Donald Trump and I probably only have one thing in common and really you can easily guess what it is. Yeah, that's right we both have awesome hair. Other than that I don't see many similarities.
Donald Trump sits across a desk from people all the time and says two words, "You're Fired." He makes it seem easy. So, when it was my turn to actually fire someone I thought, "Hey Donald does it all the time and we both have awesome hair so I'm sure I can handle it!"
Boy was I wrong. Firing someone is actually really hard to do. It makes you practically poop your pants, take a day off of work to prepare, practice on your other employees, and eat an entire batch of cookie dough in one sitting (which does not correlate with the almost pooping in your pants).
When I was promoted to a managerial position at the gym I used to work at part of my responsibilities were hiring and firing a specific department of staff. Unfortunately it was the department of staff I used to be on. It was managing people who had trained me, who had become my friends, and who I had worked closely with. I knew it would be a difficult transition, but when it became clear in the first few weeks of my transition that I needed to let an employee go it became even more difficult.
I sat down with the person (who by the way had been working the same position for almost 7 months) and gave her until the end of the month to become completely trained, not freak out if more than one person was waiting, and to just generally become comfortable with the job. I told her I would do whatever it took to help.
By the end of the month it was obvious it was not going to work out. I went to my boss and asked for advice. I went to other managers and asked for advice. I called my Dad and asked for advice. Everyone came up with the same answer. You need to let her go.
So my mind was made up, her next shift I was going to fire her. I called someone to cover her shift, changed the entire schedule to take her off, and waited. It was still 3 days until she worked again. My stomach was in knots. I felt bad, but knew it had to be done. The day before I had to take a half day just to calm down and clear my mind. The day of I practiced what I was going to say on my assistant, another manager, and one of my other employees (who was sworn to secrecy). When she walked in for her shift I had to run to the bathroom because I almost pooped myself. I had never been so nervous before.
Finally the time came. I called her in to my office and was very calm and clear and in more words basically said, "You're Fired". She sat there and stared at me with a blank look. She opened her mouth to say something but nothing came out. I asked her if she had any questions and she just blinked. I almost started laughing because it was so awkward. This literally went on for an hour and a half until finally I said, well you can go now. She didn't move so I opened my office door and left her there. At some point she left because when I went back to my office she was gone.
I felt bad and still do, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. I am a stronger person for it, and now I have two things in common with Donald Trump.
P.S. I've now fired many more people and it got easier each time. In fact I'm about to fire someone else real soon if they don't stop saying how old I am going to be on Monday :)
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