All Comments on 'You're Fired!'

the future looks dim and dimmer, TK U MLJ LV NV

If an employee is surprised by an appraisal, management has failed to do their job.

The purpose of the appraisal system is to monitor employee performance and to work with the employee to improve any sub-standard areas.

A surprise termination is even worse. It shows that they have not tried all that they could do to redeem an (at one time) valuable employee. In this instance, they sat on their hands and let the poor sales go on without taking a shot at salvaging the situation.

This is unfair to the employee, and unfair to the company.

I was surprised to find that I feel this strongly about this topic.

In all my years as a manager, nobody who worked for me was ever blindsided like that. Employees with poor performance got verbal critiques and informal coaching long before their first poor written review and formal improvement plan.

Angela's company could still have been successful firing people like that - just look at Oracle - but the turnover resulting from the employees constantly updating their resumes and running continuous job searches must have been staggeringly high.

He never got talked to about his job performance before getting fired. That's a wife that valued the job more than the husband. Would of divorced her having her served at work loudly.

...at least 1000 miles away without mentioning it. When I was hired, she wouldn't know for who or where. I would build a new life without the crone.

She wasn't a loving wife.. A loving wife doesn't share a bed with her husband only to fire him the following day(assuming she knew just the day before).. Not even a heads up? Damn that's one cold woman..

4*

Even if he has to be fired wife shoud have at least warn him about it or something because he wasnt just another employ he was her husband and she was never really sorry for the pain she caused him, i mean he become a laughing stock in that town because of his on wife and to me she didnt look sorry about that but this premise is interesting and i hope there will be similar stories in the future.

How does someone who would blindside their own spouse with termination, without ever having addressed the core issue for improvement first, without realizing the effect it would have on his career, ever get to the level of CEO? Like, how does she never even consider the effect, from the mind frame of a CEO, that being fired by your spouse has on job prospects anywhere else? How is this person in that position, if that most basic of thought processes never entered her mind? "If I got a resume from someone who had been fired by a family member at their last job, would I even consider them for the position?" This never crossed her mind? This is not just a bad spouse ( It baffles me that this woman would think that the office and the marriage could be separated on this), for all the reasons the husband points out ( How firing him might affect their marriage. How that might affect his mental well being. How being fired by his wife might kill any other job prospects.)...this is someone who, if these considerations weren't made, is a straight up piss poor manager! How does that person rise to the top position?

On the plus side. This was a nice happy ending and there was no cheating. Minus. The time frames were impossible. Also at first it seemed realistic but it soon turned into the realm of fiction and fantasy. But as a different take on an MM tale it is worth the five stars I'm giving.

This woman is not only a failure at being a wife but, there is no way in hell she would make CEO much less middle management without being able to properly coach or lead before hand. Shows a total lack of leadership & mentorship that a upper level manager would have. She couldn't lead a family, how could she lead a large company?

And remember, it was just a story. Go with the flow and enjoy the unusual situation BigGuy33 came up with, and made it work. Think about how the husband initially reacted, and when he interview for another job and was humiliated and went and got drunk. And kept on drinking until his loving wife told him he was pathetic. He decided she was right, found a new job away from the poisoned atmosphere in his hometown, and was a successful salesman again. And she was right to fire him because he got bored and had no initiative. Loved it! 5 Stars

Excellent story in general. Really enjoyed the read. You have a few typos but they do not interfer with the flow.

Just don't agree with the category

ABG was obviously large enough to have a Board of Directors. The company surely had the typical ruling against personal relationships between boss and employee... She was CEO, so while his direct boss was not she, she still was in the chain of command, thus a violation of policy. Also, no warning, no efforts on ABG's part to try to resolve the issue with him, simply firing him out of the blue would open ABG to a lawsuit. And, if I were he, I would have looked for a position out of town way before he did. Otherwise, a very nice read.

yes a 5 but the problems of the wife as head of the operations and husband as a couple steps below her in the corporate structure is a killer. Plain and simple a killer of a marriage. The same would be case for the opposite if flipped. I spent too many professional years to see this situation to lasted...

Since when does a story about an insensitive spouse deserve so much scorn. We all read it to its satisfying conclusion and were so moved and motivated that we wrote in to comment. We don't have to like or admire all the characters, we just have to have strong feelings about the circumstances and the reactions depicted to be compelled to react ourselves. Personally, that's what makes a 5 star story.

They have not kids so if he had divorced her he could have newer connection to get possibilty for family with kids.

A firing out of the blue like that, I have been In a lot of companies etc and only for gross violations would someone be fired out of the blue like that. It was up to them to mention the problem to him and if it was really coming to a firing she could have warned him that it was coming and clear the road so he could find another job in town fast.

Plausible but painful and a little naïve on her part. Then again he may have needed to start considering other options once she became CEO.

