Learning how to say ‘You’re fired’ successfully

Sweet Lord Sugar probably learned to yell ‘You’re fired!’ at the midwives while still in his crib, but I was made of soppier stuff. The first time I fired someone I was 21, and it threw me into a tizzy. I had hired him because he came for his interview wearing Kiwi-shimmering shoes. An eccentric reason, I admit, but my boss claimed that blokes who painstakingly polish their shoes never make mistakes.

My boss was himself a painstaking polisher, but this was definitely a mistake. Despite his flashing footwear, my new assistant made more cock-ups in his first month than all the sweet Lord’s imbecilic apprentices have made during the entire series to date. He had to go.

To pluck up courage I got drunk at lunchtime – unwise – and when he entered my office I felt sure I was going to puke – also unwise. I explained that to succeed in advertising twinkly toecaps weren’t enough, and tipsily mumbled the lovable Lord’s famous farewell.

"I boldly fired 50 people pronto, only to be told by my predecessor that I should have fired twice as many"

To my consternation he beamed a happy smile. ‘Thank you so much,’ he said, ‘I’ve been meaning to say, I’m leaving.’ This was distinctly discombobulating. ‘Leevin?’ I slurred. ‘Whyzat?’

‘Pension scheme’s rotten.’ He was 19 years old, 46 years from retirement. He obviously took long-term financial planning as seriously as he took shoe polishing.

I’ve never been any good at firings. When I was about to fire a copywriter, who incidentally wore atrociously grungy footwear – not a firable offence, HR advised me – he somehow found out and simply refused to see me, dodging me completely for some days until I eventually cornered him coming out of the loo. One bloke said: ‘Well it’s been a long walk to the scaffold. I can’t believe how long you’ve taken. You’re so feeble.’ He was dead right.

There was the girl who fiddled her petty cash – so I had no qualms whatsoever about firing her – until she burst into sobs, explaining how she was supporting her crippled mum because her dad had run off with a more mobile model. As my eyes moistened I only just stopped myself giving her back her job.

And there was the time when, having finally got into the swing of things, I took over a grossly overstaffed agency and boldly fired 50 people pronto, only to be phoned by my predecessor and told I should have fired twice as many. So, how come he hadn’t?

I still don’t really know how to do it. Do you? Perhaps Lord Sweetie-Pie runs courses?

Winston Fletcher writes extensively on advertising and marketing.

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