Chapter 2

Firing

If You Want to Learn More About Yourself, Fire Someone

One beautiful morning, I got to the office to find my HR department terminating an employee. This firing was terribly mishandled in a lot of ways. The employee was outraged. She stormed out of the conference room, called the HR representative several names I won’t repeat in this book, told the confused receptionist she was fat, mentioned to another passing employee that the entire organization had an obesity problem, called an engineer a low-life, picked up her purse, and left.

I asked the HR representative if he learned anything about himself. He nodded in agreement and repeated the foul feedback he had received from the terminated employee just seconds ago.

What looked ...

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