An employee with a good record is not suddenly terminated. That's just sorry management and detrimental to both sides. Reprimand yes terminate no try again.

I liked it despite the lack of management skills shown in the initial termination. Before getting to sacking I'm sure a successful company would have worked at getting a once successful salesman back up to speed before sacking him. That being said as a simple vehicle for an interesting story it was easy to ignore and enjoy the tale as it was intended to be. 4 stars

Warnings are usually given, especially in a touchy situation like that one.

And those could have been gentle and even informal to avoid conflict.

And no wife, particularly one like that would have made such a mistake . Because marriage damage was a big possibility.

Despite that, you wrote this very well and I really enjoyed it.

And bless you for a story where the wife actually loves her husband and both are faithful/

A very good tale.

Thanks for sharing

Adam was tapping A`s pussie

To make a fiction story enjoyable authors often skirt around reality (deux ex machina and all that). The reaction of Henry was realistic (the firing wasn't) and the story was a fun read. 5*

“I had promises from several of my accounts that orders would be going up, and I supposed the new rep would probably get credit for turning things around.” - He should go to work for the competition and take some of those customers with him!

Had she given him any warning that his job was in jeopardy, where he could have told her about the orders he was expecting?

Who’s going to hire a guy that got fired by his wife?

He should have Alex talk to his wife.

"And you just expect me to accept this?" – Um, you expected him to “accept” being fired.

"So, that's it? You're just making this decision without discussing it with me?" – I don’t recall her “discussing” the decision to fire him!

I don’t care for suddenly her decision to fire him was right. Even if he WASN’T her husband, a discussion before firing would have been appropriate, or as she said give him an opportunity to find a new job first.

He had a RIGHT to act like an asshole!

I guess it was necessary as a plot device, but still sticks in the craw a bit, and I agree with those who question how a successful CEO could be so clueless as to how her actions could/would affect both his psyche and job prospects.

Kinda boring.

As others have mentioned, a decent company does not fire a long term previously successful employee for poor performance. They let you go after months if not years of seeking ways to improve your performance or reassigning you to other departments where your true skills can make a contribution. So the whole firing scenario was really lame, but obviously done for the sake of the plot.

Then you make Henry out to be a complete loser: whining, denial, alcohol abuse of himself, verbal and emotional abuse of his wife, and a total absence of self respect and normal adult maturity. Yet the wife is intelligent and patient and understanding. It was puzzling why she ever married him. More contrivance, so you could make your plot point of how Harry descends into depression and self-destruction while the wife bravely soldiers on. At the end of page 2 I had to skip to the end of the story just to see to what extreme you were going to carry this charade. OK, they live happily ever after, so lets go back and see what contrivances bring the relationship back together. For some reason Harry's negative behavior became less tedious knowing the outcome. Less tedious, and more bearable. At this point I'm giving the author the benefit of the doubt, and was curious how the turnaround was to be accomplished.

The turnaround wasn't accomplished, it just happened, one day, no different than all the previous days, Harry suddenly decides to man up. OK, fine, whatever. Remember, its the plot that counts, not the plausibility. And that's how contrived stores usually read.

So, thanks for the effort. I was puzzled that while you thought a wife firing a husband was intriguing, you didn't present it with a more believable plot. I would have had the firing result from evidence of embezzlement, or some other extreme cause where the wife has to try to balance both her CEO and wife responsibilities. Eventually it could be shown that the embezzlement was a setup by someone trying to disrupt the marriage and seduce the wife. They could go through all the relationship turmoil and drama until the husband, preferably with the wife's clandestine assistance, proves the setup and the couple reconnects stronger. Or something like that.

So please keep trying, but work on the logic, and make it believable. Smart people make a few mistakes and can be forgiven. Stupid people live stupid lives and are generally hopeless. The marriage of two smart people can become threatened by a stupid mistake, which can be an interesting story. The marriage of stupid people is doomed before they say I Do, and that is only fun to read about if you like slap stick and corny jokes. Maybe not even then. Write what you want, but slap stick and corn is not very ambitious writing.

#4 Better than femdom cuck shit

....I agree with Henry: how could anyone as 'smart' as Angela be so 'stupid' that she couldn't foresee the fallout from firing her own husband? And as others have noted, where was the counseling and performance improvement plan that most long-term employees would get before being let go? At least Angela somewhat realized that she'd fucked up by firing him before he had another job with a local company.

Anyhow, a well-told tale, thanks!

No chuck ,no divorce,no cheating, that's unusually for this sight . A little pain but they stayed together. The wife made a dumb move. That for most of us would be un repairable. Glad the author work thru this.

The devil is in the details. They needed more attention, but thanks for giving us something different than the standard fare!

