I fired someone for the first time today. This person was the first I hired and was with me for 18 months. It was a hard decision and probably months overdue. She didn’t take it well and ended up threatening me. The close friendship we had feels fake. I helped her in her times of need so many times and feel taken advantage of.
I couldn’t sleep last night and feel sick. I’ve done nothing wrong. I understand looking back at former bosses why they kept their distance. It’s just my nature to want to get close to employees because it’s a small business and we are together so many hours a week. Any words of advise from my fellow small business owners?
First of all, congrats on your first firing. It means you are doing what needs to be done to take care of your business. Welcome to business ownership.
Firing sucks. It is never fun. You feel bad, which means you have empathy.That’s good, it means you are a normal human and not a psycho.
I have probably fired 100 or so people over the years. I have 1 that comes by a couple times a year and we eat lunch. I would say we aren’t "friends ", but we are friendly. We share pics from trips and keep each other updated on dumb stuff our kids did.
Your employees are not your friends. They provide a service to you for providing them money. Your accountant is also not your friend. Neither are your suppliers.
Friendly is ok, but they are not your friends. Dont believe me, change accountants, and see if your current accountant still wants to have lunch.
You will lose less sleep with each firing, but you wont ever feel good about it.