Ready, Aim, Fire : Human Resources Types Learn How to Terminate the Truly Scary Worker--and Live to Tell the Tale

Two hundred women in power suits and a sprinkling of men sat, rapt.

Usually, the monthly meeting of the local chapter of the Professionals in Human Resources Assn., or PIHRA, attracts 150 people, tops. But the Grand Ballroom of the Warner Center Marriott was packed.

The attraction wasn’t the chicken salad or even the drawing for a pink nightgown and peignoir set that was also part of the program.

The house was full because the speaker, Century City employment attorney Charles H. Goldstein, is an expert on a subject that keeps members up at night.

“How to Terminate Truly Disturbed Employees” was the official title of his talk. But his real subject was how to spot the employee who has made the leap from disgruntled to dangerous, the kind you can picture returning to the office with an AK-47 and “going postal,” as the teenagers say.

That, and how to get rid of scary employees without getting yourself killed in the process, or your firm bankrupted.

Crime in the suites, as it’s been called, was clearly much on members’ minds, even if they didn’t work for the post office.

Shortly before the meeting, a dismissed city park employee in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., shot seven former co-workers, killing six, and then committed suicide. Shortly after the meeting, a Sacramento worker allegedly fired about 50 shots into a roomful of supervisors, but hit nobody before a guard shot him in the shoulder, ending the attack. He had just been fired for distributing news stories about workplace violence.

Goldstein quickly established his credentials. “In 30 years I’ve terminated more disgruntled employees than Arnold Schwarzenegger ever terminated,” he said, as many in the audience grabbed pen and paper and began taking notes.

In the good old days, people who worked in human resources, as these do, faced few workplace hazards more serious than a paper cut. Not any more. According to Goldstein, violence is now the leading cause of death for women in the workplace (for men, accidents still kill more). In 1993, more than 1,000 Americans were murdered at work. The Justice Department estimates that more than 1 million serious crimes are committed in the workplace each year, most of them unreported.

Before Goldstein began to speak, a PIHRA officer talked about her own fears. She had to call a disgruntled employee into her office recently. Angry at the prospect of being reprimanded, he announced: “I’m going to my car.”

“My whole life flashed before my eyes,” the PIHRA officer recalled. Her next thought: “They really don’t pay me enough for this job.”

The unhappy employee brought back from his car only a file documenting his side of the dispute with his managers, not heavy ordnance. But not all employees and former employees are equally harmless.

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Goldstein shared the profile of an employee who may decide to mow down his managers or co-workers. Typically, the attorney said, he is a middle-aged male who is a chronic complainer. He is distrustful and rigid. He blames other people for his own shortcomings.

He is fascinated with weapons. Goldstein told of a man who brought a machete to work to show his colleagues. He is hard to supervise. He also views his job and his company as very important to his self-esteem. Outside his work, he has no life.

If possible, Goldstein advised, don’t hire such people in the first place. “Get rid of them during probation,” he counseled.

Goldstein has obviously seen considerable employee psychopathology in his time. Lots of people think their boss is a jerk. But he told of a woman who saw the face of her company’s president, instead of the shower head, every time she took a shower. She decided the only way to rid herself of this peculiar menace was to go out and get a shotgun.

The Americans With Disabilities Act and parallel state laws can make it difficult to fire people with mental illnesses, Goldstein advised, something the group seemed well aware of.

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“The Goldstein approach is, I never fire people,” he said. Instead, he insists that troubled employees get an evaluation by a competent health professional, “and I just don’t let them come back until they’re certified harmless.”

The attorney said he had come to appreciate how important it is to make sure that employees who are being terminated are not marched through the office or humiliated in other ways. “You don’t want to destroy their dignity,” he said.

Face-saving may come in the form of extended health benefits or severance pay. Hopeful people are less likely to sue you or heave a grenade through the window than the ones who feel they have nothing to lose.

Key advice: Be aware of factors that light Vlad-the-employee’s fuse.

Downsizing has exacerbated workplace tensions, Goldstein said. Romance is another factor in much workplace violence, especially when it sours or when it existed only in the mind of one person, usually the man.

Companies should treat all complaints of sexual harassment extremely seriously, he advised. At work, women are particularly vulnerable to an attack by a violent spouse or boyfriend, he said. It’s the one place he knows where and when he can find her. A policy of keeping nonemployees off the premises is recommended.

Before disciplining a worker, an employer should try to discover the facts, Goldstein counseled. Often, companies fail to ask the employee for his or her side of the story.

Goldstein said he once worked for a firm in which a low-level employee was charged with dealing drugs. When interviewed, the man said his managers were dealing drugs as well. Goldstein had the matter investigated--and they were.

He pointed out that the troubled employee is not the only one who can roil a workplace. Some people are simply jerks, others “are just evil.” For them, Goldstein has no compassion.

“You know what you do with the evil people,” he said. “You fire them. You never fire out of fear or fear to fire.”