When it comes to management, difficult decisions need to be made constantly. Even when you have just started! Take this new manager of an IT team who started just a few months ago. He had an okay tech, pretty mediocre, but he’s worked there several years, so whatever. However, he was already in change mode which tends to happen when companies are making moves and hire a new manager. So when this tech started ranting about flat earth and preaching “flat earther” stuff during the office lunch, he had a decision to make. He was already on the hunt to hire new techs, so he decided to let this one go. Was this a smart move? It’s being debated in the comments.
On one hand, he was ranting like a crazy person about a belief that has been disproven over and over again, even by people in its own society. This makes this employee a liability because what if he brings this kind of talk to the customer? You could not only lose a client, but also your reputation! On the other hand, employees are allowed to believe whatever they want and a lunch setting can be pretty laid back when it comes to conversation subjects. Maybe a warning would have sufficed, instead of being immediately fired. What would you do?
