do you have the stomach to fire someone?

As much as possible I dnt want to fire anyone, I've only done it once and only because she was really messing up all our hard work. She was encoding the data all wrong! I had to trace and correct all her mistakes. I am a very patient superior and as long as can take it I will try to correct and teach a person. But she did not show any improvement and doesn't seem to understand everything I taught her. I knew that I really had to let her go. She even cried in front of me and I had to comfort her, telling her that she is probably more fit for another kind of job.

I have only had to do this a few times, once because of someone that had been with the company for about a year and showed no improvement. The other time was because of someone who was stealing from the company and setting others up to look bad when really it was this guys fault things were going wrong. Once I found out what he was up to I didn't hesitate to let him go. I do not like to have to fire people but I will do it if it becomes necesarry.

Most businesses have procedures for dealing with personnel problems that include steps to take before firing someone so it usually doesn't come out of the blue. I used to supervise over 40 people so, yes, I've had to let a few go and, no, there was no way that I could delegate that task to someone else. By the time I gave someone their walking papers though, that person had already been in my office a couple of times, was aware of the problem and had been given time and the offer of assistance in improving his or her job performance. Still, it's not easy to do it when the time comes.