The Five Worst Ways to Fire an Employee

There's nothing less pleasant than an unsought redundancy, particularly if the fellow doing the firing makes Otto Von Bismarck look like a soft-spoken, conscientious old soul. We at Simply-Docs thought we'd have a look at the five very worst ways that one could choose to fire an employee, and just why they should never be attempted.

The Five Worst Ways to Fire an Employee

5. Murderously

E.g. Montgomery Burns of Springfield, U.S.A., who famously keeps a trap-door immediately in front of his desk... a redundancy policy that truly involves 'letting someone go'.

Why it doesn't work: It may be thrilling at the time, but you'll think otherwise when you see 'Health & Safety' guidelines for disposing of the remains.

4. Undecidedly

E.g. Fabio Capello at Real Madrid in 2007. With the team struggling in the spring, the board decided that they'd had enough of Don Fabio, but never got round to serving him his redundancy papers. When Capello delivered the League on the last day of the season, as he had done in his previous tenure at Real back in 1997, it was to the news that he was to be sacked in the coming weeks.

Why it doesn't work: Nothing makes you look sillier than firing someone who, before they clear out their desk, proves they can do your job better than you can. 'The Don' is now proving that he can turn even the shabbiest examples of professional sportsmen into a winning side... by managing England.

3. Casually

E.g. via text message, email, or as the punch line for an opening joke at the office party.

Why it doesn't work: Most people will be incredulous of such off-hand redundancy methods. It's hard to believe that your life's employment has been cancelled because of a breezily worded email from some slick-haired suit in the office upstairs. There's also something rather distasteful about taking the podium at some pie-eyed office knees-up only to say, "You'll be pleased to hear that the following people have not been fired..." before reading out thirty names to a crowd of thirty two.

2. Fearfully

E.g. Alan Partridge of I'm Alan Partridge, who unaccountably fires his entire staff, locks himself in his office and timidly confesses via intercom that his business has collapsed.

Why it doesn't work: As a manager, your employees look to you for fair and decisive leadership. By lying your way into humiliating revelations you'll leave the firees not only devastated by their redundancy but baffled at how they could have followed such a feckless goon in the first place.

1. Gladiatorially

E.g. The film version of David Mamet's 'Glengarry Glen Ross', in which a monstrously imperious Alec Baldwin swaggers under the weight of his own manhood and challenges his four hapless wards to finish top of the pile by the end of the week or ship out.

Why it doesn't work: Such a brutal redundancy procedure will win you no friends and may lead to comparisons between you and the Roman Emperor Commodus, whose gladiatorial sadism and penchant for murdering anything with a backbone led to his being strangled in the bath in 192 A.D.