Why is it so freakin' hard to fire an employee?

I am being held hostage by a major F*up at my job right now because my company is afraid to fire her because she's older, a woman and a minority.


I met with her yesterday with HR and gave her two written warnings. Had to sit through her delusions and then allegations against me being bias towards her and insinuating the race card is at hand in this. She also is accusing me of hacking into her computer at work and stealing all of her files (says this is why all of her work has never been submitted!!).

She is months behind in her work , lacks basic skills to do the job (ie. doesn't know how to really use email or microsoft word which is needed for 90% of our job), makes no sense when she talks and EVERYONE complains about her. I gave her a deadline to have everything in by Friday. She actually is following up so I am just afraid this is going to delay my being able to fire her. Anyone have any tips?

It is to the point I can't stand to be in the same room as her she makes me that sick. HELP!!!!

Re: Why is it so freakin' hard to fire an employee?

sorry your dealing with that. I have found that it is much harder to term someone in a larger firm. In the large firms it takes between 3 to 6 months and you have to have specific docuemntation back up and coaching yada yada yada. The only tip I have unfortunatley is document and document. If her offer letter stated must know certain computer programs and she doesn't that can help.

Sorry-been there-good luck.

Re: Why is it so freakin' hard to fire an employee?

Sorry that you are going through this. Have you given her written warnings or do you have paper trails? This can be used to terminate her employee. If not maybe you can ask if she can be transferred to a different department of the company so that you dont have to work with her on a daily basis.

Re: Why is it so freakin' hard to fire an employee?

i hear ya -- because if I hear the word "protected class" come out of HR's mouth one more time at my job I'm going to lose it. Because I feel like sometimes I would have a higher chance of being fired as an A-1 employee over someone who lacks basic drive and skill and never shows up for work on time if at all.

Re: Why is it so freakin' hard to fire an employee?

People in a "protected class" can definitely be terminated, however from an HR view, all of our t's have to be crossed and i's dotted and we have to 100% prove that the basis for termination had nothing to do with race, gender, age etc. In this day and age, people will go to court for anything! Sometimes it takes a while to build a case.

Re: Why is it so freakin' hard to fire an employee?

Sorry about your dilemma

That's definitely sticky and awkward.

How the heck did she get the job in the first place

Re: Why is it so freakin' hard to fire an employee?

I had no freakin' idea how she got hired but she is definitely making my life miserable. I just continue to document her stupidity on a daily basis. We are hoping to get rid of her by month's end.

Her latest scheme (since I've basically resorted to communicating with her only in writing to CMA) is she sent an email to the office manager complaining that I give her different direction verbally vs. in writing.

So now every time I speak to her, I need to send out an email saying "as per our conversation on 10/10 this is what you have been instructed to do yada yada yada".

I also have had to tell her to no longer go to the other staff but me only if she needs direction or has questions.

That's the other thing---she is taking away from other staff's work with her stupidity.

I KNOW she is just gearing up for a lawsuit.