I really liked this one. She was not, by intention at least a bad wife, but she was, certainly by European standards, a very bad boss. In the quaint old UK he would have taken her to a tribunal and won a good settlement for breach of procedures, no written warnings, no offers of retraining etc.etc, etc.

It is a good story, of two deeply flawed people finally making a life together. Well done.

And a lot of them actually are successful. Just run a search for worst companies to work for. The problem with this plot is that managers who run their companies like that wouldn't bat an eye at nepotism. After multiple failed attempts to improve his performance, Henry would have been Peter Principled into some obscure executive position where he could do no harm, and better producers would have just grumbled about the boss' useless hubby in secret to avoid pissing Angela off while they continually networked for jobs at better places to work.

But Henry's reactions are entirely believable when you consider that he didn't have the business smarts or the self respect to find himself another employer as his wife rose through the ranks where they were and he saw his coworkers being treated like disposable diapers.

The job aspect has already been well covered so I won't add to that.

The other significant failing is the assumption that a wedding ring is some sort of deflector shield that keeps women away.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

When a woman is looking for No Strings Attached sex a married man is the first choice of many of them.

A married man won't want to have a relationship either.

A wedding ring means some other woman wanted him.

I have known single men that bought and wore wedding rings because women that wouldn't talk to them before they did would come up to them and pick them up.

A story in the LW section that doesn't have people reacting to difficulties in their marriage by going out and screwing someone else. It is possible for married people to love each other enough to work things out intelligently, if perhaps not very quickly. I kept expecting one of our two protagonists to find solace in the arms of a lover, but somehow they muddled through and they (perhaps somewhat unrealistically) succeeded in finding a new relationship with each other that worked. I thought their retirement was somewhat premature and her "golden handshake" strange considering how well the company was doing under her leadership, but hell, this is fantasyland at Literotica and the authors do what they will to create the end they want. Not superstar stuff, but 5* anyway. Thanks for a pleasant read.

No respect for the husband. She could have told him his performance was slipping and he was in danger of being fired. Also she could have had someone else fire him but like a worthless birch she did it her self. 1 star

I had a boss 30 odd years ago who bullied me and humiliated me every time he could.on one occasion at the Christmas party there was an award ceremony for good employees and those who fitted in the macho company.I was called up and he told everyone that I was getting an award for worst and most hated employee to which everyone laughed and cheered.

I left the company immediately and issued proceeding against them which I won.He then phoned every company that employed me and lied to get me the sack.

In revenge I got his son taken on the way home from school and had his legs broken his wife was raped by a drugged up junkie who was never caught (cost thousands) and she lived in fear of aids for 6 months it broke her and she had a mental breakdown.He loved his merc and it got set alight on his drive one night that nearly took the house with it.I was arrested and interviewed but released as they had no proof or evidence and a I had good alibi. He was told that if anything happened to me his son would be killed. He got the meassage and I was left alone after that.He made my life a misery for absolutely no reason other than he was jealous of my families money I was good at my job but no superman.

I had no choice and the guy in this story was a wimp and let her shit on him.she could have warned him about his performance or got him to resign but she chose to humiliate him and he should have divorced her and taken her for alimony etc.

Even if he were not her husband he would have had regular reviews.

And BEFORE he was fired his CEO WIFE would have had a "Come to Jesus" meeting with her HUSBAND.

But only if you turn it on. It was not the mere fact that Henry was wearing a wedding ring that drove off the women who approached him; it was the fact that he waved it in their faces as he rejected their advances.

I liked this story a lot, the marital stress was handled well and the interest was maintained throughout. It was also (fairly) well edited which matters to me.

It's a good plot idea which would work even if the sexes were reversed-unfortunately a rarity in LW. The weakness is that firing without warning just doesn't hack it these days (yes I know there's one major exception but he IS unique). I particularly liked the fact that it was the wife who got her husband to face the reality that he needed to find a job far from home. At least he told her before he left but I didn't understand her surprise, what did she expect?

We've all had our ups and downs in the business world. This example was a little extreme but definitely a real possibility. For me and your other fans, I say thank you for doing another amazing story. There's enough BTB and cuckoldry for those that want or need that, and not enough good loving wives stories.

Still loving your work and still a big fan,

Santacruzman

It could have been an outstanding story, if they had dealt with the underlying causes of her behavior. This wasn't just business as usual, this was a calculated, cold act, delivered to induce the maximum amount of pain. I find it unusual that he worked under her chain of command, most corporations refuse to let a spouse or relative be anywhere near each other in a business setting, especially if one is much higher up the ladder. In the real world, he would have a hell of a lawsuit and grounds for a divorce citing mental cruelty.

That she thought nothing would change at home is delusional at best, and unbelievably arrogant at worst.

You write a pretty good story, but this one did nothing for me.

