Awkward Band Problem

[waynepunkdude]

[quote name='Eight' post='489801' date='May 16 2009, 01:46 PM']It's like when your girlfriend tells you sit down as you need to talk. You know its either all over or she's pregnant. .[/quote]


'Please say she's leaving' is what is going through my head in that situation.

My tip to not get sacked is make everyone in the band think that you could take them all and you have a short fuse.

[M4L666]

We recently lost our guitarist- however it was easy, as his heart just wasn't in it. We kind of decided that we needed a new guitarist, and had an idea of a 3-guitarist band for a while, but then the guitarist announced he was leaving- he didn't find it fun. Fair cop to him, and there's no bad blood. But there never was another guitarist. We're now in the process of reaaranging all the songs. And the drummer's just got a double bass pedal...

[Eight]

[quote name='waynepunkdude' post='491569' date='May 18 2009, 04:57 PM']'Please say she's leaving' is what is going through my head in that situation.[/quote]
Hahahaha +1 mate.

[Count Bassy]

Well, we've done it!!

We had a band meeting (without drummer) at the weekend and agreed what had to be done. The singer volunteered to tell him as she knows him fairly well, and as she said, if she hadn't told him he'd have asked why she hadn't. Also I think she felt slightly responsible as she'd brought him into the band based on his blagging.

She's done the deed today, and apparently it didn't go as bad as it might have. Apparently she told him it was about commitment, which it wasn't really - it was about ability, but it's done at least, and the rest of us owe her a drink.

He did the classic thing by saying 'you can't sack me because I quit', and has sent a slighty sore (understandably) E-mail round saying that he's quit and wishing the band well. The E-mail was 4 hours after he'd been sacked, but if that's how he wants to think of it then its fine by me.


Anyway, we're now free to move forward.

Thanks for all your thoughts and advice.

[Thunderthumbs]

Yeah, he's obviously going to feel slightly bitter for a while cos his pride's been hurt - hence the "I quit" comments.

All I would say is, stay civilised about it, and don't get dragged into any bad feeling if there is any in the future.

We had to sack a singer years ago, and he wouldn't speak to any of us (even if we were stood next to him in a bar) for years. We kept our heads high, I always let onto him to see if I got anything in return. Eventually, he realised he was being a dick and changed his ways.

All in all, you know you've done the right thing, and good luck moving on.

[s_u_y_*]

Glad to hear it went as well as it could have done.

Thankfully never been in the position to sack someone, but this thread has given me some good tips should the need arise.

[Jean-Luc Pickguard]

Maybe a better word than 'sacked' should be used as often it carries a lot of negative feeling. Taking the cue from how its done in corporations (like the one that 'rightsized' my job at xmas - the right size being zero), in future perhaps we should refer to situations like this as the rhythm section needing to be 'in-time-drummered'.

[OldGit]

Well done ..

Hopefully you'll not find him sabotaging your drum kit when his new band plays support to yours ..

or worse, you get to support his new band as it tours the stadiums of Europe ..

[OldGit]

[quote name='maxrossell' post='491410' date='May 18 2009, 02:42 PM']I don't know if anyone mentioned this, but it's an old standard in romantic relationships:

<snip>

Then, the master-move: The palm-off.[/quote]


ooh er..

[Buzz]

[quote name='Jean-Luc Pickguard' post='492092' date='May 19 2009, 08:34 AM']Maybe a better word than 'sacked' should be used as often it carries a lot of negative feeling. Taking the cue from how its done in corporations (like the one that 'rightsized' my job at xmas - the right size being zero), in future perhaps we should refer to situations like this as the rhythm section needing to be 'in-time-drummered'.[/quote]

It's a load of crap though isn't it? "We're going to have to let you go" and all that rubbish is worse, as you know it means sacked, but no-one has the stones to say it and are hiding behind niceties.

[Jean-Luc Pickguard]

[quote name='Buzz' post='492124' date='May 19 2009, 09:25 AM']It's a load of crap though isn't it? "We're going to have to let you go" and all that rubbish is worse, as you know it means sacked, but no-one has the stones to say it and are hiding behind niceties.[/quote]
No sh*t Sherlock!

