I (36F) am a manager for a corporation. I manage a small team and one of my employees, James (49M), was hired summer 2025.
When I hired him, it was his first real job in about 10 years. He explained that ongoing family issues had impacted his employment history, and I decided to give him a chance. Because of that, I invested a significant amount of time personally training and onboarding him.
Over the last few months, his behavior has become increasingly problematic.
James frequently badmouths coworkers when he thinks no one is listening. He has also told other employees that I “don’t do any training,” which is completely false I personally trained him extensively when he was hired.
He regularly “double checks” other employees’ work despite not being a supervisor. Even more concerning, when I give instructions to the team, if he disagrees, he will later go to that employee and tell them to do things differently. This has caused confusion, mistakes, and disruptions in our workflow.
Earlier this week, my two top-performing reps were out with the flu. That left only James, one other employee, and myself. I instructed the team to focus only on essential tasks so they wouldn’t become overwhelmed and we could resume normal operations once the others returned.
That day, James repeatedly told me he was “extremely busy” and claimed he didn’t have enough time to complete his workload. However, despite also managing my own responsibilities, I ended up completing more work than he did.
During this same conversation, he openly stated that his coworkers are incompetent and implied that they slow him down while simultaneously saying he didn’t have time to complete his own tasks.
On top of that, he took his break on his own time rather than his scheduled break, without notifying me or asking for approval.
Because of the ongoing issues, I sent an email to the team clearly outlining responsibilities, deadlines, and expectations. I also included that failure to follow these expectations could result in disciplinary action, up to and including termination.
Here’s where I feel conflicted.
At this point, I’m mentally exhausted. I find myself hoping he messes up again so there is a clear, documented reason to terminate him.
I haven’t treated him unfairly, singled him out publicly, or violated company policy but I can’t deny that I’m emotionally done and just want this situation to be over.
So…AITA for feeling this way?
EDIT: To clarify, I am not trying to sabotage him or set him up to fail. I am following company policy, documenting behavior, and applying expectations evenly across the team. I’m just exhausted and frustrated after months of ongoing issues.
Are you ever addressing these issues with him directly in private? I get the impression you’re just sending out these passive emails and James is supposed to pick up on the fact you’re referring to him.
> he took his break on his own time rather than his scheduled break, without notifying me or asking for approval.
Where I work, not showing up is valid reason to fire someone. It is not where you live?
> Because of the ongoing issues, I sent an email to the team clearly outlining responsibilities, deadlines, and expectations. I also included that failure to follow these expectations could result in disciplinary action, up to and including termination.
This heavily depends on work nature. Bit it seems like instead of addressing issues with problem person, you are targeting the whole team.
Like, create paper record and fire him. He did not shown up.
Nobody is ever an asshole for feeling, you become an asshole by doing things.
You are behaving as you should. You gave guidelines and the consequences of not following them. Now you just have to act accordingly, whatever happens.
NTA. It’s draining when you realize your investment in a person was just a hiring mistake you’re now forced to manage. You aren’t really waiting for him to fail; you’re just waiting for enough documentation to prove that his performance isn’t a reflection of your training. Once you have the paper trail, you’re finally off the hook for him.
I guarantee a (49 M) would lose no sleep over terminating a (36 F) for such poor performance. Tough decisions are part and parcel of managing. You’re doing everything right. Contact HR, if you have specialists, or your boss now and say you’re going to put this employee on a performance improvement plan. Write that plan, give it to the guy, and set a specific period of time by which these issues must be resolved. Be firm that it is not his job to discipline, coach, or instruct other employees—include that in the plan. It’s shape up or ship out.
NTA – Sounds like James needs to be on a performance improvement plan, which is completely within your scope for him as his manager.
I would also reach out to human resources if he is creating a situation wherein other employees are being impacted by his negative behaviors.
You need to start documenting all of his failures to comply with the stated guidelines as evidence of his long-term behavior. You can then share those with him, and if there are no changes, then that is grounds for termination.
If you’re in the US and he’s not under contract, you don’t need a reason to fire him.
Are you a new manager? Why are you picking up his slack? Document the requirements of the job and document when he fails to meet them, then fire him.
NTA. It doesn’t sound like he was hired as a manager. Everything you explained is insubordination.
You should have documented conversations with him by now about not acting against your instructions to the rest of your team. If you don’t, you need to set that boundary. If he sees someone else doing something incorrectly, you appreciate him telling you, but he’s not to check others work and he’s not to tell them to do something a different way after you’ve explained how you want it done. He need to focus on his work and not the abilities of his coworkers.
If you’ve done this, I agree with the other person who posted contacting the correct person to notify them your moving forward with disciplinary action.
This could be negatively affecting your other team members too. Creating a hostile work environment can cause more problems, too, than just dealing wth these hard conversations.
Sounds like he has problems multiple tasking and working with others. You have 2 choices , find him a position monotonous and solitary that nobody else likes to do or let him go 🤷🏼♀️. I always let my employees know what is expected of them and would start giving them bad performance ratings to document their issues. Then they would know how to improve and I had a reason for termination if they didn’t.
NTA
You’re not an asshole for the feelings you’re having. As long as you’re not treating him unfairly or are applying different standards to him.
Have you tried to have a one on one with him about some of these issues? That would be a step before terminating someone.
NTA, but if you’re not documenting these issues with him in the past, start documenting them now. Stop emailing “the team” and email him directly “you took a break yesterday at this time when you didn’t let me know, stop doing that” and/or “it’s not appropriate to discuss with other coworkers your training” and “I am your supervisor, you need to do tasks that I assign to you when I assign them”. Like all of this passive aggressive crap he’s doing is partially continuing to bug the crap out of you and exhaust you because it’s exhausting. But don’t email “the team” to take care of it. The team aren’t doing squat. He is.
NTA. He is disruptive to the team and impacting productivity. He is also a toxic presence. People like that will drag a whole workplace down with them, ultimately leading to complete turnover.
You are doing your job by eliminating his negative impact. If I had two nickels to bet, I’d say he did actually work many, many jobs in the last 10 years but doesn’t want you contacting any of them because they would all tell you what you’ve just experienced- he is a walking problem.
Document and do what you need to do. Lesson learned. The longer he is there, the longer it will take to find and train his replacement.