YOU'RE FIRED.......UNLESS

Categenesus 4.2025

Photo by Bernd 📷 Dittrich on Unsplash

Many employees, especially in government work, are finding their work environments precarious. The changing company/department loyalties are disorientating. Decisions that used to be routine can now be disastrous. They want you to check your morals and integrity at the door. Many are faced with impossible decisions.

I walked in that environment at one time, and this is my story.

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Back in the day, well in the early 1980’s, I was a manager for a national Pension Administration firm. The department computed and prepared the proposals used by the sales department to sell our company’s services.

The department moved between sales and administration areas for several years. We were currently in administration. I had eight people in the department. We were working well at the time the trouble began.

A few months earlier the Director (who I reported to) left. The new director was someone I knew from a previous employer. At the prior employer we were in different areas (group plans vs individual plans), but we were on the same level in the hierarchy. I was not a fan as I found him to be more concerned about his advancement than doing the job he currently had.

But when life gives you lemons – as the saying goes. So, I decided to do my best in interacting with him. Even to the point of teaching him what we did. Things were tolerable for a while.

Two of my employees were friends from another company. They were stellar employees and got very outstanding reviews. They had been our company for several years.

At one point, one of them told me that they socialized with the new Director prior to him taking this position. I told her that some caution might be warranted. I based that on my impression of the Director from our other company.

One morning I was called into the director’s office and instructed to fire one of the two employees with whom he socialized. I was shocked as this came from nowhere. I had no cause to fire her. I did not think that that direction was even acceptable under company policy. I left his office without agreeing to fire the employee.

I then talked with the employee. The two employees and their spouses were at a bar, and the Director came over to them. A heating argument ensued. This employee’s spouse defended her and made a threat to him if he did not leave. The director disengaged. The evening ended.

It had happened several days before I got the command to fire her. I went back to talk to the Director. I told him I did not see where an event at a bar off hours with an employee’s spouse constituted anything that would remotely be grounds to fire her.

He really got mad that I would defy him. I told him I would not fire her. He told me that if he had to fire her himself, I would also be fired that day.

I left his office again in shock. How can this be ok? I knew it was morally wrong. I went to Personnel Department. After relating the facts and my strong moral objection, they told me that he could indeed not only direct me to fire her and to then fire me if I refused. I was stunned.

I went to lunch to do some serious thinking.

My reaction was to refuse. It was morally wrong, and he wanted to get me in the middle of it. I wanted to quit in protest so he could not fire me. I wanted him to face the employee and fire her rather than making me do it. I know this sounds stupid, but my integrity mattered. I felt that if I did what he said, I would be complicit.

But I was my sole support. I was in debt. I had no financial back up. This all terrified me. Also being fired could be professionally disastrous.

So do I follow my conscious or sustain my income source.

I am sad to say I did fire her. But I called her in and told her exactly what was going on and why I decided what I did. I strongly suggested that she file a complaint with personnel and see if this was an actionable situation. Maybe sue the jerk. I told her I would do an affidavit or testify on her behalf.

That was all I did. She still got fired that day. I fired her. I still had a job the next day.

Next morning I began calling the headhunters I knew. I called my friends in the profession. I was desperate to find another job as fast as I can. But life does not always run on your time frame.

After 6 weeks, I gave my notice to terminate my employment from the company. I had found another job. It came with a hefty pay cut but maybe I could restore some of my integrity.

The company’s president called me in to try to get me to stay. I did manage a pivotal department of the company and had been there for a while. I told him I could no longer work in the company that makes employment decisions based on an after-hours bar fight. I said, “how could I ever trust the Director again”? What else improper would he require me to do? I told him it was a hard NO.

I went to the new job. It was a much smaller company. Of course it had its problems. (The worst did not appear for about 8 years. But that is a different story. )

To this day, this is my biggest regret. I failed to stand up for my employee. Instead, I chose my job. They say, “ you do the best you can with what you have at the time.” I just did not like my best then.

____________________________________________________________________________So, I identify with all the employees that are being put in compromising, morally wrong or illegal positions. The decisions around these things are excruciating.

Every decision involves so many factors. It is not hard to decide what is right. But it is a much harder thing to determine what the possible reactions are. Then you must decide what is feasible in your life circumstances.

You will survive this. You will know that you “did the best you could with what you have at the time.” It is just really hard to walk through it to the other side.