Have you ever been fired (lower case)

[OddGuy]

Once my boss at MegaCorp was fired, I figured I'd be on the chopping block at some point. I was a Senior Director at the time, and my new boss, the COO, was under attack from restructurers above him.

It was the worst year of my career. Every meeting, every email was full of insinuations and all of the worst form of Machiavellian corporate traps. I spent the year planning what I'd do next, reviving old contacts, coming up with a plan to go out as a freelance consultant (I'd pretty much soured entirely on office politics) and examining my financial options.

I really wanted to quit, but the salary would never be matched again, and I wanted to get severance to buffer my transition. I consoled myself that every two weeks I'd be paid for another two weeks, and waited for the phone call to meet with HR.

That call came as i was debarking from a plane on a business trip. "Can you pop up to the HR Director's office?" "No, I just got off a plane 500 miles away. Can we meet by phone?" "Uh...I'll tell her...I guess we can reschedule..." Later that day, I heard the COO, my boss, had been removed.

I couldn't have been more prepared, in every way. I'd even created a financial plan for the order in which I'd liquidate assets, should I never be employed again. Figured it would be 5 years of zero income before i'd have to radically change my lifestyle.

Next morning, I got on a return flight, headed straight to the office, and called the HR Director. "Hi, I'm here. You wanted to meet?" She sighed. "Come on up." I had a brief meeting with her in which she said, "You may have heard the COO left yesterday. We're restructuring, and there's not a leadership position for you." "Okay." Took my envelope with papers, was accompanied back to my office.

Part of my year long preparation had been to remove any personal items I really cared about, along with regular backups of my hard drive, contacts, work documents I'd want to access later, etc., so it only required a few minutes to collect the last bits I had left.

It was such an incredibly liberating day. Drove home and posted messages on social media that I was available for consulting. Got my first 6 week contract before my 4 months of severance was even complete, and have been working at this since.

It's been nearly a decade since I've had to give or get a performance review, and conference calls are largely a thing of the past.

NOTE: That day of being laid off was extremely telling. I got many calls and messages of support, several of which led to opportunities that resulted in clients for a number of years. But there were a couple co-workers who either didn't contact me at all, or who did, but were clearly sniffing for mean-spirited gossip ("Are you going to have to sell your house?" "What was your spouse's reaction?") It was satisfying to hear about the downward paths taken by each of the negative nellies. I don't miss that place!!

 

[Dawg52]

Never canned but worked for a company that went into chapter 11. Got out before they went under as I got an offer from a company that ended up being my final job(28 years).

 

[DektolMan]

They tried to fire me! I was 19 & worked in a lease department of a chain store. In the past year leading up to this the president of the company requested that I transfer out of state for 3 months to straighten out the store. I accepted, took another assignment from them and when I finally returned to my home base decided I wanted to go to college and gave my 2 week notice.


Well my district manager fired me on the spot and the last thing I wanted to do is tell my parents I got fired because in my mind I thought that they would think that I failed. So I called the president of the company and he remembered me and the work that I did. He thanked me, wished me well in college and requested that I put the district manager on the phone. He ripped the DM a new one and the DM said to me you have your 2 weeks and wished me well. I was proud for sticking up for myself.

 

[donheff]

I got fired from a high school gig as a clerk in my neighborhood drug store after I got in a shouting match with the on duty evening pharmacist who was a total dick. The owner hired me back a couple of days later. I was briefly a service advisor at a VW dealership in Houston and was let go when the long term old timer who had retired asked to come back. I took that as an incentive to head back to Chicago and get a "straight job" that utilized my college degree. I had stayed on the Chicago Schools sub teacher rolls the whole time I was bumming around the country so I could claim stability over that period. The only place I figured I better be completely forthcoming was the background investigation form for Federal employment. Didn't want to lie to the Feds.

 

[Surewhitey]

Yep, & for good cause. I "found" a document that was a list of people who were going to be laid off. Company was positioning to be sold by cutting the top earners. One guy was from the earliest days & loyal to a fault. I slipped him the info and eventually I was found out.

I was still young and inexperienced in keeping my mouth shut 20 years ago...

My client caught wind of the story and tracked me down and jumped ship on them as he thought it was too harsh a penalty for my just trying to do a good thing. Bad experience, good outcome in hindsight.

 

[Bryan Barnfellow]

Never fired from a paying job; but a while back I served as a volunteer mentor to graduate management students. Once one of my mentees, a young Austrian woman, came to me after two weeks of my being very busy with my regular job and putting her off a lot when she wanted to meet, and said she was going to change mentors in the program.

She was apologetic and said that the new mentor had interests closer to hers, it wasn't me, etc., etc. I shut that down immediately and said, "That's kind of you, but no, you are firing me as your mentor. And you have good cause to fire me." She objected, but I said, "You took control of a situation and made it better for yourself and dealt with it in a strong, deliberate way. As a budding manager you acted on excellent instincts. I take my hat off to you! Well done."

