You're Fired

With all of the lay-offs in the news, I’ve been wondering how the word is actually given to the victims. When Panasonic says the are laying off 15,000 people, how do they actually go about it? Email? Bulletin board? Does each person get pulled into an office for a private chat? Or do pink slips really exist that people just find in an envelope with their last paycheck?

I’ve had to fire people. It was always hard, but I’ll admit it did get easier. I can’t remember the name of the first guy I had to fire but I remember everything else about it. I was in my first supervisory position just a couple years out of college. He was the worlds worst parking lot attendant. He wouldn’t shower, he glared at customers, he was seldom on time, he couldn’t count money accurately, and his co-workers hated him. There were complaints everyday. He deserved to be fired but I couldn’t do it. I’d like to say it’s because I was such a nice guy who could see the good in everyone, but that’s not true. I was just afraid to fire someone. I got a four year business degree from a good university and it just never came up in any class.

So I counseled him about cash counting, and gave him warnings about being late, but how do you tell an adult he smells bad and needs to take a shower? He didn’t improve and the other employees were losing respect for me so I had to do it. I lost sleep for 3 nights while I worried about. I worked on various scripts in my head. I had answers for anything he’d say. I had a nice version and a stern version. On the chosen day, I met him at the end of his shift and said,

“It isn’t working out. We’ll have to let you go.”

He shrugged and walked away. It was that easy.

Over the next 20 years I fired a bunch of people. Some were for budget reasons, some were for performance issues. On one bad day, I even fired 6 at once. It was never easy but it was never as hard as that first time.

It's true that you learn more from life than you do from school, but I still think every business degree should offer Firing 101.

Lay-Offs

Lay-Offs are sweeping the country. Today's unemployment report says that the U.S. lost 540,000 jobs in November. I understand economics and I know why lay-offs happen. I even believe that it can be healthy for a company to go through it sometimes. No companies are immune...including my own. I knew it was a possibility but when it started, I was clueless.

On Wednesday, I talked to Joe in his office at 8:30. I had a follow up question at 10:30 and his office was dark. Jan was at the copier at 10:00 but had disappeared by noon. I saw Mike leaving work early at 1:15 and waved to him. I was like the clueless character in the summer camp horror movie who doesn't know that the campers are disappearing around him. I thought that the dark offices just meant that they were saving energy.

The CEO's email came at 4:00 and the SR.VP called a mandatory meeting at 4:30. We were all in the conference room scanning faces and trying to figure out who was missing. Joe, Jan, Mike, Rick, Simi, Anita, Brad, Kara. My division of 90 lost 18.

For some reason, 18 with names and faces seems like a much larger number than the 540,000 in the news. Why is that?