Have to make layoffs in an hour
 

I was just told this morning to eat lunch early as my manager needs me to help escort people off the property today. The problem is, two of these people are friends of mine and one actually works for me on a program I manage.

I feel so crushed that he is getting cut and I've got a knot building in my stomach. I don't want to go over there.

This **** sucks!

Had to vent.

I've had to fire good friends in the past. It sucks. Good luck--the hard part gets over quickly.

That is the worst. I've had to let people go that I play golf with. FWIW, they still talk to me. :)

Good luck.

Escort them off the property? Whatever happened to 2 weeks notice?

I can totally empathize. Good luck.

Bad day in the making.

I've had to layoff a friend before, he's still my friend and we're going skiing this weekend.

Yes it sucks and yes your friend will be hurt, but friendship transcends this kind of thing most of the time. Still sorry to hear about the situation though... good luck.

Depends. I've seen folks at my current company get let go with a couple of months of notice and a healthy severance package. I've also seen wholesale layoffs where I was asked to block all incoming and outgoing email and Internet and folks were walked out.

I was layed off once. I was given a months notice and some severance, but they also escorted me out and told me that I couldn't come back during my month. So I was essentially given an extra month of severance.

That "quaint" practice ended when management decided to end any respect for their workers way back when.

After all, if you are terminated by mnanagement, they want the black eye to go away rapidly.

To further humiliate the person let go, they typically have a guard watch you as you pack what you can of your personal belongings in the tiny box they give you. After all they do not want you to seal anything on this last day. You are then paraded out by the guard (Yes I did have this happen: one day project manager for a multi million dollar project, next day escorted out like a common criminal).

A sad day indeed.

BTDT.

Had to fire a very good friend 3 years ago. He still has not found work - which explains why I fired him, not the most motivated person.

We still hang out. In the end, most understand it's just business.

Firing people is the hardest thing I've done as a business owner.

Even when it's well-deserved (every time, I guess), it's still hard to know you're drastically upsetting the life of one you've worked with, side-by-side.

It never gets easier.

Someone who has been fired and is angry can do a lot of damage in two weeks.

Immediately remove someone, and pay them for two weeks if you're a nice guy.

When I fire someone, I ask them to leave immediately. If they possess any company property (cell phones, equip, etc.), they can pick up their final check when the property is returned. Vehicles are left on the lot and I pay for a cab ride home.

Escorting them off the premises? Seems a bit draconian.

And seriously, WTF, the big corp is too cheap to hire a $10.00 an hour guard to sit at the front desk?

That is standard practice in the corporate world and the preferred way to do it.

Where have you guys been? Everyone gets escorted out. There was one guy that took 2 two hours to clean his office out. He was taking framed pictures off the walls, going thru each drawer, saying goodbyes to people. He made two trips to his car. HR lady stayed with him the whole time. You what his taking his AK out off the trunk and coming back in?

I learned after this that all my stuff in my office must fit in one copy paper box.

It probably gives the manager a woody and power trip to humiliate someone else that way. Especially in front of all the other drones.

I don't think so.

When I got laid off at the RNC two days after the '96 elections, we got marched one by one into the boss's office. Boss was there with a guy from HR. His exact words were, "This is not a reflection of your performance and we hate to do this." We were allowed to take our time cleaning out our desks, I was given a case of J&B scotch to take home and boss said we were all welcome to come into the office anytime we needed to use computers or fax machines to send out resumes. And they honored that too. They were pretty cool about it. But then again, Cap. Hill is a very small place and you need to treat people right because you 100% will be seeing them again in other jobs.

The only time I've seen people get escorted out was when they were fired for cause or had just given notice and were going to work for a competitor.

It sucks, but you absolutely have to do this.

I swear I'm never hiring employees - only consultants. It's such a poor reflection on management/ownership when a company has to cut someone. I don't think I could stomach the self-guilt of knowing it was my poor planning or screwup that cost someone else their job/livelihood/income and potentially might be putting them and their family out on the street. Plus (from a somewhat selfish standpoint) W2 employees are huge recurring overhead expenses (to say nothing about dealing with associated drama). Temps, independent contractors or consultants are expensive in the short run, but I think pencil out long-term (and can be "cut" or let go at the end of a project with no hard feelings or guilt, and tend to be professional because they don't have time to get in a comfort zone and start screwing off/testing the limits).

It doesn't. I can assure you of that.

You think all managers feel the same way as you? Some of them are evil, power hungry manipulative people. I have no doubt that such managers would get a real power rush out of humiliating someone that way.

If i was the manager, i would "escort" the guy out myself....by helping him carry his stuff to his car.

I have never worked for anyone like that and would never do so.

A lot of people do not have the luxury of such choices. It's easy for Bachelors like us to live on principles.

Not so easy for a guy or gal with 3 kids and a spouse.

Was laid off from a real large company in 2000. The HR manager is absolute evil and am 110% she had a woodie while she was walking people to the door. Not kidding about the woodie... the lesbian beyotch had made the rounds of the office having sex with several of the employees, and not all of it consensual. Still because of her power and position she did not get in trouble and is still there today. Someday Karma will catch up with her...

That said, the woman who had her position before this was the nicest person in the world and a BIG help to all of us who were laid off. She even spent her own personal time helping us screw the company back after they tried to not give us benefits that we were due.

