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Terminating a Trusted Employee

Concerned about whether an employee is fit for a job? Sometimes your gut knows best

With no contacts at his former law enforcement agency, I was stonewalled when I tried to inquire about his departure. I took the assumption that he'd left because he got fed up with internal politics and saw greener pastures in the private sector.

(Eventually, about a month before his departure, Steve told me why he had left. He had been selected to work in a specialized unit, a job that he loved, when a new chief came in and rotated him out of that unit and onto the graveyard shift. At that point, he quit.)

Steve Is Hired

Two months and 18 personal interviews later, we hired the person we thought was the perfect candidate. After a very brief orientation period, Steve was off and running.

While far from ideal, our function at the time was strictly emergency room. Stop the bleeding. Don't worry about how it started, just stop it and move on to the next crisis.

Less than a month after his break-in period Steve was assigned to do an investigation outside of his normal region, which he accepted willingly. While I'm not one to second-guess another's internal investigation, having given Steve the assignment I surmised that it would take approximately four days, excluding travel. Steve was done in a day and a half!

Although the end result was satisfactory, the brevity of his investigation left us scratching our heads. But like any emergency-room operation, we didn't have time to dwell on that, so we moved on.

Several months later, Steve became immersed in another investigation, which resulted in law enforcement intervention and an arrest. What was bothersome was the report Steve submitted; it was just one and a half, single-spaced pages! And that covered, supposedly, interviews with nearly 20 company associates, two interviews with the suspect, the investigation itself and the list of evidence collected and surrendered to law enforcement.

The report Steve submitted was bothersome. It was just one and a half pages covering, supposedly, two interviews with the suspect and nearly 20 company associates.

Sometime later Steve conducted a relatively minor series of investigations in his region. In each instance, he couldn't get the malefactor to admit culpability. Each time, Steve would call me and ask to be sent to an advanced interview technique school because he didn't feel he was performing as he should. On one hand, I had to compliment him for thinking this way, but on the other, I expressed no dissatisfaction with his performance. Don't worry about it, I told him, everyone goes through stretches when, no matter what they do or say, the crook just won't talk.