What a way to start my day, had to fire a guy....l.grrr

[ezbtr]

He had it coming for months, tried to work with him to correct behavior, at his age(late 40's) I really shouldn't have to, he totally went against ALL new policies, didn't inform me(his boss) of wayyy too many things, was very deceptive, a contractor(easy to terminate)rude in emails as well as in person to other coworkers, so I had to fire him. God he had every chance(s)! And he was totally surprised??? Some things ya just can't teach folks who don't want to learn and improve....such a technically talented guy, just bad manners, tone and attitude cost him the 92K(hourly contractor, no bennies) a year job...DUMBBBBBBB

 

[SS MAYFLOAT]

Re: What a way to start my day, had to fire a guy....l.grrr

Sad thing is, he will never change his ways and won't care what he did wrong. Maybe his logic is if you get rid of the customer base that his job will be easier to do because of less work. I know some people that are that way. They cannot make the connection that it is the customer that pays the salary.,,,,,,,Or maybe he is one of those drama Kings

 

[Tyme2fish]

Re: What a way to start my day, had to fire a guy....l.grrr

Way back when I managed a store, this is how I would fire people.


Betty, I don't know how we'll get along without you, but starting tomorrow we're going to try. (just a joke people)

 

[Bob_VT]

Re: What a way to start my day, had to fire a guy....l.grrr

Don't dwell on it. Right now he is blaming you and probably will not admit his faults.

Poor judgement on his part when the unemployed work force is so strong!

 

[tashasdaddy]

Re: What a way to start my day, had to fire a guy....l.grrr

that's the problem with independent contractors, they think the really are their own boss. face it everybody has a boss somewhere. #1 customers. by the way, what happened to customer service??

 

[Hoss the Hermit]

Re: What a way to start my day, had to fire a guy....l.grrr

Canned 3 of 'em this morning, blatant, willful violation of hot work policy. Now my boss is mad at ME 'cause the job didn't get done. I went down where they were gonna do the job to issue hot work permit, they're already welding with no permit, no fire watch, no extinguishers, no fire blankets.

 

[JB]

Re: What a way to start my day, had to fire a guy....l.grrr

How many warnings did you give him? Did you sit him down and tell him about the problem?

People only change behavior when (and if) they know things will be better when they do.

 

[beerfilter]

Re: What a way to start my day, had to fire a guy....l.grrr

Wow , 92K and no bennies .
What type of work was this guy doing ?

If you tried to coach this person , and , work with him , I can see no fault with your decisision .
There is no excuse for rudeness to co-workers or customers .

The best thing you can do for those "demanding" customers , is to let them speak thier minds .
Often you will find out that that customer has had a bad day , and , you are the one they have chosen to vent to .
The particular issue you are dealing with is FAR down on the customers list of priorities , and , is often a simple fix .
You just happen to have the particular luck of being the last straw .
Yes , there are the odd 'terrorists" out there .
Like the severely bi polar individual who "tweaks" settings on his computer , for no reason , then , insists it is YOUR fault for not being able to figure out what this looney SOB has done .

The customer is ultimately EVERYONES boss , even if they are not always right ( this went out the window when the IRS started refering to taxpayers as customers ) .

If you cannot handle the general public , or , deal with customers , you need to get a job in a factory or at the post office .
With most of this nations jobs being service related , those with no people skills are the truly disadvantaged .
The down side is that the way things are going , this tool will probably be able to collect disability for being an arrogant ***hole .

 

[Scaaty]

Re: What a way to start my day, had to fire a guy....l.grrr

Sounds like the American people and just about any elected..."cept you still have the "power"....we somehow don't..(jezz, we even can't figure out how to vote correctly!)
"RECOUNT...somehow I lost?"

 

[rogerwa]

Re: What a way to start my day, had to fire a guy....l.grrr

If he was a contractor, you really don't owe him the coaching. You are the customer and you probably hired the contractor at a higher rate because you needed him to come in, hit the ground running and be a professional.

If he didn't do that, he wasn't fulfilling his part of the bargain. While you need to act with integrity, volitility in security is part of the cotracting gig..

 

[PW2]

Re: What a way to start my day, had to fire a guy....l.grrr

I don't know. I've had to fire my share of people over the years, and you can't generalize over it.

Some want to leave the job, but don't have what it takes to make that decision. They need a shove. Often they find what they really want to do and become happier.

Others could win the lottery, and complain about the color of ink used on the check. They'll never be happy no matter what.

Myself, I would always be up front with them. Tell them up front what they need to do, and when needed tell them when I was working for them to keep their job. After a bit if that didn't work I'd tell them I was working to fire them. If that didn't work, off they'd go. Never give it a second thought.
I always figured they made it their choice, not mine.

