Endings

A popular saying among management books goes, "Remember: It’s not the people you fire who make your life miserable. It’s the ones you don’t." Pulling the plug on an employee's relationship with the company is a drastic step to take, for sure, but if it's the next step in the logical sequence you've followed through the performance cycle, then hesitating or "hoping it'll all work out" isn't really accomplishing anything. Once the decision has been made, don't prevaricate or wring your hands–-the individual had multiple opportunities to correct the performance problem, and, assuming you met them halfway and worked with them on their PIP, there's just not much more to do.

And when you get a quiet moment, hoist a glass of your favorite beverage, stare deeply into it, and go through the "what-ifs" and "what-might-have-beens" in your mind. Was there really anything you could've done differently? Could you have taken a different approach to help this individual improve their performance? Take note of any thoughts that come to mind, write them down, and file that away. Then finish the beverage, call it a night, and move on to the next day.