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Monday Morning Sacking!
October 24th 2011
It’s been really hard work this year keeping all my business interests healthy with the economy as it’s been. It means I’ve had less time than usual for playtime, which is really frustrating.
The one consolation of this downturn is that it enables me to really indulge my domineering side ‘in real life’ rather than just with my subs behind closed doors. And there’s nothing I like better than humiliating an arrogant man who truly deserves it.
I had to visit one of my small businesses last week to sort out a few problems. The annoying thing about this place is that its issues are not really recession-related. It’s just that the staff seem quite error-prone – or at least accident prone. I wasn’t sure which, so I went down there to do some trouble-shooting.
This business has three young female staff and a male manager who’s not been there long. I’d begun to suspect he was the problem, as the business always did well under the previous manager. He seemed to have perfectly good credentials when I hired him, and he was articulate and charming. But I confess I found him annoyingly cocky right from the start. Also, early on I’d had to give him two warnings after allegations of bullying from two of the girls. One of them, Amy, actually wanted to resign after he outright yelled at her in front of the other staff for something she felt was not her fault. I persuaded her to stay, since not only would it have been wrong for her to be chased out by bullying, but she’s also extremely efficient and knows the business better than anyone else there, despite being only 25. But it cost me a steep pay-rise and a lot of time and effort smoothing things over – which is exactly the kind of totally unnecessary issue I can do without when I have other businesses with less avoidable problems.
I’d called a staff meeting early in the morning and I started asking questions right away. Mr Arrogant annoyed me instantly by answering questions that weren’t directed at him and generally giving the impression he considered himself in charge. But it became pretty clear that he was less familiar with the business than everyone else, especially Amy, who had all the facts at her fingertips and gave me straight answers while he just evaded and blustered.
Eventually he took a step too far. As I pressed him on why a particular order had not gone through correctly he started to explain to me, quite patronisingly, that since he did this job every day and I didn’t he “knew what he was doing”. The implication being that I didn’t.
I took the gloves off at that point and asked the three young women to step out of the office and wait just outside. Then I outlined to him all various ways in which it was obvious he hadn’t a clue what he was doing. I wasn’t yelling, but I made certain it was loud enough for the girls to hear outside. And I made sure he ended up looking like the pompous, incompetent idiot he is.
I got up, opened the door and ushered the girls back in just in time for a particularly withering finish to my observations. He was blushing to the roots of his hair at this point, and literally started stammering until I cut him off by starting to address a few comments to the girls.
As they sat down, I noticed that all the women looked extremely satisfied. I more or less ignored Mr Arrogant as I outlined a few things we needed to do to straighten things out. Then I turned to the noticeably quivery manager and announced that I thought the main problem had simply been slapdash management and that since I’d already given him two warnings I was within my rights to fire him.
He changed his tune at that point. We were all treated to an absolutely delightful display of self-abasement full of apologies and acknowledgments of his failings and assurances that things would improve, all delivered in his best oh-so charming manner.
I let him waffle on for a while and finally interrupted to say that he could stay on if he wished but that he and Amy would swap roles and he would report to her. (Amy being about twenty years younger than him made the idea of demoting him below her all the more delicious to me, I must say).
“That’s if you’re prepared to have him acting as your junior while you sort out the mess, Amy.” I spoke with complete deference – as if she was my boss too.
It would have been nice if Amy had twisted the knife a bit but she was all gracious acceptance. I told Mr Arrogant to call me when I was back in London either with his acceptance or resignation, and then I said my goodbyes to the girls. As I left they were enthusiastically congratulating Amy and ignoring Mr Arrogant, who seemed too cowed even to get up and leave the room.
I was fully expecting him to resign but later that day he called to say he would accept his demotion IF I could assure him he’d get his old job back fairly soon, assuming his work was satisfactory. I just said “I can’t assure you of that at all”, at which point he buckled completely and waffled on about working hard to regain my trust. I said ‘good’, told him I had another call to make, said goodbye and hung up without waiting for his response.
I did have another call to make. I called Amy and told her to fire him as soon as she’d found an appropriate junior replacement. She was very pleased with that suggestion! “Oh, and Amy” I added, just before ringing off. “When you sack him, make sure it’s in front of all the staff”. Amy seems an extremely sweet-natured girl so I was quite surprised when she gave a wicked little laugh and said “That’s exactly what I was just thinking!”
I feel so much better knowing this little business is being run by someone with such excellent judgement!