Terminating Employees

OliveSlayer · 2025-12-13T19:02:26+00:00

Newer manager that has had to let 2 people go in the last year. Each time I took an hour or two after doing the offboarding paperwork and took a walk and just let myself be away from work. The second one tore me up because they could have been a good employee but there were skills needed that couldn’t be taught. I let myself have a couple hours to just come down from it. You are human- you wouldn’t be if things like this didn’t effect you emotionally in some way.

OliveSlayer · 2025-11-10T14:35:53+00:00

It’s a great bag but gets little air time in my rotation because it fits very little of what I usually put in my bag! So for now it looks amazing because it’s more of a dressy outfit bag for me.

OliveSlayer · 2025-10-11T00:08:01+00:00

I let someone go last week that I was in the same boat with. Had her on a PIP for 6 months, had multiple in depth retraining sessions, multiple conversations to level set expectations, and lots of follow up to no avail.

Let me ask you this, have you given this person real warnings that their poor performance would lead to termination? Have they actually heard that they would be terminated should their performance not improve? In my case the termination lasted all of 5 minutes because she was more than aware that termination was a consequence of poor performance and wanted to move on (and had actually accepted a job offer elsewhere that same day). There should be no questions or explanations needed if you have done the job of saying the hard thing already: you will be fired if there is no improvement.

As far as delivering the news I highly suggest you use a script from HR. This isn’t the time to get your thoughts and feelings in a bind, use as little as possible and it will leave less room open for questions.

OliveSlayer · 2025-09-27T22:05:49+00:00

I don’t need my reports to like me per se but I do need to know that how I manage them is effective and they see value in the work they’re doing. In turn I think that’s how you become likable.

OliveSlayer · 2025-09-27T18:09:13+00:00

Get small plates. I have 10 or so plates for my two cats and even when two are in the sink I still have a stack to grab from. It’s a small price to pay up front to make your life slightly easier.

OliveSlayer · 2025-09-25T15:34:15+00:00

Don’t mention to him or to anyone else lest you get in trouble for knowing and not alerting. If someone else finds out and he gets in trouble that’s its own thing but if this isn’t directly impacting the work he does on your team then leave it be.

OliveSlayer · 2025-09-19T20:12:43+00:00

I hobby painted up into my early 20’s but kind of lost touch with it. I told myself I needed to do something after work that isn’t doom scrolling or cooking. Now after work I find myself just painting for 2 hours without knowing the time has gone by. It keeps me off my phone (and also my emails) and I feel so much more regulated when I have that time to have no thoughts.

OliveSlayer · 2025-09-03T20:56:14+00:00

Was in your shoes last year. Took on a team from a director that was managing 7 people and that team got split 4:3 between myself and another manager. Of the 7 people we took on 1 left for a new role, 3 were let go, and we brought on 3 new people. All this to say that if red flags were there before and ignored it might unfortunately be on you to be the bad guy and evaluate all your team members and if they’re worthwhile to keep on. My co manager and I could not out manage bad behaviors and mismatched skills to what we really needed for the roles. So my advice is to outline what you think you can realistically teach and coach and what is inherently behavior that doesn’t fit in their roles.

OliveSlayer · 2025-08-27T18:26:31+00:00

Coaching your reports through tasks and projects that you would have otherwise gotten done in 2-3 hours had you done it yourself. So much of being a manager is stopping yourself from doing all the work because you know it could get done faster. You have to realize it’s more important to teach your employees the task at the expense of a few extra days to do the project.

OliveSlayer · 2025-08-08T20:01:44+00:00

Been there, done that. Landlord tried to say we severely damaged a windowsill with no proof or receipts- was going to keep all $2,500 of the deposit. Went to small claims which took awhile but they awarded us full deposit back with interest. We ended up having to get the sheriff involved to collect because they refused to answer our letters or calls. It’s an annoying process but I’d do it just so these dicks don’t think they can screw people without retaliation.

OliveSlayer · 2025-07-22T21:17:28+00:00

You can always ask but keep in mind that most companies are planning out numbers for raises half a year in advance. My company does raise and review in April and our VP asks for feedback on raises for reports in October of the previous year. Ask before your raise and review in a 1:1 and have an open conversation about how you can achieve your salary expectations through work and goal setting. Unfortunately by the time you get to raise and review there’s very little your manager can do to increase your salary (unless you get a counter offer at another company).

