This, as with all my work stories, is true.
I was a new supervisor working at the Cape warehouse (they were called warehouse’s back in those days). There was a manager Jim, a senior supervisor Pete, and Pete’s wife Ann, who was the office manager. I do not recall if Lonnie was a supervisor at this time or not.
All I knew about being a supervisor was what I had learned during my time at HWI. The Home office had sent us work books that we were studying weekly. These work books provided information about being a supervisor / manager.
I was supervisor over Receiving and the Bin Section. There was a young lady whose production would go up when she was called into the office and in a week or two it would be back down.
The manager Jim called me into his office and we reviewed her production of the past several months. As stated earlier, production would go up when we called her in and go down as soon as she felt we were not looking. Jim said, “Fire her today”!
I had never fired anyone, and now he wants me to fire her. You would have thought the manager would have terminated the employee and allowed me to sit in, but nope, my instructions were, “Fire her today!”
I left Jims office and went to my office. I got my work book and went to the chapter about terminating employees. I read this chapter and the main things I learned from the work book were, have the facts about the employee’s performance, state the facts, have the paper work ready, stay calm and be as empathetic as possible. The decision is made and we are not changing our mind.
I do not remember the young lady’s name but I do remember that she was very pretty and had those large blue eyes. I called her into the conference room and began stating the facts. At the same time she begin to cry. The termination was rough on both of us. She did not argue and signed the papers. I wished her good luck and she said she needed to call someone to get a ride home. She went to the front office and I headed for Jims office. I explained all that had transpired and he said I handled it properly. I got a call from the front office stating that she needed a ride home. I told Jim and he told me to take her home.
I did what I was told and drove her home, but I would never do that again. The manager put me in a situation that after learning more about terminations, I would never do that again.
Don Ford
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