It's rarely a good idea for spouses to work together . I am a Doctor. My wife worked in my office for 1 week before we both recognized the mistake. You can't treat your spouse like a regular employee and expect things to stay normal at home, She should have warned him and allowed him to quit and save face. 5*

I mostly liked this. I say mostly because I didn't like him going so far down in the dregs. I understand why you did it. You wanted to show the hurt getting fired had caused, but it was a little too much.

That said, he had more than enough reason to be angry. I would have thought the first order of business for any long-term employee would have been a warning. A business lunch where they sat down and she said, "Honey, what's going on? Your numbers are way down," and tried to encourage him to do better. If he didn't do better then a second warning, "Honey, what do you need from me to help you bring your numbers up, because if they don't come up I'll have to let you go and I would sure hate to fire by hubby." The third time would have been just what she said, I'll give you month to find another job."

Instead she over compensated for her position and canned him with no warning. NOT GOOD.

I really did like the story! It's different than the usual which I encourage wholeheartedly. Good job!

This was far too aggressive an action by a supervisor based on two quarters -- fired without notice and escorted out by security. It was designed to be publicly humiliated. Should have been given a chance to resign and find another job. A husband fired this way could only take it as an unusually aggressive act, showing hostility toward him justifying divorce, which is what he should have done.

Yes, he should have been given the opportunity to resign, I think most should unless there were grievous issues. However, I also felt his aggravation, but he didn't help himself, either. Your story has touched a nerve, a mark of a very good story! 5*

Just another throw the man under the bus story. The story was not believable. The wife is written as an excellent CEO with practically no flaws and the husband is written as a fat slob that has flaws in almost every paragraph. This guy would have divorced her and moved on first chance he got. Don't forget he IS the laughing stock of his town so he can never go back there!!!

Thanks you for a good story. Was a nice read . She could have had him written up. But . I liked it the way it was .

for trying to write a real "loving Wives" story and not have a BTB ending. That is a TALL task and with a difficult group of readers.

Nice set up of conflict and author really had to thread the needle with wife character trying to balance "Job duty" and "Family Duty" because you can never serve two masters. Hubbys actions are what you would expect when hit with that situation.

Did the ending work out? That is BG33 call and story-I just am glad he posted a fine tale to read.

The guys wife was not his >direct< superior - he was under a sales manager who was written as incompetent. She was not directly responsible for his firing, and how it happened, the supervisor was. I am assuming the company was more than a bunch of people around a dining room table.

I was thinking we'd get a "and I fired your supervisor" plot element, but there was the plot element that in fact he was under performing - some justification in his firing, and if she was given a fait accompli from the supervisor, then doing anything else than what she did makes her liable for claims of nepotism. Life is not clean and simple at the top - I'm suspicious that she was put in the position of firing him personally in the first place. A directors level plot?

Of course it is a story - but the mechanics of the job interaction seems to me to be a bit underwritten, and the emotional elements on his and her side could have been more developed - hers' more than his'. Possible shenanigans on each side were side stepped - you could have made the wives' work buddy male, to dramatic effect. Using

"Mel" was cute that way. Similar to the blond from down the hall. If I scored stories in general I'd give a 4, for missed possibilities.

Green-something

I realize that without the firing we don't have the story, but we KNOW he's a top-notch salesman who has apparently got too complacent. Why not assign him a new territory where he has to get off his ass again?

As has been said, why no warnings, why no opportunity to find something else and/or resign rather than getting shit-canned by his own wife?

Angela was not Henry's direct, chain-of-command supervisor, but as the CEO employee retention and performance improvement was still her responsibility.

If handled properly, all discussions about Henry's performance should have been initiated by his direct supervisor. And even Henry's direct supervisor should have advised Henry that if he didn't improve his performance or find another job elsewhere he was headed for termination. That's a warning that an employee shouldn't have to be married to the CEO to get.

Angela should have stayed out of it, and if Henry had mentioned it to her she should have told him that she HAD to stay out of it and urged him to take his manager's concerns seriously because she would have to keep hands-off on any decisions that were made about his employment.

Except, of course, that no such discussion about Henry's performance seems to have taken place before his surprise firing. And Angela telling Henry that she focused on being "objective" about his firing tells us that EVERYONE in the company who got terminated most likely got blindsided by it the same way that Henry did.

This one hit the spot!

Nice tale.

This just didn't work for me due to many huge plot flaws. As so many others have already said, hubby not getting any kind of prior warning to improve his sales numbers is just to big a plot hole to get around right from the start. Even skipping this major plot hole, the wife was so business focused she couldn't wait a single day to allow her husband to resign and not destroy his career by getting fired by his own wife but can take the time to talk to her assistant about whats gonna fail on hubby but won't give him the heads up?