-BB

 

[youbet]

Reading through this thread, I conclude that the difference between "fired" and "laid 0ff" tends to be exaggerated by many. Sure, sometimes it's clear that if you're RIF'd and the criteria for selecting the victims is not performance related and is methodical and clear, such as a union member being RIF'd due to low seniority, you were clearly not "fired" but "laid off." But what about a shallow RIF where the victims are being selected by performance? Not much difference between "fired" and "laid off" there IMHO.

There's always some story behind every employment separation and whether we call the separation being "fired" or being "laid off" matters little unless it's an extreme situation like being "fired" for embezzlement for "laid off" because of a plant closing, etc. Most situations are somewhere in-between.

I like to define them this way:

"Fired" = you're gone.

"Laid Off" = you're subject to recall if conditions that caused the downsizing change.

But, all your stories are interesting and a fun read, so carry on.........

 

[John Galt III]

I remember boss types saying 'Don't worry about personalities. All that matters is getting the job done right, and on time'. But then they fire a perfectly capable worker because of a personality conflict.

 

[youbet]

I finally had enough of one job and walked out and never went back. A few days after I quit I got a certified letter saying I had been fired. Whatever, at least I can collect unemployment if they say I was fired. The other time I was fired was after I hurt myself on the job and couldn't do the work anymore. They had me do light duty work for months then one day without notice they called me in for a meeting and said I was fired and they walked me out.

These are fun situations for the employer.

When you walked out without turning in a resignation (or at least telling your manager you were quitting), you created a situation where your following absences got you fired either for absenteeism or three-day-no-call. Either of those would be considered "fired for cause." They have to put something in your record and technically you didn't resign so they can't say that.

In Illinois, that employer could challenge your attempt to collect unemployment compensation since (at least in Illinois) it isn't granted in "fired for cause" situations. But, frequently, employers don't challenge unemployment claims and you wind up collecting anyway.

BTW, I'd be surprised if that certified letter you got used the word "fired." More likely it said "terminated."

 

[travelover]

Hearing these stories reminds me of a tale that happened to my XDW. Her company was bought out and all the management from her company and the acquiring company were commanded to appear for an early morning, big meeting. One by one, each open position was discussed and the current holder of that position in their own company had to make an argument for why they should be retained as opposed to the other guy. Talk about brutal. XDW held her job, but left soon afterward when the combined company imploded.

 

[Koolau]

Relatively early in my c*reer at Megacorp, I got on the wrong side of a pHD scientist - I inadvertently showed that he was an idiot. Oh, and documented same in a memo (I thought it was innocent and factual, but he thought it made him look bad - it did.)

FF a few years and he became my manager. From day one, he looked for ways to denigrate me, and get me fired. Fortunately, my boss and his boss liked me and protected me. Eventually said pHD moved on to bigger and better things. But, he was still and idiot. After an all night tryst with his new lady friend (another company empl*yee), the guy (married at the time) fell asleep at the wheel and rolled his new Beemer into the Interstate median on his way to his office. Megacorp strongly urged him to FIRE himself - which he did. There were NO parties in his honor. YMMV

 

[FIREd]

I've never been fired per se. I was laid off once (first job out of graduate school, it was a start-up and we ran out of funding).

When I was a student, I used to work at a summer camp during the months of July and August. I had worked there for 5 summers in a row and I was one of the most senior staff. Then, when I applied for the job on the 6th year, I was turned down. I was very surprised. So I called the camp director and he told me that he had felt betrayed when I merely suggested making a few changes during the previous season. He had not dared confront me about it and he just waited an entire year to get his revenge. I ended up finding a summer job in a bank, making about 3x what I usually made at camp.

 

[Texas Proud]

I enjoy reading about how people were 'made redundant' (term I learned in the UK) instead of fired... the result is the same, you are no longer working...


My only time I was fired was when I was working for Woolco in high school.. I worked many depts, one being the garden center where I loaded up manure into the cars... well, they fired me because I got complaints from customers that I smelled... funny but they never did warn me... my revenge was they had to hire two people to do the job that I did...


Next was after college... working for a big accounting firm... they let me know that I did not 'fit' into their plans... gave me 3 months to find a job or I would be out... I found one...


Next was working for a bank... bank was closed by FDIC... was there for almost a year and then lost my job... but got hired back a week later in a different dept of the acquiring bank...


Fifteen years later after a few job changes and mergers they put some young lady in charge of the dept that had no experience... at first I was doing good as I explained a bunch of stuff to her... but eventually she decided to get rid of all of the 'old' group as we were not a believer in the changes she wanted to make (had already tried them and they failed miserably)... so it took her 2 years to get to my group... my 'revenge' was hearing that when different things that came up that needed to be done and she asked 'who did this?' she was told TP!! She never knew all the stuff that I did and did not plan for it..


Last was my job at a small tech firm... when I joined there were 3 people and a receptionist that handled the work... I converted things, made things easier etc. etc. and in the end there was me who worked about half the time, one other and a half time receptionist... got let go as the company was going through financial problems and I was basically sitting half the day and being paid a bunch...