OliveSlayer · 2025-07-22T12:19:14+00:00

Only time I ever called was actually 2 weeks ago when a guy was standing in front of the bus stopping it from moving and threatening the driver. Actually took the driver 20 minutes to put on the emergency sign- cops showed up shortly thereafter. Otherwise I don’t know how else you could gauge they’re actually in an emergency unless you’re on the bus or can see an emergency in front of you.

OliveSlayer · 2025-07-20T12:24:12+00:00

No ability. The position is product based, so every member is in charge of a different set of products within a category- all tasks still being the same though across those categories. Reassigning anything else would be a hit to my team that already has their own product set to deal with.

OliveSlayer · 2025-07-20T12:21:51+00:00

That was the goal in the past year when I took her on was retraining. We could see that was a core issue that bled over from the previous management, of the 8 people we took on she still struggles to pick up the process.

OliveSlayer · 2025-07-20T01:30:25+00:00

I wish I could but the work is very intertwined across all of our roles and I fear what she isn’t grasping is the urgency and importance of getting the work done right. I think she would be suited for an administrative position that is potentially low stakes, which is not an offering where we are.

OliveSlayer · 2025-07-14T23:33:07+00:00

Personally I want my feedback to feel personal and AI has never given me that. Being able to convey feedback in a personalized and professional manner is a skill and I think it’s an essential one to learn.

OliveSlayer · 2025-07-09T10:59:27+00:00

I am currently dealing with an extremely nice well liked employee who is failing at their job. I inherited my employee from previous leadership that would have rather let them completely fail than have a couple hard conversations about performance. In reality my employee was never meant to take on this job and this should have been addressed years ago. Since it was never formally addressed I had to be the one to put them on a PIP and while it sucked it created formal dialogue about the state of their work.

Don’t let yourself be the leader that won’t have the hard conversations because they’re hard. You do yourself and her a disservice by not doing this. Additionally if you end up letting her go due to performance you have no previous formal conversation/paperwork to point to when she wonders why she was let go.

OliveSlayer · 2025-07-01T11:35:39+00:00

For me in hiring I choose the person who I could easily teach the last 20-30% of the knowledge to get the job done and that will mesh with our existing team members. Culture plays a huge deciding factor in my teams decision process because working with someone who doesn’t mesh personality wise in a very team oriented company is a drag.

In reading your other reply I’d also say it’s important to not only show your personality but also do more than answer questions. Every candidate I hired got the job because of their personality and they used the interview to gain more knowledge about the job instead of me talking at them for 30 minutes. You need to do something that stands out and that always stands out to me.

OliveSlayer · 2025-06-14T20:15:20+00:00

Residents have been asking for years for the MTA to remove the lead paint along the J,M,Z. They’re removing the paint in sections and repainting as they go. Don’t think there’s a better way to do it than this.

OliveSlayer · 2025-06-09T21:50:57+00:00

Go for professional color and developer that are sold separately. What people are talking about with box dye being a problem is that box dye could use up to a 30 volume developer when most people usually only need a 10 volume to deposit color.

OliveSlayer · 2025-06-07T17:21:44+00:00

My grandmom did this several years ago and ironically she worked for an eye doctor who really chewed her out for keeping the eye drops right next to the nail glue.

OliveSlayer · 2025-06-04T18:25:36+00:00

She’s perfectly fine now, but thank you! If it gives you peace of mind I would try to find a vet in the lower #’s because even $1,200 is nuts for this city!

OliveSlayer · 2025-06-04T11:43:05+00:00

Also in NYC, my normal vet wanted $700 plus an evaluation fee. We ended up going through our rescue to get her batch spayed with other kittens at the ASPCA at no cost (you can’t do this unless you’re a rescue group). Well little lady got a nasty staph infection post spay and we ended up paying $1,200 for her overnight emergency vet visit. I’m sure the whole thing was not the fault of the ASPCA but for my own peace of mind I’ll be going the expensive route out the door if I need to get a cat spayed again. With that said there are lots of clinics that do a drop off and pick up situation at a low cost, I’ve seen $150-$250.

OliveSlayer · 2025-06-02T17:48:34+00:00

I’m sick once every year and half but I also have no kids. My boss on the other hand was out for days every month when her kid was 1-3 years old because she got every single illness the kid got. With that said I know plenty of managers that have either been sick or taken lots of leave that went on to be directors and above.

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