Also by having the wife act in such a deluded manner in that she gave so little thought as to how this course of actions would effect her marriage, even after being warned about it by her assistant what would happen, it kinda makes it hard to take her seriously as a business leader. As a wife she comes across as having zero respect for her husband, marriage or marriage vows as I doubt they had "and in the best interest of the shareholders" somewhere after the "in sickness and in health" part.

The CEO's actions would also breed mass disloyalty among all other employees as if she could blindside and fire her own husband out of the blue then everyone else means less than dirt to her. A business who treats employees so badly is not going to last due employees getting the hell out of dodge as soon as they could and taking clients and company secrets with them as why should they show such a company a shred of respect or loyalty.

If I was going to psychoanalyze Angela based on real people I have known, my guess would be that she was beginning to see Henry as a drag on her career and a mate who was beneath her role as a CEO. She chose to handle him the way she did in a (probably) unconscious effort to drive him to leave her (if Henry had divorced her she could have told herself that their marriage ended because he was jealous and resentful of her success and not because she was throwing him away). He put a pin in that balloon by moving out on her for the new job but not divorcing her, and making it clear that she would have to file on him.

"...Henry's direct supervisor should have advised Henry that if he didn't improve his performance or find another job elsewhere he was headed for termination."

<P>

That's my problem with the story. From all indications, this never happened. He was never given a notice there was a problem or time to rectify it until he was blindsided by the termination.

<P>

This wasn't the company showing that they weren't paying favoritism or nepotism, it was showing that they were ready and willing to throw anyone -- and I mean anyone -- under the bus. If I was at this company and saw that this is how she treated her husband, I'd be damned afraid of what they'd do to me or anyone else.

It's a challenging read because, like everyone else who has worked in the corporate world and commented here, I know that no publicly-held company would behave the way ABG did in any way (if for no other reason than their HR attorneys would panic)...so you're starting with a story that's not credible.

On the other hand, the plot concept--a wife choosing between marriage to a man she actually loves and her corporate responsibilities--is an interesting one.

I've never said this about any other story, but this is one that it would be interesting to read if it was completely reworked: keep the fundamental concept but fix the impossible corporate behavior and incomprehensible naivete of a brilliant CEO.

In some minds, but people who only Command subordinates are rarely blessed with the same success that Leaders receive. When his performance began to lag he should have been counseled by a supervisor who set goals with him and encouraged him. You see bosses can rise higher on the shoulders of those they serve, or, they can get trampeled under the feet of those they only command.... leadership, morale and motivation are the tools of a leader..... I think his wife was very insecure as a boss and did not understand mentoring principles any more than she seems to understand marriage. I like the story, but don't think the ending is very realalistic

I add my voice to several others. Didn't this company engage in any quarterly performance reviews? I would think the husband should've had some recourse to sue for wrongful termination or something along those lines.

and the trajectory didn't change much.

1. He deserved to be told he wasn't getting the job done

2. He didn't deserve being fired without recourse to rectify his failures.

3. She's a lousy CEO because of 1 & 2 and pretty self centered and arrogant.

4. He would have deserved to be fired had he been afforded 1 & 2.

5. Nothing really changed. She would fit in well with the Trump organization

I have enjoyed many of BigGuy33's stories. This is not one of them. Writing pretty good, characters had no redeeming qualities.

The stockholders/board of directors only care whether the company is consistently profitable and growing, so as long as the lousy treatment the employees are subjected to doesn't cause the company to become such a famous "worst place to work" that they can't attract a steady stream of new talent to use up and throw away (and Angela's comment about being "objective" about Henry's firing tells us that EVERYBODY who works for the company gets the same shaft he did) the people Angela truly reports to would be over the moon with her.

I didn't mark the story down because of the employment details because I know there really are companies run like this. The one that comes most readily to mind actually makes a practice of annually terminating everyone who ranks in the bottom 10% of its employee appraisals just to keep the pressure on everybody else. And in the US, as long as the companies are in "at will" states, as long as they aren't committing discrimination, retaliation on whistleblowers or defamation against the people they fire, they can treat them as shabbily as Henry was treated with impunity.

So if she's saying she's not doing Adams who is she cheating on him with? Let's be honest the only way this story makes sense is if she's cheating with someone at work and fires her husband so he won't find out. Even though you give "facts" they can and have been debunked. So clearly she is a "loving wife."

Any wife in that situation would have told her husband about the complaints and given him a chance to change, or had him assigned to a new territory that would make him hustle to sell again. So, that was the initial disbelief that the reader had to suspend, but that set up a pretty good story of a relationship in crisis. Certainly worth the read. ****

But her lover is ABG Products. Ambition can be an even greater temptation than lust.

Story but you did a Nice twist on it. It was Refreshing not to read about Someone Husband or Wife ripping the other's Heart out. As far as criticism about putting it in another Category. Tell them to Write their own.

