Sucks to be me... I had to fire an employee this morning. This was a guy that was a new employee that had been to work for about a month and last Friday he didn't show to work. We went to his house and did a welfare check. He came to the door all out of his mind and couldn't even make a complete sentence... There was messages left on his voicemail and asked him to return a call. Monday morning at 4:00 he left a message on the work phone asking about his job. There is probation periods for a reason... Am I too much of a hard AZZ or would you have done the same? BTW it's not easy I've finished the Crown and started the Bourbon...
:saluting
I would have done the same. As an "ex-boss", firing was an aspect I didn't particularly like. At one time I had 27 guys under me, and it was a necessary duty from time to time. But some folks make it easy. He sounds like one of them. However the soft side of me hopes he is ok. Could be a multitude of things to cause him to be whacked out (drugs/alcohol/mental problem/medical issue, etc)....
Thats hard. Been down that road. Had to let a guy go that broke my heart one time. He was an awesome technician and a good guy.... Had a mouth that got the best of him when angry. HR made me get rid of him due to even though on some level I might have agreed with him. He just could not bite his tongue when people pissed him off. I trusted him with just about anything. Sucked bad.
There's the old saying, "Hire slow, Fire fast". I have read a lot of articles lately that say company culture is the only true sustainable advantage a firm has. If this is true, its best to get the rotten apple out of the barrel as fast as possible.
Bossman,
I worked at least 44 years as an adult, 6 of those years were for private companies or individuals, that expected you to be at work and if you weren't, you best have a good reason and let 'em know ahead of time, where and why. Then I got the opportunity to go to work for a gov't agency and it was a whole 'nother ball game. 3 1/2 years later I went to another gov't job and stayed there 35 years. 20 of those years as a supervisor/foreman.
The private sector was able to make folks toe the line with the threat of losing their job, where in the county gov't and state gov't jobs you almost had to kill somebody to get fired! I had several occasions not recommend individuals for another years contract, several occasions where gross insubordination should have cost a person his job, but under an elected board, nobody wanted to make waves and not get re-elected so we just had to deal with inefficiency.
On the other hand, I have experienced 2 cases where drugs/alcohol were a problem with an employee. Both were given an opportunity to get straightened up, get their act together, even offered proper counseling to help combat their problems. Both responded, one didn't follow through, lost his job and sad to say lost his life a year later because of alcohol. The other man failed a drug test. When the office called me and said send so and so over for his random drug test, he looked at me and said, "Oh boy!"
A few days later he was confronted with the results of his drug test. He had already told me what he had done. Same opportunity as the 1st guy, this man took it to heart, did what he was supposed to do and was welcomed back to work in a couple of months. He became one of the most reliable crew members and went on to retire a few years after I did. He is still a valued friend and in some arenas would have been sent down the road with no available options for rehab.
Each case is different and we each know what is expected of us by our employers. Some employers have the option to help individuals with "issues", some simply can not afford to deal with a person who is out of control in their job. A tough place to be when you deal with people who don't take issues seriously.
Treefarmer
