When I finally made it back to the store well past my thirty-minute lunch break, the owner was there. I’d been perpetually late, perpetually grimy, and I’m sure that this had been a long time coming. She collected my key, gave me my final paycheck, and sent me on my way. This was actually the last time that I was fired. Seven years later, I can’t quit and no one can fire me.
Telling Someone “You’re Fired”
Generally I like other people to fire, because it’s always a lousy task.
—Donald Trump
Sadly, it wasn’t too long after I took Nasty Gal off eBay that I had to fire someone for the first time. When I first hired someone to oversee shipping, the business was still just Christina and me. We were twenty-two-year-olds managing a grown man who, on his third day of work, asked if he could leave early because it was “grocery day” for his family. Sweet, but no. It was also apparent that he had never used a computer before. He was completely stumped when a box popped up on the screen. “It says ‘Norton AntiVirus.’ What do I do?” Christina and I both screamed, “Oh my God, just click the ‘X’!” I started to panic, because I had hired this guy to make my life easier and it was clear that this was not going to be the case at all.
We also hired a copywriter who, in my weaker moments, I started to think was a spy sent by a competitor to sabotage the business from the inside—because there was no way in hell his mistakes could be for real. Time after time, I would say, “Please use spell-check and stop having so many typos,” but then everything he wrote looked like it had been done by my poodle who was pecking at the keyboard with her nose.
I knew he had to go, and it was tortuous for me. I read up on all the legal responsibilities of firing someone, and went through all the different scenarios in my head—if he said this, I was going to say that; if he asked that, I was going to explain it like this. When I finally, practically hyperventilating, sat him down and told him we were letting him go, he was totally calm about it. “Okay.” He shrugged. “No problem.” And he left.
The harsh truth is that not everyone you hire is going to work out. It’s impossible to know everything about a person’s talent, judgment, and character without actually working with him or her. In many cases, the people who don’t work out are people about whom I had second thoughts from day one. However, sometimes it is simply a matter of a fast-growing company growing faster than the people inside it. The person who was right for the job a year ago might not be right for the job a year from now. Don’t get me wrong: I’m loyal to every person I’ve hired. But my loyalty lies with the greater business, which means the hundreds of others whose jobs could be at stake if we have the wrong person in the wrong role. I know this sounds harsh, but it’s that level of objectivity that leaders need to have. And leading is, after all, what I’m ultimately here to do.
If someone who is working for you keeps screwing up, make sure you talk to her about it. There’s always the slight off chance that maybe that employee doesn’t know that she is doing anything wrong and it’s something that she can easily fix. Everyone should be given the opportunity to improve. But if you think you’re going to have to fire someone, start documenting everything. People who get fired love to say shit like, “The only reason I got fired was because that bitch didn’t like me.” Chances are that if you’re ready to fire someone, you probably don’t like that person. And that’s okay. Just keep your cool and be professional, because it’s not about that. It’s because someone sucks that you have to do this, not because you suck. If your company has a human resources department, make sure that they’re aware of what’s going on. If you can write someone up, write someone up.
Sadly, sometimes the ship can’t be righted. So when it comes time to actually do it, don’t pussyfoot about and don’t act like a baby. As Voltaire said, “With great power comes great responsibility.” If you want to be a boss and be treated like a boss, then firing someone is in your boss-size job description. Don’t ever try to impress upon the person you’re about to fire how hard the situation is for you, because that person is losing his or her job, so it’s obviously harder on them. Resist the urge to overexplain or even to apologize. Keep it as short and sweet as you possibly can, because the more personal you try to make it, the more personally your soon-to-be ex-employee is going to take it. However, it doesn’t hurt to take a few minutes to put yourself in their shoes, and consider how you would want to be treated if you were in that position. And if you both learn from your lessons, neither of you will make the mistakes that led to that situation again.
Hearing “You’re Fired”
I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me.
—Steve Jobs
Though I was fired a few times, and usually from jobs I couldn’t have cared less about, I still was never like the copywriter who just shrugged and walked out the door. Getting fired was always a big deal to me. It’s a bit like having someone break up with you. Even if you know it wasn’t the right situation, and that you’ll be way better in the long run, it’s still rejection. And rejection sucks.
But getting fired, especially from a job you’re not actually that into, isn’t the end of the world. For me, getting fired from the shoe store was an opportunity to find a job with health insurance. And although I got the job at the art school primarily to fix my hernia, I ended up with a lot more than I bargained for: the inspiration to start something that led me to where I am today.
Getting fired can be a much-needed wake-up call, a push in the right direction, or an escape route. Or it can just plain suck. But no matter what the details of the situation, how much you learn from it is entirely up to you. It can also be the end of the world (or at least feel like it) if you’ve got zero savings. If you’re living paycheck to paycheck already, and all of a sudden there’s no more paycheck, that’s terrifying. I don’t want to get all “told ya so,” but the fact that you could get fired (and almost all of us could get fired) is all the more reason to consistently save 10 percent of those earnings. Instead of calling it a rainy-day fund, let’s call it an oh-shit fund. And you’ll be saying “oh shit” a whole lot less if you’ve got one.
Here is a list of things to not do if you get fired:
Call anyone a bitch or an asshole, or any variations thereof
Threaten to sue—if you do think you have a legitimate reason, talk to a lawyer before you do anything
Try to get your former coworkers to take your side (as sympathetic as they might be, they’re going to be worried about their own jobs)
Take to the Internet to complain or talk shit about your boss or your former employer; people have a lot of Facebook friends these days, and chances are you have a couple on your friend list whom you’ve forgotten about
Use the person who fired you as a reference without first asking him or her if it’s cool
Draw attention to yourself upon departure; flipping the bird to the executive team on your way out will not make things any better
Have your mom or dad call (yep, this has happened)
Now, recently fired #GIRLBOSS, get thee on with thy life!
PORTRAIT OF A #GIRLBOSS:
Christene Barberich, Refinery29 Editor in Chief
I always knew I wanted to be a writer and an editor. There never was a choice, it’s all I ever wanted to do. My first real publishing job was as an assistant at the New Yorker, but my editorial training happened at Gourmet magazine. In terms of striking out on my own and being brave in my convictions, I learned that mostly by being freelance. I don’t think you can truly know what you’re made of until you are in charge of your days. How you use that time, and the work you pursue, teaches you so much about who you are and what you can become.