 

[ezbtr]

Re: What a way to start my day, had to fire a guy....l.grrr

ahh a refinery job? I did that deal and safety was WAY high priority! WE had nitrogen, acid, crude, fumes, hot water, ground gasses, and propane to deal with, only guys that got killed were the unsafe ones.....

 

[SgtMaj]

Re: What a way to start my day, had to fire a guy....l.grrr

92k a year with no benefits in SoCal... McDonalds or Taco Bell?

What's funny is one of the reasons you fired him was that he didn't keep you informed... I haven't talked to my boss in... well I can't even remember, 3 or 4 months anyway... that includes no phone calls, emails, etc.

 

[ezbtr]

Re: What a way to start my day, had to fire a guy....l.grrr

He was a contractor I inherited when I started(and I have one other that is fine and hired a new one last year who is also flourishing), they service port terminal customers MY company has. Previous mgmt. was terrible before I and a few other folks came on - very weak. Some of these guys were used to NOT working much or having a choice of what work and when to do it????? ie, 30 mins before closing time a truck lane is down, and OLD response in front of MY customer was, "it's quittin time in 30 mins we'll try to get to it tomorrow", my immed. answer was "F*** that and fix it now" and they did. Complacency...this was also a boost to other techs. as I got the"so called ringleader . lead tech" OUT, they were shocked as was he(I still don't get that type of attitude, your boss asks you to do something(legal, job task) and you DO it. He repetitively argued with me in front of customers and my bosses, that was the last straw, an absolute bitcher and moaner who DENIED he had any issues that we worked on for approx. 2+ mos. I'm a patinet guy and tried to work with him and know what it takes to feed a family............a good job AND attitude and TONE of voice/emails.....and it briefly started to show in other techs, like a damn cancer....Oh huh uh no way on my shift! I beleive in working hard, getting job satisfaction for customer AND yourself AND reaping the benefits - hmmm an odd concept??? I slept well last night as I knew my plan of action today and will sleep well tonight knowing I did the right thing for all.............and we had a kickass baseball game my sons team(I help coach) tied tonight ")

 

[arboldt]

Re: What a way to start my day, had to fire a guy....l.grrr

Several thoughts...

The way you describe it, the guy was actually an employee, not an independent contractor, regardless of how the pay / bennies were structured. Microsoft got into a BIG problem with that a few years back. Be careful about it so you don't get into a similar problem.

I changed careers almost 20 years ago. Before then I was a Regional Director for a service company. I had to fire several managers over the years, and it was *never* easy even though each one had been warned, guided, shown what they had to do, etc. There was one guy, though, that was worse than the others... He seemed to enjoy firing his employees, some with cause and some without. When someone takes pleasure in firing another, that's a sure sign of an incredibly poor manager. As essential as it is sometimes, it's never fun.

Ultimately, excellent customer service / excellent product value is what it's all about. But, as Dilbert afficiandos can attest, there are plenty of Pointy-Haired Bosses out there who exemplify decision-making without benefit of the thought process. Unfortunately, the CEO of my company is like that. He's taken a $300-Million company and 'grown' it to a $20-Million company. The corporate strategy seems to be to see how many clients he can alienate before the company goes under. It's hearbreaking to see a legacy of excellence being systematically destroyed. Oh, well. The office I'm at will only be around a few more weeks; we won't see the final demise.

 

[ezbtr]

Re: What a way to start my day, had to fire a guy....l.grrr

NO he was a contractor....................

 

[dave11]

Re: What a way to start my day, had to fire a guy....l.grrr

We all have bosses. For 92K it won't be hard to replace him in todays economy. I have always tried to help employees who try. The ones who don't need to go. Not fun but simple.

 

[jay_merrill]

Re: What a way to start my day, had to fire a guy....l.grrr

You might think he is a contractor because that's what your company called him but that doesn't make him one. Arboldt is right, from your description, he was an employee. You can start with the fact that you view his termination as a firing. Since this guy was not one to see things your way most of the time, you might want to think about issues you may have to face re his termination.

Although most states have "employment at will" laws, there are a million ways that an employee can come back at you. I would say you could be particularly susceptable to problems because you treated him like something other than an employee, and probably didn't do some of the "CYA" stuff that an HR dept would normally have had you do.

I'm not saying that you were wrong in terminating his services, but spending a little time thinking about how you might handle some potential problems on this, might not be a bad idea.

 

[SgtMaj]

Re: What a way to start my day, had to fire a guy....l.grrr

Jay's got a good point... and correct me if I am wrong, but CA is not a right-to-work or partial right-to-work state (meaning that employment is not at-will and thus there are more legal issues to deal with in terminating an employee).

 

[ezbtr]

Re: What a way to start my day, had to fire a guy....l.grrr

no really he was a contractor, all our techs are on the west coast - contract is at will on both parties side....