How should I respond to my boss who fired me via email and let him know that I’m very disappointed that he did not have the courtesy to do this face-to-face (we work from different states, but always communicate through video calls)?
Let’s see. I run something between one and three software companies (at one, I’m the chairman but not the CEO; at another, I’m the only employee). From time to time, I have to fire people.I hate it. Firing people is far and away the worst part of my job. The people I have to let go are generally nice and hard working. They just don’t have the skills I hired them for.But sometimes, not so much. We had an employee once who talked a great game and did nothing. When I would have a conversation about the fact that he had (yet again) failed to deliver what he had promised to deliver, I would get an hour-long lecture about how while he hadn’t delivered what he had promised, he had (a) tried and (b) done something that was better than what he had promised anyway. This happened over, and over and over again.I eventually ran out of hours, and made myself inaccessible to the guy by phone (he was a remote employee). I gave him yet another deliverable, and told him if he didn’t deliver it, he’d lose his job.He didn’t deliver, and I fired him by email. And then I was so stressed out by the whole thing that I took a month off.This happened about a decade ago, and I’m different now, but I don’t know if I’d behave differently if the situation arose again. But I think you should at least admit the possibility that bosses really hate firing people, and if they do it by email, it just might be because they’re finding the failed relationship as troubling and frustrating as you are.