nourishing obscurity

No, not the angst of being dismissed but the angst of having to dismiss someone.

I was having a natter this morning, before work, with a chap who runs a business; he was telling me various things and I was telling some of mine.  His first.

He was saying he had a chap working for him long ago, “in the vaults”, whatever that means and this chap did not wash or at least, he did not change his clothes day in, day out.  This was not great for the other staff down there and so he was taken aside and given a polite request to do something about it.

Now, knowing my acquaintance/friend, he would have been charming about it in the first instance and the danger would have been that the smelly one might easily not have taken him seriously.  He ignored the warning, ignored the second warning/ultimatum and then found himself asked to collect his things and go hen he turned up a third time.

This acquaintance/friend is a very nice man, interesting and calm, with a nice smile but when he says something, he means it.  Though I agree with him in principle, I’ve always had trouble dismissing people.  I couldn’t have done one thing he did.

There was a worker who had worked very hard, over and above the call of duty, for some years but it seems he was in a critical position which couldn’t be covered at no notice – we’ll just accept this at face value for now.  He came to work one day in a right state and the story turned out to be that his daughter had lost her pet and was distraught, the mother was too and he said he just had to go home and look after them.

Our employer asked why the mother could not do the comforting until he came home after work.  The man had insisted but our employer had insisted back that the man was in a critical position and couldn’t be replaced before the morrow, that there was the wife to do the comforting and so our employer had no recourse but to refuse the request.  The man went on about how he’d worked over and above etc., which had been true but our employer asked him to go and have a tea or coffee and consider his position.

The man said he was going anyway and the employer said that if he went through that door, it would be for the last time.

Harsh?  I’ve been thinking about that and as usual, can see both sides.

My worst one was also my first and it was to dismiss a former colleague as my first act.  The grounds were not conduct, unfortunately but efficiency and there really was no choice.  What made it worse was that she wasn’t complying with new government requirements, requirements which I did not even personally support.  My position was closer to hers in education.

Yet she wouldn’t, couldn’t budge and so it was done, with the resultant bad scene, stretched over weeks.  It had been a long time coming  but still, when the moment came, it took a lot of something – courage?  No.  Chutzpah?  Maybe.  Bloodymindedness?  Possibly.  Coldness?  I fear so.

The other side of the employment fence can sometimes be almost as difficult.

Filed under: Society & human issues