I have to fire someone this week......

Do it in private, dont embarrass him. Make sure he understands why.

 

You will be amazed at the production increase of the others.

Make sure you have someone in there with you

make sure someone escorts him out

 

So your firing someone to show everyone else what could happen, if they don't do things right. The one problem with this is thats not effective, your works are most likely in there 30's and have a work ethic. You needed to approach a employee that works well in your area to show the kid, not you. Managers usually just scare kids and ulitmitly they don't remember anything. Secondly think about the fact the kid is 19 and most likely his first job, so he needs guidance from someone else, for gods sake when I was a supervisor I was just happy my 19 yr old showed up. But realistically, you can fire them, but Im guessing you approached alot of it not thinking about how a 19 yr old would be and react. The reason I see this is because I was a supervisor for a long time, and I dealt with the same thing, most kids this isn't what they wanna do but your employer was the only place that would give them a job, and they took it.

 

I've never had to be fired but I can imagine it is an emotional thing, even if he doesn't act like it on the outside I'm sure he'll be a bit bummed on the inside. If you have another person there that can just ease any tension I'd imagine that would be good. Not an intimidating supervisor and not a close friend either. Just a neutral person to make it a more comfortable situation if at all possible.

 

I am sure the people doing 130's & working hard wont have a problem with it then

 

for $24 an hr I would do a lot.
my job is TIP based and the hourly rate stinks

I have to listen to people complain that they had to work 4 or 6 hours Saturday or Sunday at $40 to $50 an hour and be payed for 8 hours of work It must be rough!
The other complaint I here is my unemployment is going to run out now I will have to look for a job again
I once had a guy that works for the rail road tell me he only works 4 months a year and makes $80.000 then has to collect unemployment the rest of the year he had s been doing this for 20+ years.
i got more but this enough
then I listen to people I wish I could find a job over min wage that realy want to work this is the people hope come across something good.

 

Been there and done that. It's never fun. An HR type once told me that the people you don't fire cause you too lose much more sleep than the ones you do. Based on this post I think you'll be amazed by how much your stress level will drop once it's done.

 

Glad things went well - everything else may seem smoother as quite a bit of stress was removed from your shoulders.
I found your first post interesting - that you would seek advice here regarding the situation.  I certainly realize that it's emotional, as the psychological and financial impact is substantial to the employee getting terminated and it affects the workplace mood in general.
I could also understand your need to discuss if you were a very small company or a sole proprietorship - but what struck me is that it didn't sound like you had much support from your peers - especially in a fortune 500 company!
Moving an employee to term is a very serious situation - if you know you've done everything you can, you've calibrated with your peers and human resources, you've followed achievement plans and progressive discipline, then the decision is ultimately the employees and it helps to relieve some of the stress.
-Eric