Firing someone

[the button]

Any evidence of thinking? I rather suspect not.

 

[ViolentPanda]

You would deny him the sadistic pleasure of firing her himself?

Most certainly. I'd take sadistic pleasure in doing so.

 

[the button]

He's probably not even asked if anyone saluted when an idea was run up the flagpole. Let alone enquired as to whether we were cooking with gas.

 

[ViolentPanda]

He should video the firing, then post it up here so we can admire his stern demeanour in the face of her tear-stained pleading.

Or see her ripping him a new one.

 

[kabbes]

This thread hasn't gone that well for you, really, has it 8den? Possibly not what you had in mind when you started it.

Still, at least you haven't come across as lazy (can't be bothered to spend a few weeks in training her), obnoxious ("I'm her boss, not her fucking life coach"), poor at timekeeping (I have to sack her! Actually, she's only got three weeks left on her contract!) or distracted by irrelevancies ("she was flirting! With somebody else!")

 

[ViolentPanda]

This thread hasn't gone that well for you, really, has it 8den? Possibly not what you had in mind when you started it.

Still, at least you haven't come across as lazy (can't be bothered to spend a few weeks in training her), obnoxious ("I'm her boss, not her fucking life coach"), poor at timekeeping (I have to sack her! Actually, she's only got three weeks left on her contract!) or distracted by irrelevancies ("she was flirting! With somebody else!")

Beautifully done, sir!

 

[Hollis]

So whether you spend a few weeks closely managing her up to scratch, or a few weeks training up her replacement, you're going to have to commit some time to getting your department back on fighting form. Take the first approach, and you risk getting a reputation as a failing manager, you might risk a law suit, and you will certainly feel like shit. The other way might leave you with a new member of staff who starts off well - and then descends to the same behaviour as this one, and for similar reasons. Perhaps by this time your contract will have ended, and it won't matter. But will you have improved as a manager? I don't believe sacking someone improves you as a manager, do you?



And what did you say to her while she was asking the designer to 'do a foreigner' when she should have been tackling in-house work? Id you s



I'm really not, I've had some great managers, and I've learned a lot from them, and I've been a good manager myself, so I've put into practice what I'm talking about.

I've only really had one dreadful manager, and she went through staff like bottles of milk. She had a reputation for being poor, but managed to get through her career by projecting her weaknesses onto her staff, and pretending that their strengths were actually hers.

I once wanted to sack someone, and my partner told me: 'Imagine that sacking them is impossible, it just is not going to happen. Now, what ould you do instead?'

Of course, what I did instead was manage them to within an inch of their life. If my lazy boy stood at his desk talking, I asked him what he was doing, and could he possibly give me a hand - and then clearly dished out some work for me, and some work for him, and said 'Meet you back here in an hour, we'll see how far we've got.'

If he took private calls on his mobile when we were on deadline, I reminded him that deadlines came first. If he turned up for work a hour late every day for a week, I moved the editorial meeting to 9am, and then asked him to chair the meeting instead of me (he loved that one, actually!)

In the end, he became a good mate of mine, and told me years afterwards that a lot of his issue was plain boredom, and the more I asked him to do, the less bored he got. We'd solved the problem, not just for me, but for him as well - and for the rest of his career he knows that process-heavy jobs are not the right jobs for him.

My immediate manager was all for sacking my lazy boy, it was me who said: 'He's a nice lad, I can build on that.'

When this woman failed to keep up with the workload on those two days you were away, what did you say to her? What process did you put in place to ensure that couldn't happen again? You said she didn't have an answer - but to a disinterested party it looks a bit like you didn't find the answer. There is an answer, isn't there? There had to be a reason?

If we believe what you say, and believe that she is just taking the piss out of you, presumably because she thinks you aren't strong enough to challenge her, or quick enough to stop her, would you (for arguments sake) take it on the chin that you might not be strong enough or quick enough, and that she is running circles around you?

In which case, aren't you at least partly responsible for things getting so bad? And further, don't you have some responsibility for putting them right, before you just sack her?

In my experience, most capabable adults don't behave that way, trying to get away with as little work as possible unless there is another underlying problem. Most adults really do want to be useful, and proud of what they do - especially professional media workers, short-term contract or not.

Is her job just shit? Be honest now!!

Hmm its an interesting point.. I'm always wary that if you're 'on someones back' you get accused of 'micromanaging'. cool.. Then again maybe there's a time and a place..