist as well as my own determination.

Here’s the thing. While I may think my former employer was foolish for laying me off and I know both my immediate supervisor and our own HR person did (the decision was made by bean counters in another city), I don’t think they were required to keep me on because of my history of mental illness although I do think they should have kept me on because I did dead good work and increased the company’s efficiency. I’ve also acknowledged my difficulties, sought treatment for them, and done my best to make sure they’re not an issue at work. Hell, my addiction to this message board is more likely to become an issue than my history of depression. Joan and others like her haven’t bothered to do so for various reasons, including, quite possibly, the belief that they’re not the ones with the problem. From what Maureen posted about Joan and from what I’ve seen of others like her, they’re not likely to seek out a Salvation Army type program because they don’t think they’re being unreasonable and they see no reason to change. Meanwhile, they bring down moral, damage efficiency, and, in general, make it difficult to provide employment to anyone, let alone one particular employee.

Yes, being laid off is devastating as is being fired. It’s also, in my experience, incredibly boring. Yes, in an ideal world, everyone would be doing the work he or she chooses for a suitable salary and it would be possible to isolate incompetents and malcontents while providing them with basic resources. That world doesn’t exist.

CJ