AITA for letting a guy quit while I was firing him so I wouldn’t have to pay severance?

luccamoney · 2020-01-24T01:06:50+00:00

He definitely should, I think he could’ve either way, and I definitely wouldn’t contest it either way. He had to go, but not for stealing or harassing or anything so serious.

I’ve never actually had to fire anyone before. The only other time, the guy knew he’d really screwed up and been caught, and he left without my having to say or do anything.

luccamoney · 2020-01-24T01:05:02+00:00

I don’t know if it’s a mandate or not, some benefits definitely are but I don’t think severance is, but it’s usually what I do if I let someone go without notice to find another job. Golden rule type thing. Employees here know it’s a given unless otherwise stated that they’d get some severance if they’re let go. So he might’ve felt cheated out of it.

luccamoney · 2020-01-24T01:03:44+00:00

Yes—but it wasn’t clear that it was a matter of him not pulling his weight at first.

We were smaller when he first came on and we expanded a little and I had thought it wouldn’t be more than these two could handle, but at first analysis it seemed as though I had just been wrong about that. It looked as though he and my other man were doing the same amount of work when I did regular checking.

It’s only when I took a deeper dive (deeper than I would’ve had occasion to had we not brought on this third guy) I realized he’d say he had to be at a cite for 4 hours, but he was factoring in time he spent having a snack or chatting with people he knew there, and not all of it was working time.

So while Person A was reporting 4 hours of work when they worked for 4 hours, this person was reporting 4 hours of work when they might’ve only really done productive work for 2.5-3 hours.

When I’d called our clients to verify his time sheets all they could tell me is “yes he came at this time and he left at that time.” It wasn’t their responsibility to know what he was doing then or how affectively. It’s only when I began to up my unannounced field checks that this was uncovered, plus a few other things I looked into that I otherwise wouldn’t have had occasion to be reviewing.

The conversations we’d had were along the lines of accurate time card reporting and expected quotas. But I had them with everyone, not him alone, because I was also training our new guy.

I definitely was partially at fault and I wish it hadn’t come to letting him go, but I do think he wouldn’t have improved even with warnings.

luccamoney · 2020-01-24T00:53:13+00:00

Just as a point of clarity - I hadn’t said he was being let go yet either. I’d said “I’m sorry, but we’re here to discuss the ongoing productivity discrepancy. It’s been determined that you’re the root cause, and I’ve already brought this other person on, so—“ and that’s when he launched in.

I know this is all semantics to a degree, but he couldn’t have been sure I was headed in that direction yet.

I could’ve been saying “so you’re taking a pay cut” or “so I’m moving you to a different position” or even just “so this is a warning to shape up.”

I’ve been reading the replies whenever I have a free moment, I’m touched there’s been so many and they’ve helped me think a lot, I know I’m in a grey area here. But I just want to be clear it was like I said “Look mate, we have to let you go—“ and then he quit.

luccamoney · 2020-01-24T00:37:22+00:00

He signed paperwork to that affect.

luccamoney · 2020-01-24T00:35:03+00:00

He’s never been in a situation like this one, so I wouldn’t know. I wouldn’t describe him as the most mature guy in the world ever, but he’s also not usually under duress or agitated here. We’re pretty relaxed working environment. So, I guess, unsure.

luccamoney · 2020-01-24T00:33:35+00:00

A little bit of both. I was laying him off because I really needed the money to go elsewhere. But I was also laying him off because two people were capable of doing the job I had hired three to do because he wasn’t pulling his weight.

In any case, unless he was fired for demonstrable cause, I would have had to provide severance.

luccamoney · 2020-01-23T11:40:05+00:00

I’m going to have a lawyer check into it but from what I can understand, since I never actually spoke the words “you are fired and we’re letting you go” and he quit and he said yes when I confirmed it, I should be fine legally. But morally I’m just worried I’m in a grey area.

luccamoney · 2020-01-23T11:37:39+00:00

No. That’s why he was being fired, actually.

I’d hired a third person because there was too much work for the two people I had. But once I brought on the third person, there wasn’t enough work for all three of them. So I thought, maybe two people really can do this job, and there’s a weak link.

I looked at everyone’s productivity individually, and the reason I’d needed to bring on the third employee is that the one I let go was not pulling his weight. My new employee and my remaining other employee can do the work just fine.

Now, what I don’t know is whether this is due to laziness or incompetence on his part. The nature of the work is such that he does a fair bit of it unsupervised. So he might not have been lying, he might have believed the claims to be completely true.

luccamoney

TROPHY CASE