Why would firing him be the first thing to do? Why wouldn't his supervisor bring him in and review his numbers and ask him about the new products? Salesmen and their bosses tend to have evaluation meetings all the time. Instead of firing people who are familiar with their areas and their Companies, they try to help them do better. Especially if they happen to be the CEO's husband. And why would the CEO of his new company be talking to his wife? Too many rats in that soup. I think she's cheating on him. He should have filed for divorce while he was unemployed and asked for alimony, half their assets and half her retirement. Then he could have done anything he wanted to in retirement without consulting the bitch. Flying back and forth for that many years would simply not have worked. So while this was well written, I didn't believe it for a second. And why would you need MM or the site's permission? Many, many story lines and ideas are reused everyday. And in the MM story, the husband's wife disrespects him at a party, he simply packs up and leaves without divorcing her. He wasn't a bad salesman and MM had it wrong. As one of their top salesmen, he would have been making more than his wife (who wasn't the CEO) and continued to make a good salary for another Company. He only runs across his wife when the old Company buys out his new Company. Then MM put them back together in a forced RAAC. She was going to be his boss and there's no way that happens. She was still a bitch. He deserved more. Just like Henry deserved more than a bitch for a wife.

Good story, bad ending.

And from what she tells Henry, the way he was treated was typical.

If Angela had cared more for Henry than for ABG, when she ascended the corporate ladder she would have advised him to change jobs because the company was going to be a miserable place to work under her leadership.

The story is fiction and he wrote it they way he needed to to reach the concluition as he saw it. Well done.

Yeah, commenters are right, an employee of long standing is not shitcanned without a lot of warnings. Had you written those warnings into the story, it would have been more balanced. I also found the group interview childish, and unrealistic. However it would have worked if one on one with an executive, he was told he was not going to be hired because if his wife wouldn't have him, who would ?

Lastly, the wife got him to reconcile and reconnect with him, but then, in the afterglow of make up sex, you have her beat him up with how Incompetent he had been, and how wonderful his successor was, just to prove she was right! No no no! She'd shut the fuck up, never to discuss it again. Let sleeping dogs lie.

Chilley

What if his direct supervisor was afraid of criticizing the husband? Or perhaps made the critiques a lot softer than they should have been?

So the story is totally ruined for me.

It would have been more interesting if her plan had slightly backfired. A sudden flight of talent as the workers realized the Boss had no loyalty to anyone.

We had a company where wife outranked the husband in the same business. One day, she verbally upbraided her husband in front of everyone.

I have no idea of their home dynamics, but as far as I know, no one particularly liked her and if her husband filled his time with other activities than her, I would have been sympathetic. She once screamed that her employees were a dime a dozen. The supervisor she spoke to flipped a dime at her and told her to try to find them then.

We had parties when she left.

No one does this. No one thinks this, reacts like this, accepts this, And has a dick. Hers was bigger than his.....he's probably taking it up the ass with a Hanover dildo provided by the wife. You suck.

It was pretty unrealistic. For example, she couldn't have dropped a few hints at home, saying "I'm getting pressure to let you go....you need to step up your game" instead of treating him like he was the Thanksgiving turkey? And, for a lot of women with that much power, it is verrrrry likely that soon she would be looking for a lover.

just too many damn plot holes to even make it likable.

I was one of the first to complain about the business aspects of this story. But I really did enjoy the story. It's nice to see a couple face a serious problem without cheating being introduced. In the end, she did choose him after a fashion. (She left the company to be with him, but only after she was done with her career)

When I saw this : Matt Moreau wrote a Loving Wives story some time ago about a husband and wife that work for the same company. The wife is the CEO, the husband a regular employee, and the wife fires the husband. The wife, of course, is having an affair..

I almost ran away, I should've kept running.

Matt stories are disgusting, I don't read ANYTHING she writes. The men are usually whiny, spineless, weak, pussywhipped idiots. I think the story would've been better had you rewrote Matts shitty story for the better, taking out the cheating doesnt make any sense. You should've just given Matts poor sucker cuck bitch hubby some fresh balls instead of changing the storyline. The loser hubby who couldn't keep a job, was just as pathetic as the original. The story didn't have any depth. Next time you're going to write a Matt Moreau revise, please give the poor cuck some balls.

Not sure if I have become impatient or that they really are that poorly written.

There is a breezy, dialogue driven story with almost NO description of anything happening in the story but exposition. My eyes kept wanting to skip ahead looking for a zinger or some drama. But no, the emotions of all of these things was as deep as a puddle.

In comparison, I at least got a sense of emotions, places, actions. This was written way better.

