I&#x27;ve been struggling with this all week.<p>Long story short, we have someone on the team who is just OK. Not terrible, there&#x27;s nothing specific I can point to that I can say, &quot;This is awful,&quot; but the work they produce is just mediocre.<p>To be clear: They&#x27;re a designer, and they&#x27;re always asking me for specific critiques, which I try to give, but that can&#x27;t be my job. It&#x27;s pretty clear that it&#x27;s just not good enough.<p>I know other designers we could hire who (I&#x27;m pretty sure) we could pay a lot less, would do a better job, and would need less hand-holding.<p>I&#x27;ve had to fire people before when it was not a good fir or they were obviously not skilled or talented enough, but this one is just... meh. It&#x27;s not like he&#x27;s a complete degenerate, but I think we need someone fantastic to get where we need to go.<p>This is someone I&#x27;ve known for a long time and I consider a friend, but I can&#x27;t let the rest of the team&#x2F;company suffer because I really like this guy personally.<p>How do you have that conversation?
Ask HN: How do you fire a “B Player?”