Have you ever been fired?

[maddythebeagle]

I think this would be an interesting thread....and make sure you tell us the details....

And I dont mean FIRE...I mean discharged, canned, shown the door, given the boot......

 

[HFWR]

I think this would be an interesting thread....and make sure you tell us the details....

And I dont mean FIRE...I mean discharged, canned, show the door, giving the boot......

Yup...

 

[REWahoo]

There are two kinds of workers - those who have been fired, and those who will be.

 

[Spanky]

The fanny term is layoff. I was let go two times. They (the employers) said that they had faced financial difficulties and thus had to lay people off. The feeling was always of hurt, questioning the reasons for picking me? It's painful to remember. However, both events turned out to be positive. I was able to get a higher paying job after about 2 months of unemployment. The lesson is to move on and stop ruminating the past - when one door closes, more doors will open.

 

[Dawg52]

Nope but I would have been if I had hung around long enough. A company I was with in my 20's filed for chapter 11 so I got the heck out of there. About a year later, they went belly up.

 

[laurence]

I was "laid off" - do you mean let go for cause? HR likes to make the distinction between "downsizing" and "fired", I think mostly because of unemployment benefits.

Huge shock, same, "why me?" feeling as mentioned above. I have to admit I should have seen it coming. The name of the company was only 1-2 letters off from the company in "Office Space" and they brought in "efficiency consultants". When it was my turn for an interview, I was unclear on the concept and thought they were there to help me be more productive, so I said, "since project x finished up, I've been pretty much at loose ends!". Her eyes lit up.

A week later I was called into her office and she said, "well, I have some not so good news....".

Best thing that could have happened, I buckled down in college and finished up less than a year later. I was trapped in a "the money is so good I can't quit" death spiral that might have had me making half my current salary at this point because I never finished college.

 

[Nords]

Have you ever been fired?

Not so far! Sidetracked, failed, set back, & derailed plenty of times but I always got "encouraged" to try again.

There are two kinds of workers - those who have been fired, and those who will be.

... and those who haven't been caught...

 

[maddythebeagle]

I was "laid off" - do you mean let go for cause? HR likes to make the distinction between "downsizing" and "fired", I think mostly because of unemployment benefits.

I was hoping to hear some stories "for cause", but these stories are good too

I believe if you are fired "for cause" you can still get unemployment based on a discussion that we had before and what I have read...

 

[unclemick]

1969 - Will the last person leaving Seattle please turn off the lights?

My apartment complex had 13 out of 90 vacancys and 45 more had given notice not to renew - right up the hill from the Boeing complex in Kent.

1992 - I had successfully solved my research problem and no more money from NASA for further work.

1993 - unemployed(and slightly pissed off) slacker - except for about one yr. as a jobshopper 95/96 - slowly morphed into a:

high class ER - conviently - once I discovered this forum in 03 - going back and rewriting history - age 49-55 not a temp worker/unemployed slacker but a really cool early retiree. Can't put my finger on when the mental shift actually occured - one day I just got that warm and fuzzy feeling sitting on the back deck over Lake Ponchartrain watching those poor bastards commuting to work in New Orleans on the I - 10 bridge.

heh heh heh - twice is my number and I'm sticking too it.

 

[Tadpole]

I think this would be an interesting thread....and make sure you tell us the details....

And I dont mean FIRE...I mean discharged, canned, shown the door, given the boot......

Not me; not ever. Which is pretty good for a grade-a bum. Some stay one step before the revenuers, some are one step before the handcuffs; me, I've always been one step before the pink slip. But you may have jinxed me with this thread.

 

[Southpaw]

I would probably have been fired from my first job out of college had I stuck around. My boss and I did not get along. Which is to say, we hated each other. He was a pathetic, incompetent weenie who was very, very close to his boss. Uncomfortably close. As in, he'd spend hours in his boss's office with the door closed, while no other two workers in their roles ever did that. As in, his boss had keys to his apartment (we know this because once my boss left his keys at a bar, but was able to get into his apartment because his boss had a set). As in, his boss had a history of being...ahem...improper with other male employees.

Anyway, we hated each other. He gave me a lousy review. I was looking madly for another job. THEN, this is so sweet...my boss's boss was forced to resign, and my boss was demoted! So my final two months there he was my co-worker. Heh heh heh. However, it was still a lousy place to work, so when a better offer came through I left. It was just great to see that sometimes bad things happen to bad people.

 

[chinaco]

I guess I am lucky. I have never been fired, on a lay-off, or down-sized.

However, for a period during my career I did change jobs several times for more money. One of those times I left a company that was sold about 2 years later. Had I been there, it would have happened since everyone was terminated after the new owner took over.

I will keep my fingers crossed.

 

[bssc]

Right sized once.
Jumped ship three times before the company went under or was bought out. In two of the cases, they stopped paying employees.

 

[ziggy29]

Not yet, knock on wood.

