It's ultimately not my choice. It's a directive from above me to do this in my department.

Been down this road a lot.

The best advice is to never hire a friend or family. Don't ever sell anything to friends or family either.

That being said, I hired a very good close friend almost two years ago now,(hadn't done it in 30 years) to head up the sales of a new division we started.

He was broke, divorced and unemployed, due to this economy, his age, and lack of work ethic. But the guy is a pitbull, he could sell ice to eskimos.

I sacrificed the friendship almost immediately because it was the only way it was going to work. I quit socializing with him, quit bowling/golfing with him etc. I had to do this, he showed immediately that he would try and take advantage of it.

He has done a great job finally, but it has been brutal. Kept me up a lot of nights, but he is finally getting it.

He is now making some pretty good money also, but we will never be casual friends again, as long as we both work together.

Good luck with it beer me, it is a tough position.

Go have a beer with him. Shoot a game of pool or whatever the two of you do and when you are together ,both relaxed , then BAM

Again... I didn't hire him. I became his boss after we were friends and worked together a while. Now I'm the one in the position to do this.

At any rate there's been some good advice here that has confirmed what I thought. The honest and straight forward way is the way to go. Don't sugar coat but empathize and be willing to help him from here.

I appreciate the input. I'm not looking forward to the end of next week though but I'll handle it.

Thanks all.

LMAO

First off have you had any talks with him regarding his performance or will he be completely unaware? In a lot of cases if you talk to somebody about the problem they will correct themselves. Eventually you will reach a point of having talked to them too many times and will have to fire them but at least you tried to manage your employee before letting them go. Now if you have to fire him because he is committing fraud or something like that then it should be pretty easy to fire him.

I'll help you out since it's all the way up six posts.

That is different, sorry. I haven't been in that position.

It's cool... I didn't give any details in the beginning because I didn't intend for it to be about specifics, just looking for a general consences (sp) or feeling to either confirm or deny what I was thinking. I've gotten that now so I know I was thinking the right things. I know there's a lot of people in mangerial positions on here so I just wanted to bounce a general idea off them. Appreciate everyones input.

You do it honestly but sometimes trying to add a little humor as he is a best friend could soften the blow. It depends on WHY he is being fired.

Not cutting it-need to explain why and try to help him find something else

He did something intentionally to hurt your business-who cares fire him

It also sucks if your wives or significant others are friends-that sometimes is the worse

The thing I'd do would be honest about it straight up, then list the good stuff he did but then disclose how he ****ed up.

I'm already a job reference for him and will offer to do more if he wants it. Time to be a manager first and a friend second as much as it sucks.

You know what is awesome about ChiefsPlanet? Your friend is probably a member. He's going to find out he's being fired on ChiefsPlanet a la Gunther.

LOL.... no he's a Vikings fan from Northern Iowa. I wouldn't have posted this if any of my friends here were aware of the place... even if my friends here knew about CP they'd have no clue who the hell beer me is... I mean who really does?