In my career, I have worked as a manager at several different levels, and one of the things I disliked the most about middle management was having to fire an employee. Telling someone that they no longer have a job is a really crummy thing to do, and most of us who aren't sadists don't really enjoy having to be the one to deliver such bad news and take away someone's livelihood. I am sure that it is even harder now, knowing that finding a new job in this economic downturn is extremely difficult. Even though the unemployment rate is starting to creep slightly below 9.5%, the reality is that someone who is fired today is going to have a really tough time finding another job right away because they will have to compete against other job seekers who are more skilled, more motivated and harder workers.
Sometimes though, the employee brings it on themselves by making huge errors in judgment or they have proven, chance after chance, that they aren't able to perform the job they are getting paid to do. In these cases, you don't lose as much sleep at night because you know that it is the right decision for the company and you know that the company was justified in not wanting to employ that person any longer.
But sometimes, firing an employee can be good for a laugh or for the shocking things they say. Just look at the ratings for The Apprentice, that ought to be proof enough that watching people getting fired is like watching a train wreck – you just can't look away. In that spirit, Don Rainey at the War Room recently published a great article about some of the weirdest, real reactions people have had to being told that they are fired.
Here are a few of them:
- “Not Again!” - This person went on to share that no matter what they do, they keep getting fired from jobs. After listening to his complaint, it became clear that the employee had been fired from his last three jobs. According to Rainey, this man went on to find another job within the industry and was fired from that job as well.
- “I haven't been given enough training.” - This employee seemed unable to complete any job he was given. Rainey even compared his approach to any new assignment to Goldilocks; “this one is too hard...”, “this one is too soft...”, but there never was a “this one is just right”. Whenever he was criticized, his defense was that he hadn't received enough training. The employee tried seven different positions within the company, and according to him, each job he tried wasn't explained properly to him. After it became clear that there was no amount of instruction that was going to make him a productive employee, he was fired. To top it off, he was indignant about being let go and couldn't understand why his boss wouldn't try to train him better or give him a different position.
- “I will sue you for wrongful termination.” - The employee who Rainey describes in this situation is someone who has some serious anger issues. Evidently, he was being fired for threatening to kill another employee in a voice mail message. He protested his firing saying that death threats to co-workers doesn't qualify as inappropriate behavior, so he was intending to sue for wrongful termination.
- “What will I tell my wife?” - This employee was fired for very blatant sexual harassment. He asked Rainey to help him make up as story as for why he was let go. His fear was that his wife or other professionals would hear about the reasons behind his termination and then both his reputation and his marriage would be in jeopardy. But, I suppose he should have thought about that before he started sexually harassing people in the workplace.
What are the weirdest or funniest things you have heard anyone say when they were being fired? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
By Melissa Kennedy- Melissa is a 9 year blog veteran and a freelance writer for LogisticsJobsiteBlog, along with helping others find the job of their dreams, she enjoys computer geekery, raising a teenager, supporting her local library, writing about herself in the third person and working on her next novel.
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