Did you ever had the experience of actually firing someone?

I did. On several occasions.

Years ago I was promoted to a management position of a big multinational corporation. I was absolutely unprepared, not on the business and technical sense of it (I knew what I had to do), but on the emotional level.

And I really need to say this: if you hire a company to let people go for you, you are NOT supposed to be a manager.

My first opportunity of firing someone was to some other employee I knew, but I did not directly managed (another area). His management was away and they got the order to fire him the following day. They asked me to do the drill. Oh, did I mention he was a paraplegic and with little job opportunities? I could not sleep that night, and I was shaking the following morning. To my relief, he did not show up and someone else did it some other day.

Later on, I had my real first opportunity of letting someone go, over the phone with some other manager at his side. I was glad I could not be seen, I was a wreck, nervous, shaking, with notes by my side on what to say. Needless to say, due to the compensation package, he was not too sad about it.

Then, again, the opportunity came to let go a really bad employee. I was glad to do it (he really deserved being kicked out years before), but I was nervous about him pulling up a gun or going physical on me. He didn't, everything went smoothly, but he did sue the company and I was asked to testify against him.

This one time, I had to let go this middle aged woman who just vanished in the middle of the whole thing. She was going to her desk to pick up her stuff and did not come back (I was supposed to escort her). She vanished. I thought she had escaped with her badge and other company assets, I called security, HR, I panicked. She came back about an hour later, she said she was just doing backups of her personal stuff on her computer. Oh well, I didn't bother to check (IT security was not among my job requirements), so off she goes.

And then, after a couple of years, you just get cold. You get cynical. You just go through the motion. It was not something amusing or fun to do, I cringed every time a decision came to fire someone, but I didn't feel it anymore. I knew what were the reasons, I knew I was powerless to do anything, I saw people getting their dreams and careers destroyed and I could not feel it. Doing this year after year gets you to this cynical, cold, distant view of society, like a shell shocked WW1 soldier at a trench with the thousand mile stare.

I left my management position about an year ago, and never looked back. I'm back to my old job position (and paradoxically, making more money now). I'm never going back. I'm recuperating my humanity.


PS: I wasn't directly involved, but I did see one firing that made me absolutely sick. This quadriplegic kid who was hired to work from home (he had the tech that allowed him to work as well as anyone else for that job). An upper management executive asked him to be let go a few days after he was hiring, stating he would not be able to do the job as well as a fully functioning person. As his manager trembled, sighed and slowly began to dial the phone to call him and give him the news, I could not take it. I stepped away, went outside to get some air and look at the skies.

"You keep him in here, and make sure HE doesn't leave!"