To answer this week's story prompt about having been fired, laid off or firing or laying off an employee I offer this story among many. Except for jobs in my teen years I have always been self-employed. With that comes great freedoms and opportunity. But, there are many downsides too. I've taken numerous risks and have experienced failure more times than I can remember. These days I could sure use another success.

The worst part of any of my businesses has been as a boss. My personality does not allow me to fit the typical employer. From the creative and visionary side all the way to execution my accomplishments speak for themselves. But from an employer side I absolutely hated firing people or having to lay off employees. If I may digress for a moment I think I may know why.

From an early age I recognized that I was not able to empathize with the feelings of others. Perhaps it was because I was so distracted with the world around me that I never took time to appreciate the pain others suffered. In my 20's and 30's it could've been a lingering result of my experience in Vietnam.

I say that because it was there that for the first time I experienced true empathy. I remember when walking up to witness my first dead Viet Cong soldier I stood there in some kind of surreal trance. I removed his little wallet and other things from his torn and lifeless body and although he had just threatened the lives of my comrades I somehow could only think about his family. When opening up his wallet he had 3 wrinkled photos, one each of his parents, family and maybe his girlfriend. I'll never forget the feelings that overcame me when I looked at the pictures. At that very moment I knew something really profound that his family did not. I was staring at their son who looked almost unrecognizable as a human being due to his wounds. "What will they feel when they get the news? How did it happen? Where was he? How did he die?" All the questions a grieving family must know to have any degree of closure.

This happened to me over and over again as I was constantly involved with taking other people's lives. Not bad enough, I then experienced the loss of one of our own. As I removed the dog tags and his personal belongings I was struck much deeper than before. It was so ugly I wept for days, and I didn't even know his name. This time I could envision the family hearing the news in English. "His mother doesn't even know this yet. Why should I have this intimate knowledge before them? What could I ever say to comfort them?"and, It could've been me"

I also recall several instances when I was privvy to the most primal of human nature, the fear and imminent death of a wounded man and what happens when that happens. If they are at all coherent in the last moments they almost all begin to cry in the weakest voice, "Mama. Mama. Mama." It kills me to think about it because I can still hear the desperation in their voice as if they were a newborn completely dependent on Mama to keep them alive.

Regarding my first American death I stared without allowing my eyes to leave him for a second. I just couldn't imagine the pain of his family when they get the news. This Marine was not in my unit and so I never knew him. Yet, he was just like me. My mother was spared the agony of that moment. Not me. My mother. My family. My girlfriend. I was still alive looking down instead of up.

Later on I had an even more profound experience when Sargent Vanetta was killed from a bouncing betty land mine.  Here was someone I knew and respected and liked. He was our leader and now I am applying compression to one of 50 open shrapnel wounds in and around his chest until he died, his last few breaths saying, "Mama, Mama, Mama". I saw him dead before his mother did. I was horrified beyond words yet thankful it wasn't me.

When I returned home I was shocked by the sound of horns blowing in traffic jams heading out of the airport in Boston. Days earlier I was with young men being slaughtered on both sides with mothers suffering beyond imagination. Yet everyone at home was upset because they were stopped in traffic. Maybe it's because I just couldn't appreciate their frustration at such a trivial level that I became desensitized of the plight of others from that day forward.

My first business was in a band with my two brothers for 10 years. I didn't have to fire anyone and couldn't in that situation. We had plenty of days we wished we had work and I suppose you could say we were often temporarily laid off. But, it wasn't until we started hiring people in our sign business that I became too close to our employees. I didn't know the difference between management and employees. I nurtured them as friends and tried to elevate their value to me and themselves.

Christine worked with me and the help side by side every day. They were our family. They had kids and obligations and were depending on us for that. It was the first time I experienced real responsibility beyond my own family. I found empathy again.

We had our ups and downs over those 10 years but I never fired anyone for two reasons. First, I hated the thought of doing it to their family and second, we had a state unemplyment rate of 1.6% in New Hampshire at the time. If someone was able to stand up for more than 5 minutes at a time I hired them. There was no help anywhere.I couldn't afford to lose anyone.

Still, after building my business upon the backs of real estate developers across the northeast I never expected what was to come. There was this thing called the Savings and Loans collapse in 1988-9. It happened so suddenly it caught everyone by surprise, especially real estate developers who relied on bank draws to complete construction, etc. In an instant the banks called all the notes in. The developers were immediately out of money and everyone attached to them were shut off from their outstanding invoices and further work. Like a stack of dominos everyone went out of business. Sound familiar?

In any case, we were in the direct line of collapse and the week before Christmas we had to let 50 employees go. That day will forever be emblazened in my mind as we looked some of our best friends in the eye and sent them out the door with nothing but their tools. We shut everything down and lost it all. As tragic as it was for us we were far more saddened for the employees. I started several businesses with employees afterwards and have never been able to shake my feelings for those who work for me. It has served me well but also served me poorly.

Because of this trait I have been taken advantage of more times than I care to admit by employees who know I have a soft spot for them. But, I have also enjoyed far less costly turnovers too. I had the same 5 employees in LTA Media, my radio marketing business, who stayed with me for 17 years. A zero turnover rate.

Today, I am like a reformed smoker when it comes to empathy. By that I mean that smokers who quit are often the loudest advocates for stop smoking efforts. As a reformed empathetic I find myself dangerously absorbing the problems of others into my being. It's not always a good thing. But, neither is the cold feeling of firing or laying off an employee. I still don't know how to deal with it but at this point it's way to late for that to change.