Despite being unrealistic (no employee counseling, no notice - H would have actually been entitled to receive unemployment and he should have applied). Still a good story. It would not have been as good if it had been realistic.

anon.1

Not very realistic. But a good read. I do enjoy your stories. Try to keep them in the land of reality. Not only would the company be sued but divorce and half her stuff would go with him.

The author did a poor job on this story, unfortunately. Even though he usually does a nice job on his stories but he failure pretty bad n this one.

This story is not realistic, nonsense, shallow and it is based on the employment termination that usually is easily managed by an experienced CEO.

This story is not enjoyable.....but I still enjoy the others stories from this good author.

Surely to make a story work a writer has to stray from reality, as a reader i take it for what it is, entertainment. It starts with him being fired at the end we read he could have done better had he shown clients the new products.. Of course in real life this would be found out in the regular reviews and discussions that take place about performance within a company. Had that have happened here there would not have been a story.For me a big plus was keeping them faithful to their marriage vows. I take it for what it is and enjoyed the read. There is a saying that business and pleasure do not mix and i agree with that. Many things regarded at pleasure or entertainment are not, they are just another way of doing business, plastic people in a plastic world. Something to be avoided.

But who fires an employee for underperforming without bringing their attention to their issues and giving them an opportunity to improve?

Now, I don't think the wife was having an affair with someone at work because obviously no one at work could meet her standards as a lover. She's too self absorbed. One thing I noticed was that the supervisor who came to her about her husbands sales numbers immediately threw out the fact that Henry was going to whine and try to play off the fact that his wife was the boss to not get fired. To someone like her that was a challenge to prove that her integrity was in no way in question. I think the sales manager played her like a drum and got rid of someone who was a thorn in his side. At no time was it mentioned in the story that his customers were unhappy with him as a company representative. At no time was he counselled and given an opportunity to correct his faults. But his wife in her bid to get him back sure did like to point out that his replacement was much better than him. What a fucked up wife. What a fucked up husband and what a fucked up company that fires someone before going through the steps lined up for that type of situation. So, by extension, what a fucked up story. Disappointed in this one big guy.

Somewhere in the story she says "I never guessed it would go the way it has," maybe she should have added "I never knew what an immature, sulky, brat of a child you were." Also, instead of blaming all of his troubles on the fact that his wife sacked him, perhaps he could have thought about why she sacked him?

These are not complaints, merely observations. I liked Angela, she was hard working, loving, faithful and patient, very, very patient, and seemed quite hot as well.

Henry: well he just needed to get over himself and grow a pair, in his mind nothing is ever his fault.

But the story was well written and very readable. I must admit I was expecting at least one of them to end up cheating, so I congratulate the author for sticking to his guns, and it was nice to have a happy ending

No great drama, surprises or twists, but enough to make me look into your other offerings. Thanks for a pleasant read.

I think the husband got a possibility to have kids with other woman after divorce. The wife's possibility was for her own kids = 0. So the husband lost a possibility for new family.

The author should have explain why he does not want kids. For example a disease...mumps, TBC with testis complication, low sperm counts etc..

Here the good BTB is the family with his own kids.

A romantic BTB fan.

Thanks for the offering.

"But who fires an employee for underperforming without bringing their attention to their issues and giving them an opportunity to improve?"

A fictional boss that doesn't have to follow labor laws. TBH most workplaces will just demote in a passive-aggressive move to make the employee quit.

First, despite the negative tone to my comments, I LIKED this story, it was entertaining and I gave it four stars.

My problems with it, and I freely admit that I have NO idea how to fix them, are the ones that have been mentioned by many, the several deviations from reality needed to set up the situation.

Actually, I DO have some ideas!

There COULD have been some counseling on his poor performance, with him blowing it off, thinking that he had it under control (with some at least sub-conscious belief that he was protected). Maybe he refused the change in territory. She certainly should have told him, either officially as CEO or unofficially as his wife, that his job was in jeopardy. Again, his refusal to change could then have led to his firing.

If there were grumblings (which there almost surely would be!) there could be a staff meeting where the staff could be reassured that proper steps were taken, while still sending the message that EVERYONE has to perform.

Can I assume that he was called by someone first and really led that his numbers were disappointing and he needed to turn things around or he might be terminated? Even if it weren't company policy, and why wouldn't it be, that might have been a better way that simply and coldly being fired by your wife/husband.

Referring to " never change a winning team" so is " never change a good story" into an idiotic one!!! A wife who fires her husband without a warning ist also fired by divorce!

And only real idiots believe there is a possibility of reconciliation!!!

Even its a fantasy it has to be believable! Your story isnt believable! No good company would fire an employee who sucks without the opportunity for betterment! And no wife would fire her husband without a tête-à-tête about his serious shortcomings!! So its always true: " never change a good story"!!!