 

[happy2bretired]

The first job I had...after I quit college (confession time) I worked in a clothing factory. Sometimes they would lay off people at the change of seasons or contracts. Everyone really anticipated occasionally being "laid off" since it was a really good 3-4 weeks of vacation with paid state unemployment checks. Everyone knew that they would have a job at the begining of the new season or contract. I know it wouldn't work like that now, but it did then back in the early '70s. It's too bad everyone thought like that, but to those low paid employees it was a nice vacation.

 

[brewer12345]

Was fired for cause one time. It was a job I hated and was unsuited for, but I took anyway because I needed a job at that time and place. Didn't make much difference in the long run and I knew it was coming and had already been looking. Since I was young and had few responsibilities, it was no bog deal. Heck, I wish I had been in a better mindset to enjoy the freedom.

Never been laid off, but it was close once or twice.

 

[Sandy]

twice.

Once from a j*b I had through a temp agency! Apparently, I didn't have the right attitude. The staff employee spent over an hour telling me how to make copies and kept checking to make sure I was doing it right. In my inpatient way, I said it wasn't a difficult task, had it well under control, blah, blah, which must have insulted her. Anyway, the company asked the temp agency not to send me back.

I was canned from a j*b in a large health clinic. 1 clinic, 4 sets of employees working for 4 different entities. I only had management authority for one of set of employees, no control over scheduling, and was supposed to operate the clinic, ensure coverage and make sure everyone played nice and worked together. One person actually told me to stay out of the clinic. I was looking for another position by the time I was asked to resign, so the dislike was mutual.

 

[Texas Proud]

Hmmmm.. .does pre college count??

I was laid of my part time job at Woolco because of 'attitude'... I did not jump every time some young stupid 'manager' told me to... but, this does not count...

I was told to find another job (but got 6 months to do it) when I was in public accounting... I was moving up to the 'manager' position and you needed to bring in new business... that was not me so I did not... found a job before time was up.. so maybe it does not count...

I got notice when my company (bank) was closed... was unemployed for two days, but the new company hired me and back dated my start date so I was not 'laid off'...

So, three times you could say I was, or never... according to how you look at it... (the state would look at it as never because I never was able to get unemployment)...

 

[Moemg]

Being a nurse it's almost impossible to get laid off so we would all have plans of what we would do if we would get laid off .How we would collect unemployment while trying to avoid being hired too soon .Never worked out but a girl can dream.

 

[happy2bretired]

The one time I was laid off, mentioned my previous post, was the best thing that had ever happened to me. I took the opportunity to move to my present town during that lay off. For a small town gal, especially me, that was a big move and the start of a new life. Sometimes things really work out for the best.

 

[MikeD]

Laid off seven times and fired twice.

I always worked at little start-ups who failed thus the lay-offs.

One firing was because my boss was truly mentally ill. I theorize that he was threatened by me because I had education in the field I was working in and he did not. His stated reason for firing me: asking for a red pen to mark up my computer printout of the program I was working on. A few weeks later he was arrested for throwing rocks through the county shriff's windows (on his house) in an effort to get the sheriff's wife to come to the window so that he could ask her out on a date.

The other firing was pretty much for cause as I pretty much stopped doing anything in a spate of bad attitude. I was "terminall ill," as my internist put it, from kidney failure. I felt horrible and was only still "working" to maintain my health insurance. I got fired and a few months later got a life saving kidney transplant. I have a much better attitude now.

Mike D.

 

[riskadverse]

At a summer job during college, I kindly gave my 2 weeks notice to the boss who was always complaining about the employees who quit without giving notice. He promptly fired me. I learned some valuable lessons there. Never give notice unless you're ready to leave that day; never trust that your employer has your interests in mind; never believe the bulls__t that comes out of the employer's mouth. Those lessons served me well over the years.

 

[playaman]

Interesting topic for Labor Day ...

I seem to have a talent for "being in the wrong place at the wrong time." I've been "laid off" five times - once after winning the national equivalent of an Oscar in two separate categories from a large professional organization, a feat that hadn't happened previously since 1947.

Twice those "lay offs" hurt psychologically. Three times I didn't care, but in each instance I bounced back financially to at least where I had been before and several times better than before (although once it took awhile). Fortunately, my wife and I have always lived below our means, and it wasn't as painful as it could have been. Decent severance packages eased the way in most of those instances as well.

Life's paths are truly surprising.

 

[mickeyd]

Sure, I've lost a few jobs along the way. If "fired" is all encompassing, each time I have ended up better than where I was before. The last time I ended up ER'd, which was the best result after all.

 

[Spanky]

Logically, getting "fired " or "laid off" is part of the career journey and often an opportunity (in disguise) to move on to better things awaiting for us. Events happen for a reason. Emotionally, such an event is also devastating. It casts doubts about our ability and worth to the organization from we receive our termination notice. Fortunately, we can always recover from it. It is their loss.