I Sat Through A 45-minute Rant About How Much Of A “lazy Rich Kid” I Am. The Employee Had No Idea I Actually Own The Company. Should I Have Fired Him On The Spot?

He moved on to complaining about the production quotas, calling them unrealistic and proof that management didn’t understand how the work actually got done. I knew for a fact those quotas were based on careful time studies and were consistently met by most of the workforce, which suggested the problem might be Dennis’s efficiency rather than the standards themselves.

The last worker at our table finally gave up on his lunch and excused himself, leaving just me and Dennis sitting there. Dennis barely acknowledged him leaving, too caught up in his complaints to notice he’d lost his audience except for me.

He started talking about how the owner probably got his job through connections rather than merit and how that’s what was wrong with business in general. He said people like that never understood what it meant to actually work for a living and just coasted on privilege and family money.

Every assumption he made was wrong, but I let him continue, fascinated by how someone could be so confident while being so completely misinformed. Dennis said he’d been thinking about looking for another job because he didn’t want to work for someone who didn’t value his contributions.

He asked me if I’d ever thought about leaving, and I shook my head and said I was pretty happy with my situation here. Dennis looked at me like I was crazy and said he didn’t understand how anyone could be satisfied working for such a disconnected and incompetent owner.

I almost laughed but managed to keep my expression neutral. Dennis glanced at his watch and swore, saying his break ended five minutes ago and his supervisor was probably going to write him up for being late again.

The word “again” suggested this was a pattern, which explained some things about his employment record. He stood up and grabbed his trash, still muttering about management and how unfair everything was.

I asked him casually what department he worked in and he said he was in assembly on the B-line, then asked why I wanted to know. I shrugged and said I was just curious since I was relatively new and trying to learn everyone’s names and roles. Dennis snorted and said:

“Good luck with that since there were over 200 people in the plant and management didn’t care enough to know any of them anyway.”

He walked off toward the production floor, leaving his complaints hanging in the air like a bad smell. I sat there for another minute, finishing my water and thinking about everything I’d just heard.

Some of his complaints were valid concerns I should address, but most of it was just uninformed griping from someone who’d rather blame others than look at his own performance. I gathered my trash and headed toward the administrative wing, nodding to workers I passed in the hallway.

Several of them greeted me by name, which contradicted Dennis’s claim that I was invisible and unknowable. I made my way to my office and found my operations manager, Claudia, waiting with the weekly production reports.

She asked how my lunch was and I told her it had been very educational. I asked her to pull Dennis’s employee file and bring it to my office along with his supervisor’s recent evaluations.

Claudia raised an eyebrow but didn’t ask questions, just nodded and left to get the information. While I waited, I pulled up our HR system and looked at Dennis’s record myself.

He’d been hired eight months ago like he said and his attendance was actually decent with only two absences, but his performance reviews told a different story than the one he’d been selling at lunch. His supervisor had noted multiple times that Dennis had a negative attitude and frequently complained about assignments rather than just doing the work.

His production numbers were consistently in the bottom 20% of his team and he’d received two verbal warnings about extended breaks. Claudia returned with a physical file and sat down across from my desk.

She said Dennis had been on her radar for a few weeks because his supervisor had been documenting issues in preparation for a potential performance improvement plan. She asked if something specific had happened and I told her about the lunch conversation, giving her the highlights of Dennis’s 45-minute monologue about what a terrible owner I was.

Claudia winced and said she could guess where this was going. I asked her to set up a meeting with Dennis and his supervisor for later this afternoon and to make sure Dennis understood it was mandatory.

She nodded and said she’d take care of it, then asked if I wanted her to sit in on the meeting. I said yes because I wanted a witness to whatever conversation we were about to have.

Claudia left to make the arrangements and I spent the next hour reviewing Dennis’s complete file, including his original job application and interview notes. Nothing in his background suggested he’d be a problem employee, but clearly something had gone wrong since he’d started.

The meeting was scheduled for 3:00 in the small conference room near my office. I arrived a few minutes early and found Dennis’s supervisor, a veteran employee named Russell, already waiting.