Fired my first employee- it didn't go well

[Captain Dax]

I got to write this down for posterity. Became a manager in my department almost 3 years ago. Last year another leader got demoted and her team disbanded and spread across several different leaders. one of the employee's I got had been issued a written warning and had issues with their performance. They had actually refused to the sign the document as acknowledgement of receipt. They should have been fired in May 2023, but in June they came to my team and I said, Fine, we will wipe the slate clean and start fresh. The prior manager was demoted for a reason, maybe this person just didn't have good leadership.

By December 2023 I was ready to fire them. I'd assign work- it'd go undone. I'd email them about it and get no response. I'd meet with them in person and they would essentially lay their head down on the conference room and cry they were so overworked. When i check productivity they were doing 1/3 of all of my other teammembers. I wrote new SOPs, I made videos of our processes, I sat with them for weeks. Nothing. Wouldn't do it, wouldn't respond, and would just complain when i met with them in person.

Last Thursday I'd had enough and forwarded all of my documentation to HR and requested a meeting. My company is very forgiving and wants to give everyone a 1000 chances before we go down the road of termination. I went in to the meeting loaded for battle and before I could say anything, the HR BP said, "Given the past history and all of this documentation, our recommendation is termination." I was a little shocked, this was going to be my first one. I've never been fired- I had no idea what the process was like. I'd only seen it in movies and TV.

HR sent me a brief script essentially- your performance is not up to our standards, and we've made the decision to terminate your position effective today. That's all I had to say and HR would take it from their and hand out severance and cobra docs and send this person on their way.

So that was yesterday 4/29/24. Meeting was scheduled for 11 am. While we were meeting with Hr the plan was to have my boss pack her desk up and have it ready to go when the meeting was over. We were not going to let her back on the floor, we were going to escort her to the lobby and provide her her belongings there, take her badge and send her on her way.

She flipped the fuck out. Started screaming at me. Screaming at HR. "You didn't even tell me I had x many days to shape up or you'd fire me! ya, I was written up last year, but that was in the past, that doesn't count!" I remained calm as possible and let HR run with it. Next thing i know, the person is demanding her belongings. We told her those were being packed and would be given to her. She burst out of the conference room and ran for her desk. the HR BP intercepted and blocked her path. The person then threatened to fight HR! screaming that what are you afraid of that I'm going to make a scene? Screaming at the top of her lungs and literally putting up her fists to fight.

My poor boss was shaking, her arms entangled in fan cords and computer cables- finally got all of the food packed up from this persons desk. I'm trying to help pack, and the HR rep is threatening to call the police and holding the person back. another person from another department the size of a linebacker comes over and puts himself between them. I've got a huge surge of adrenaline pumping and it triggers my atrial fibrillation, so my heart is not only beating fast, it's beating irregularly now. We finally get her stuff and muscle her into the elevator, take her badge and kick her out of the building and tell security to bar her from the premises.

It was a wild fucking day. I just need to write it all out to try and make sense of it.


**Update** after a double dose of meds my heart is back in rhythm this morning.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

I've never been in charge of anybody, but have worked with more than my fair share of irresponsible people. The problem is, most of them are entitled and endless warnings end up having no effect except to reinforce that entitlement.

It sounds like HR did the job the right way in your example and you just got stuck with the tail end of the whole affair. It seems like this person should have just been laid off when their department went away.

 

[Captain Dax]

I've never been in charge of anybody, but have worked with more than my fair share of irresponsible people. The problem is, most of them are entitled and endless warnings end up having no effect except to reinforce that entitlement.

It sounds like HR did the job the right way in your example and you just got stuck with the tail end of the whole affair. It seems like this person should have just been laid off when their department went away.

yeah the HR rep came away pretty shaken. she says she's never had a situation spiral out of control like that with that kind of person. She was going to head back to her boss with recommended new protocols for taking the person to an isolated location off the floor so something like that doesn't happen and having a security guard in the wings.

 

[DonIago]

Holy crap.

I don't have much to say here beyond the fact that given this person's behavior upon receiving the news, termination certainly seems to have been the right call. I might have felt badly for them if they could have at least handled it in a mature manner. Getting fired sucks, but throwing a fit about it isn't going to improve anything at all.

I'm kind of on the flip side of this life cycle myself. I just sat in on an interview (virtually) for the first time in years, albeit as a largely silent partner, though I did give feedback to my manager and I'm very aware that the people we're interviewing (three more this week!) may end up becoming my new (probably remote) coworker. I think because I wasn't entirely sure what to expect I got very nervous before the interview (which made me feel so much worse when I imagined how the candidate must feel), though in the end the whole thing was pretty straightforward; I took reams of probably unneeded notes and I think I scored points with my manager with my observations, both regarding the candidate and (at her request) her own performance during the interview.

 

[Tosk]

They sound like a job squatter. I think I worked with a low-level one once, but they didn't have the big showy freakout at the end. Sounds wild!

 

[PoorSailorsAirline]

Oof. I work in HR, and golly that sounds like the perfect storm came together. Maybe one of the reasons the other manager's team was dissolved was a lack of handling situations like that?

I'm kind of surprised that the HR BP expected you to lead a meeting like that, having not led one before, with only a few sentences as pointers?? Talk about sending someone with a knife to a gun fight, or however that saying goes.

I can see the rationale for having it be a quick chat not too far from her desk, otherwise it will definitely seem suspicious, and, no one imagined she would react like that (!) so who knows, maybe it was assessed as a low risk? At my last employer, we had a few meeting rooms that were similar to all the others, just a teeny bit out of the way and pretty close to the side door. We didn't want to create a gallows, so there were lots of job interviews, promotions, extra bonuses, job-well-done chats, etc. in those rooms also...nevertheless, they all never lived down the nickname "The Crying Rooms"

Either way, sounds like this person might have gotten away with a lot under her previous manager. Also sounds like you were wonderfully patient and supportive (hey, at least I hope you can put all the remedial training & job aids you developed into your new-hire package!) but...it clearly wasn't the right fit for anyone anymore. Sounds like someone made a mess and handed you the mop - it happens, but FWIW it sounds like you handled it really well!

Most importantly - glad the atrial fibrillation is behaving!

 

[lab rat]

Probably a high chance this person is now on social media telling stories about how they were the best employee in the company and how toxic the workplace was.
Also a high chance they are receiving a large amount of support from people who believe everything she says.

 

[Australis]

Been fired many times. Sometimes not my fault, sometimes was. Hated it every time.

She sounds like a proper narcissist, and you're better off without her.

 

[tafkats]

It's never easy. If you're relatively new to management, I highly recommend the Ask A Manager blog as a regular read. (Actually, it's good for anyone interested in management and HR best practices, but especially helpful for new managers.)

 

[Oddish]

Glad I'm not a manager. Sounds like it's no picnic.