Bosses Describe The Employees They Came To Regret Firing

It must suck when you're duped into firing the wrong person and then you find out too late.

That Day

"A long time ago I was asked to fire a salesman. He was kind, but not good at selling. It was a week before Christmas. I told my boss I would fire him on Jan 3. The boss said no and fired him that day. I regretted not giving him the holiday."

Tootalllewis

The Picker

"I had an assistant for about a year, who was a pretty good assistant for a difficult working situation. My boss, the district manager, hated him, though. She kept trying to catch him screwing up when I wasn't around. The trouble was, the company paid poorly, so talent was hard to come by, training was difficult, and the hours were 48 a week MINIMUM. This guy was the only assistant I had who didn't quit in less than a year."

"My stores were so undermanned, if this guy left, I'd be working 80-hour weeks like before I got him. The only reason it wasn't more than 80 hours was because the store's malls or shopping centers actually closed at night."

"Finally, one day, she wrote him up because she said 'a secret shopper' said he was picking his nose. This guy, who at least had SOME dignity, refused to sign the disciplinary paperwork. 'I want proof: I am not sitting in the showroom, picking my nose.' My boss said, 'he won't sign it, insubordination.'"

"'Fire him.' I really tried to reason with her, but she wanted him gone one way or another. 'Either you fire him, or I'll come in and fire both of you.'"

"I had to fire a man for picking his nose. I quit shortly after that because I knew this was just the lowest I had ever sunk in management. I still feel bad about all that."

punkwalrus

This Guy

"Years ago I got a call from a competing engineering company. They screwed up a job and rather than own up, decided to blame a senior technologist as the scapegoat. His immediate boss was against it but the partners demanded it. He phoned us and said 'You should hire this guy.'"

"We did and he was an excellent employee until he retired 20 years later. Our gain, their loss."

"The best part is that the guy who called me (who was a senior engineer) quit shortly thereafter and the company closed down a couple of years later - Karma I guess."

somewhat_random

The Team Member

"Someone else hired someone with no experience after I voted 'no.' I knew he would be in over his head and he had a good job already. They didn't train him or coach him. And then after about 6 months my boss's boss comes to me and tells me to build a case against him... my team member... and to fire him."

"I quit within the next two months. F them... I'm not doing their dirty work to solve a problem they caused and enable them to keep their hands clean in the process."

AdUnfair3836

It's just a puff...

"I was once forced to fire an awesome employee for failing a drug test (weed). And just a few years later it was legalized."

PsiOryx

When will we just let people smoke freely?

Bad Vibes

"I had to fire someone on my actual last day once. And right beforehand, everyone was making a joke about the person I fired getting fired. That sucked. Not a good vibes last day at all."

​backyardvegas

Terror

"I had an employee about 4 years ago now who had chronic attendance issues. I kept her MUCH longer than my boss was happy with because she was decent and very genuine. But eventually, I just couldn't put it off anymore. When we were in the room talking she burst into tears and looked terrified and told me her husband was NOT going to be happy with her. She said he wouldn't hurt her and she didn't need me to call the police for her, but even still I'm worried he was physically abusive. The level of terror was up there."

AlisonChained

Merry Christmas

"About 20 years ago I was running a bar Christmas Eve - chaotic night as we were incredibly short-staffed due to heavy snow and a lot of our workers being from a different area. Bar downstairs was closing up and the staff was being moved to the upstairs. We were £200 short in the bar and the main manager interrogated three out of the four - conveniently not the supervisor he was having an affair with."

"That supervisor was also in charge of the float and was generally sh*t at her job. That float for one until was convenient £200."

"Main boss wouldn't consider his fling could do wrong (a common occurrence) and he didn't want to deal with it. So it became me (the lowest of four managers) to sack three people for suspected theft. On Christmas Eve knowing I wasn't in any position financially or in terms of job security to say no."

"Only joy was that his wife finally caught him in the affair and his whole life went to sh*t soon after."

geekhalla

Regrets

"I was forced to fire a junior person on my team, my boss gave me no choice, because she had used a competitor's idea as inspiration (working in design). But it was our intermediary boss who told her to use the idea. I wish I would have taken a harder stand but I was afraid of being fired myself, I was only a few months on the job. I still regret it to this day but the other woman has had a good career so that’s a plus at least."

Keyspam102

Awful

"Had an underperforming employee, tried a pip, coaching, moving to a different job role with the team. Eventually came to terms with not being the right person for the job/team terminated employee. A week later her child dies in a house fire where they lost everything. I donated 1000 to the go find me but still can’t help but wonder if my termination set off the events that caused this."

smallboxofcrayons

Phony

"Nope. There's a long process before it gets to that point and almost nobody does get to that point. Except for the guy who got the job using fake identity papers. There was no long process to fire him, it went very, very fast once we found out."

AdmiralBofa

I hated firing people.

There is never a great time.