I've been management for over 20 years. Highly successful. No one dumps an employee for poor performance issues without plenty of effort to correct it.

If one of the directors reporting to me ever did, I'd ask "What was done to fix the problem before moving to termination ?" and damned well expect a laundry list of attempts at correction.

Downsizing can be brutally abrupt, but terminations for performance demonstrate a failure in management as much as, or even more so than, the individual terminated. If you as a supervisor, manager, director or COO are terminating people a lot, then YOU are failing in your job. You're picking the wrong people, you're not communicating expectations, your expectations are unrealistic, SOMETHING about you just sucks.

So as very interesting as the premise was, it seemed we stepped into the story a couple paragraphs too late. There should have been more exposition of what led up to his getting fired.

And for all her holy CEO-ness, the wife was an idiot. A totally stupid, clueless moron. As someone who has let people go, most of the ones I did took the hints like "if things don't change, perhaps a position at a different firm, one more focused on technical acumen and less on audit standards, would suit you better" to either step up their game, or to search actively for another job and then resign. Blindsiding any employee not only savages them, it savages your own reputation and your staff's morale.

...for poor management skills.

There are reasons for an employer to issue a warning whenever an employee's performance drops: An experienced employee with improving performance after such a warning will most probably be a better deal for any company than a newbee without any experience on the job in question and - maybe - also not as good a performance (you don't know in advance whom you really hire).

Totally unreasonable!

(It was also totally unreasonable not to leave this disrespecting bitch immediately.)

But since the writing was good and the story anything but boilerplate, I give it 3*.

One thing I've seen mentioned only rarely, is that he had been a good performer, so it's not like he COULDN'T do the job. If he couldn't/wouldn't take correction (and there's no indication that any was offered) a change in territory so that he would have to learn how to deal with customers that he wasn't familiar with should cure the problem.

Of course, then we wouldn't have the story!

If he was a great salesman who had slipped some his supervisor would have done something to try to move productivity up before firing him. Really good people are hard to find.

The story was well written and had emotional appeal. It would have been more enjoyable without this plot element. But it didn't fly because I couldn't suspend my disbelief.

If it really happened like it's written, divorce would have been inevitable.

One would be more exposition on attempts to improve Henry's performance prior to his firing. Issue with this is that having Henry ignore these would make him an even more unsympathetic character than some readers already think he is.

Another way - and this is my preference - Henry realizes that Hanover's is a much better place to work, that under Angela's leadership ABG had grown more profitable by turning into an employee morale crushing pressure cooker that chewed its people up and spit them out, and that all of his job performance issues had actually been warning signs that he was burning out. Issue with this is that Henry would inevitably end up telling this to Angela and it would probably result in the end of their marriage rather than the reconciliation that the author obviously wanted.

Of course, a more satisfying ending would be having ABG ending up being spotlighted as a "worst place to work" company, becoming unable to attract good talent and either tanking or firing Angela, and any reconciliation consisting of the now unemployed Angela realizing the error of her ways and moving to Charlotte and the both of them living on Henry's rapidly increasing income. But for those who criticize the story for a lack of realism, the issue with this ending should be obvious. It's far more "unrealistic" than the notion of an uncaring CEO who achieves high profits by treating workers like crap.

You act like this is true, most likely just another story.

I see two major problems in the beginning of this story. First off most employers call employees in for a performance review and are offered a chance to improve performance. Secondly if supervisor allowed it to get to that point without counciling needs to be terminated. If ceo doesn't ask these questions that's another problem. Work and marriage can have a degree of separation but will always intertwine. I am glad that love one out but at a serious cost.

You said it was a MM story but what one??

It was well written and marvelessly accurate. The fact that she didn't talk to him in private to help their marriage is the Achilles Heel. She's not a strong woman with courageous character, but a conniving coward with deceitful tendencies. He, as well, was no better in their joint venture of selfishness. I'm so glad their fidelity is in tacked and whole. She cuckold him with her job and he flandered his joy with others behind her back. I will NOT read another one of your story's. Thank you for writing. Cheers!!!

MM's story was interesting, because the wife became the husband's CEO in the second company where the husband escaped without divorce from her and she managed the reconciliation as CEO of him. MM's story is RAAC but the beleivable RAAC and with high% success in their future.

Here the story's beginning is that plot, that the wife did not help her husband. She had to give possibility to look for newer job that he should have change job. Instead of help she destroyed him. Many comments showed a CEO should have manage this situation in another way.

MM's story was a good RAAC story against the cheating at the start, but this story was a bad RAAC story.

Here the success would have been a family with kids for an exhusband....

Worth everyone on of the Fives Stars.

It made an interesting change, a loving wife who was nothing but a loving wife.

Boring as fuck in the end. If you're writing for yourself, kudos. If you're trying to entertain an audience, well the score tells you what we think.