I’ve been a manager for the last couple of years. Tomorrow marks the second time in as many years that I’ll have to fire (the not fun kind) someone. By far one of the worst aspects of the job. Anyone else in management?
I took a director role at a previous job because I saw a lot of issues and I wanted the power to fix them. I didn’t know the pain of having to let someone go. After the second firing, I left for a contributor role and vowed to never work in management again. Worst two years of my career.
I have been relatively lucky in that regard. So far all of the involuntary terminations I have had to deal with were a level below me, so I have been involved, but not to the same degree as firing someone I’ve worked with closely. I was starting on a PIP a few years ago with a direct employee, but they took a long-term leave and reorged to another team before we finished.
This year my department has been going through a particularly bad reorg, which included some individuals ending up in roles they didn’t want. One of my directs asked for severence, which was a weird situation and so far one indirect employee has quit.
Overall, I don’t enjoy being in a leadership role, but I can’t make the same pay in a more enjoyable role, so I have stuck with it.
What was the context of your firings? As in, was it something mandated or a decision you had to make?
The first was mandated. It happened my first week in the office. The other one was initiated by me with a long, drawn out pip. That one was hard because we had worked together for almost two years and our families became close.
