I’d be curious to know the whole story.
I once had to fire someone which was an easy decision until it became my responsibility. Anyone looking at the situation from the outside would have said “Fire the incompetent deadbeat with the bad attitude.” But having to do it makes one think about the person’s kids/family, and also about the person’s future. She wasn’t evil. Just incompetent. And I think the bad attitude was most likely a defense mechanism covering for her incompetence.
In the end, what made it a little easier was knowing that she was taking the job away from multiple people who wanted it and that she was causing havoc at work for many, many people. So bottom line, it was sympathy for her vs. sympathy for all who had to put up with her and clean up after her.
Perhaps the 94 year old woman was creating serious problems for other residents? I don’t know if that’s the case. Just saying there might be more people to consider other than just the one woman.
You could just invent one. Doesn't seem to be a problem here.
Me too. It sounds like she just didn’t want to be helped and is a difficult person.
At my previous company, I ended up in a similar situation to you and this played out 138 times over a year. I really wasn’t comfortable at first and felt sorrow for the workers/families but it was a situation where these people knew the rules and refused to abide by them. I had taken over a really disfunctional division and they were all people hiding and sleeping on night shift (and a few on day shift). This was really impacting the company’s performance and I was on the line now too. It took about 4 months for it to slow to a trickle, ie, they started working. The company turned around and the remaining (and new) people who were working kept their jobs.
I ended up getting numb to the excuses and started enjoying it since every time I got rid of one and replaced them with a person who wanted to work we visibly did better. I’m a very sympathetic person so I was conflicted and ended up leaving when I found a better position elsewhere but I can’t sympathize for lazy, incompetent workers anymore.
I do think about their families from time to time since it was a place where finding other work is very difficult but it’s on their loved ones, not on me.