[Adrenochrome]

90 staff at my equivalent site in the US were 'transitioned' on Friday. How insulting!

[Jean-Luc Pickguard]

[quote name='Adrenochrome' post='492131' date='May 19 2009, 09:35 AM']90 staff at my equivalent site in the US were 'transitioned' on Friday. How insulting![/quote]
That makes it sound like they were turned into cybermen or something

[solo4652]

As an Occupational Psychologist, I used to work in management consultancy and I collected these sorts of euphemisms. We've all heard of rightsizing, downsizing, rebalancing, restructuring and re-engineering. However, my favourite was "No, we're not making people redundant at all - we're in a transitional phase of ongoing negative recruitment". This sort of hiding behind word-nonsense was one of the reasons why I left the whole field of work. I just didn't feel I was being open and honest - and that's one of the things we were exhorting our clients to be with their staff!

On the band front, I've recently decided to leave a band because it wasn't for me. Took some doing, but honesty was the best route - be true to yourself because you have to live with yourself in the future. Yes, I could have said I'd found another band or something, but I preferred to be straight and honest about my thoughts, while preserving my and others' dignity.

I did have a giggle about some of the ideas for getting rid of somebody! However, I'm fairly certain that some people might actually seriously consider these suggestions about splitting bands and reforming without somebody, suggesting to another band that they pinch somebody from yours, deliberately antagonising somebody so they leave, forcing them to listen to somebody who's better than them to embarrass them into leaving. These are all perfectly awful, aren't they? I wouldn't want any of that to happen to me, so I'm certainly not going to do it to somebody else. Be true to yourself and treat others how you'd like to be treated. Then you'll be able to hold your head up high.

Sorry. I'll shut up now.

Steve

[maxrossell]

[quote name='solo4652' post='492172' date='May 19 2009, 10:24 AM']As an Occupational Psychologist, I used to work in management consultancy and I collected these sorts of euphemisms. We've all heard of rightsizing, downsizing, rebalancing, restructuring and re-engineering. However, my favourite was "No, we're not making people redundant at all - we're in a transitional phase of ongoing negative recruitment". This sort of hiding behind word-nonsense was one of the reasons why I left the whole field of work. I just didn't feel I was being open and honest - and that's one of the things we were exhorting our clients to be with their staff!

On the band front, I've recently decided to leave a band because it wasn't for me. Took some doing, but honesty was the best route - be true to yourself because you have to live with yourself in the future. Yes, I could have said I'd found another band or something, but I preferred to be straight and honest about my thoughts, while preserving my and others' dignity.

I did have a giggle about some of the ideas for getting rid of somebody! However, I'm fairly certain that some people might actually seriously consider these suggestions about splitting bands and reforming without somebody, suggesting to another band that they pinch somebody from yours, deliberately antagonising somebody so they leave, forcing them to listen to somebody who's better than them to embarrass them into leaving. These are all perfectly awful, aren't they? I wouldn't want any of that to happen to me, so I'm certainly not going to do it to somebody else. Be true to yourself and treat others how you'd like to be treated. Then you'll be able to hold your head up high.

Sorry. I'll shut up now.

Steve[/quote]


Yeah, QFT.

The thing about being sacked out of a band is that even if it stings, eventually you come to see their point. But if they make up some bullsh*t story, either you know it's crap straight away, in which case it makes the being sacked three times worse because you know there's something they're not telling you for whatever reason, so you feel like sh*t because people you thought were your friends are lying to you, or you find out later, which is worse because not only do you feel betrayed, but you also feel like an idiot for having believed their crap.

On the score of splitting up a band and then reforming without the guy you wanna sack, a band I was in years ago was trying to sack the bass player because he was frankly terrible (it was one of those things where the singer hired him because he had a load of great gear), and when it came time to do it, the singer said he was gonna meet with the guy and tell him the band was splitting up and then we'd reform a week later. I knew that wouldn't wash because apart from anything else we all went to the same school. So I called the guy and said "Hey look, we've all talked about it and we think that you ought to leave the band because you don't have a sufficient level of musicianship. Sorry about that, but I'd rather you heard it from me now than find out for yourself later." He actually thanked me for being honest.