Atimes You Need To Sack Employee To Have Peace Of Mind ~By Anayo Nwosu

I have just sacked one of my drivers and I have no regrets whatsoever. May God forgive me. But, I had do it.

I didn’t sack Mr. Dickson Mgbemchoro because of any disciplinary issues or because of incompetence but to have peace of mind.

My driver was an Anglican until he became born again last three months in a prosperity-oriented Pentecostal Church. And everything changed.

Dick as he was fondly called by my family members asked that he be now addressed by his Igbo name Osogaeme or simply Oso.

My driver’s pastor told him that Dickson was not a good name for a Christian that it meant “the son of a phallus” and that calling him “Dick” would distract female members of church hence bringing their minds back to what they should avoid.

For one week, Dickson begged me to personally tell everyone to stop calling him Dick or Dickson and I obliged without letting him know that I had a reservation with his new name “Osogaeme” which I interpreted to mean as “urgent escape”.

When the new first name, Osogaeme is combined with the surname, Mgbemchoro they mean “I can run away urgently when I find it expedient”

I have also noticed that Osogaeme had improved in his dressing. He started dressing like a bank manager.

When I asked why he was always spruced, he gleefully announced that “this year is my year sir; my pastor says that I must dress as a rich man I’m destined to be this year.”

I engaged Osogaeme to ascertain whether he had engaged in new skills acquisition or if he had started a part-time educational programme but he answered in the negative.

I even offered to sponsor my driver’s part-time skill acquisition or education but he rather asked that I should rather do it for his young son.

That left me bemused as to how 2017 would be his year of uplift.

A warning signal triggered an alarm in my head because I was not planning to increase his salary anytime soon as my revenues or pay have rather been reduced in volume and value by economic recession in the country.

For many nights, after my discussion with Osogaeme, I couldn’t sleep well. I have been having nightmares.

I would either see my SUV vehicles crossing Seme Border into Benin Republic. I also, dream of kidnap or robbery attack.

After another dream where I saw Osogaeme disappearing with my saloon car, I was no longer ready to live in fear of my driver. I was ready to end it all.

When I returned from work that fateful evening, I summoned Osogaeme and paid him his three months salary upfront and sacked him.

I told him that I was asked in my dream to release him so that he could realize his miracle this year as has been prophesied by his pastor.

It is a general management rule that once a staff begins to manifest any tendency of living above his means or showing an ambition you know is not attainable in your company, sack him.

You don’t have to let an identified smoke fester. Quench it before it turns into a conflagration or inferno which could consume you.

That was the same self-preservation assurance technique King Herod employed by ordering that all the newly born babies in Bethlehem be eliminated to forestall the possibility of an emergence of a rival king that would eliminate him and his household.

Don’t live in fear of any of your employees.

Release or sack that staff that stokes the animal in you just like I did to my driver.

In some cases, the troubled boss may just be suffering from inferiority complex or mild personality disorder.

But he is still the boss. He or she needs to be happy.

There is an Igbo saying that “Madu agaghi anokwa na be ya nokwaaa mkpuru utu” meaning that “one should feel comfortable in his own thing or house”.

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