There are both kinds out there.

Agreed but it is still humilitating to go from trusted person one day to on the street the next when you are NOT let go for cause.

All done. Very hard day. One took it ok. The other did not.

Jeff,

Maybe in your line of business, that model works.

I am part of a team that is responsible to the ongoing operation of numerous facilities. If you you not have long term owership after the project is done, the quality of the installation shows it.

Sure, I use consultants and contractors to get the work done, but at the end of day, obnce the project is complete, the users come to me and ask why such and such was not taken care of and why this was that left out. After all, it was YOUR project and how are we going to be sucessful going into the future? Blaming the contractor/consultant does not make my user any happier. Telling them about the money I saved by not having them here long term does not stop the requests and corrective actions by me. In the end, I own the project and it's results for good or bad, the consultant/contractors who participated do not.

In the end, if you want quality work, you need folks in it for the long term, who take pride of ownership and are willing to work with their customers to ensure they get the products/services they need in a timely manner. Short term people have a differnt agenda by the nature of their job and it is very hard to foster and maintain this long term focus when you know you can be gone tommorrow.

Leland,

As it always happens, the survivors shudder and move on. Glad it was only 2 on your watch. Hopefully a repeat performance will not be required.

Uhhhhmm, maybe it has to do with disgruntled employees sabotaging computer systems or deleting files or doing other types of damage on the way out.

If an employee is leaving voluntarily on good terms, two weeks is still a good practice.
If an employee is terminated involuntarily, good business practice is to have then vacate the premises immediately.
If the company wants to be cool (and they should) they'll provide some sort of severance pay but only a damned fool would tell someone they are laid off or fired and let them stick around for two weeks.

BTW I went through this same process a couple months ago, had to layoff 6 guys. Not fun.

I don't want to get too far off-subject, but I agree about fostering long-term relationships with consultants. I'll gladly market for projects and what-not by citing how good so-and-so consult is and as a result how strong the project team is. Long-term relationships with good professional consultants help. I'm talking about the conventional model of having in-house W2 guys to just do drafting and production stuff. Forget it. I can either do it myself, outsource it or hire temporary "for the project" help to work on it. Absolutely nothing illegal or improper about it, so long as the work is under my responsible control.

I just don't want to deal with the headaches and the guilt if I ever had to let someone go. It ain't worth it. This industry is too brutal to the point I'd much rather just deal with consultants on a per-project basis.

I agree, I've never worked for anyone who would get any pleasure at all from laying someone off.
It totally sucks. You'd have to be charles manson to enjoy it.

+1

It's like a person who enjoys breaking up with someone they've been dating... I can conceive that such a person may exist, but I can't imagine it's common.

Sammy, I know that and don;t intellectulaly disagree.

But still, says a lot that you are trustworthy one day and a step above an axe murder the next that grates on me.

I think this is why this activity is generally pushed as low on the chain as possible. If the people above enjoyed it, they wouldn't let (force) other people to do it.

That said, my father got a real buzz from firing people. He was an old-school manager and didn't believe in couseling people or giving them chances. One big screwup and you were gone.

He also never kept a job for longer than 4 years and started three failed companies. It can be hard on a person when no one wants to do them favors.

Our group took him out for a few drinks and some good conversation with friends at the watering hole behind our offices.

It hit me hard as he was a surprise and not one of the people that was supposed to go.

My turn at the guillotine is now set for next Wednesday. We shall see how I fare.

When I was the business manager of a composite fabricator (almost all DoD work, made parts for the stealth bomber, some Army stuff, Navy telco cable...) we didn't get a contract everyone was expecting. I had to lay off one engineer and 3 floor guys. The engineer was easy, we hired him on as a consultant on another project. letting the floor guys go sucked balls, they were skilled, dedicated workers that went way beyond, as everyone did, in this small company; real family atmosphere. Something I keep in mind growing my own company now.

NOW THATS BIZZZARRE FOR THE DAY! non-consensual sex with employees by the HR DOMINA-TRIX!


her name had to be "TRIXSY"!



wow that hurts my head just thinking about it.



i actually have NO PROBLEMO FIRING THOSE THAT DESERVE IT! we play baseball here. 3-strike rule. after each strike we have a pow wow and we have a nice lil chat about whats pissing me off:

1) not showing up

2) not calling when not showing up

3) being 2-3-4 hrs late

4) theft

5) driving like an asshat and crashing bike on taxiway(swear to god-still cant believe it after mega multiple warnings NOT to haul ass)

6) personnal cell phone/computer feek off time

Leland Pete-

Beware of the meeting Wednesday-

I was told to cut 5 people immediately, then 2 more right after. Then, I got the tap on the shoulder, "now we need to talk about you..."

I hung on for 5 months before we parted ways.

Forget about CareerBuilders, Monster, etc...start networking RIGHT NOW!!

Good Luck.

Consultants are people too. The only real difference is the terms and conditions contract vs 'at will' context.

In my line of work I can use consultants to help me execute projects, I do this routinely but I would prefer not to. In the end, I have to be the subject matter expert and if I didn't build it - I'm not.

There are labor laws that do prevent employers from avoiding W2s just to save money.