SOOO, many unplanned job changes but most of them led to something better.. the only one that did not was to the tech firm... had to take a big salary cut but it was ok with me as the workload was very low...

 

[Montecfo]

One of my first jobs was at a movie theater. I was often on closing duty and one weekend evening, according to management, I had miscounted the drink cups which got locked in a cabinet at closing and for this infraction received demerits. I was a but puzzled but anyone can make a mistake especially 16 year old me, right? So my next closing, I was doubly careful to count them correctly. But once again, according to management, I failed, leaving some stacks which should have had 10 cups with only six, a very sloppy mistake.

When confronted, I assured management that it was simply not possible that I had miscounted the cups so badly. Since I was obviously a lazy and also smart-alecky punk 16 year old, they must know better so they "terminated my employment".

About a week later the assistant manager was closing on a weekend in my slot and had developed the same inability to count that I had. Come to find out the weekend janitorial crew had learned that by pulling the drawer out above the carefully locked cup cabinet they could help themselves to cups with which to use to capture free drinks from our unlocked soda fountain.

So I was vindicated but alas was not invited back.

Even though in my career I became part of management, I worked very hard to make sure and not make snap or arbitrary personnel decisions based on limited facts.

This was the only time I was ever fired for cause.

 

[Qs Laptop]

When I was 20 I was fired from a hearing aid company for punching in late twice within 30 days. I punched in at 7:01am one day and a couple weeks later I punched in at 7:02.

Yes, they had a zero tolerance late punch in policy.

Nevermind that every day at 3:20 pm people would form a line about 50 feet long in front of the time clock waiting to punch out for the day. They'd grab their timecard, get in line, chat with their coworkers and when 3:30 rolls around there was a rapid punching of time cards and quick evacuation of workers. I was never one of these people in line waiting to peel out of the workplace.

The person that fired me went on to become the president of this hearing aid company, the largest of its kind in the United States. A couple of years ago this guy was convicted of defrauding the company's ESOP of over $15M. He is currently serving a 7 year prison sentence.

 

[braumeister]

When I was 20 I was fired from a hearing aid company for punching in late twice within 30 days. I punched in at 7:01am one day and a couple weeks later I punched in at 7:02.

Yes, they had a zero tolerance late punch in policy.

That certainly brought back a memory. As a teenager I had a summer job where the manager would stand next to the time clock to make sure nobody punched in a minute early or punched out a minute late. They would have had to pay overtime if that happened, and he wasn't about to let anyone earn an extra cent.

 

[Texas Proud]

That certainly brought back a memory. As a teenager I had a summer job where the manager would stand next to the time clock to make sure nobody punched in a minute early or punched out a minute late. They would have had to pay overtime if that happened, and he wasn't about to let anyone earn an extra cent.

Yesterday was talking with a sister and we were talking about a living wage etc as one of our sisters is big into the $15 per hour...


She said that her son worked for Walmart and his schedule was 19 hours a week... no more... period... was told even if you are working with a customer you better clock out as they did not allow 20 hours... you got fired if you went there....

 

[Sunset]

Yep. Got hired to work for someone who was pretty laid-back. When I started a month later, I had a new boss. She was a micro manager and I couldn't deal with it. Company announced a new location and asked for volunteers to move. I volunteered. They asked me why and I told them the truth. I think I told them that she was crazy and I couldn't work for her. Lesson learned for the rest of my working career. Telling the truth may not be in your best interests with your employer! Keep yo mouth shut!

So true.
Had a new manager, she was unskilled at the job she was supervising, and decided she should have her new group answer an "anonymous" survey about her.
This survey had a lot of questions, and one I answered was about work attire. I said she should wear longer skirts so we don't see her underwear as it was inappropriate for the mostly male staff.
Needless to say work got harder, and I quickly got PIPed. My time looked short.

Another Manager saw her unreasonableness and took me into his group

 

[MatatuPuncher]

I got what was on the surface a very good job with lots of financial upside and skill building for a recent high school graduate. After about two months I decided that it was not what I wanted to do the rest of my life and it kind of sucked anyways. I started to intentionally slack off and do the bare minimum. Nothing happened for the next couple weeks until I started showing up late and backtalking supervisors and questioning any little thing that I didn't agree with. I drug this out a few weeks and was finally fired and given a two week severance and told they would not contest an unemployment claim. I milked that for months while living out of my truck and climbing and backpacking the west. Great times.

 

[SpinDoctorTX]

When I was 23 I was fired after returning to work 2 weeks after an emergency gallbladder surgery. This was the cutting kind- no laparoscopic then. The jerks who ran the company had told me if I didn't return to work I'd be fired. So, I did return (I was single) and worked as best I could on half doses of codeine. I was very unwell still and they fired me in no time at all. My doctor was POd & said he'd write a letter if I was gonna sue them- wish I'd had the funds for that.

They were vile people. It took me 3 weeks to find another job through a very good friend. Once they heard I was working they had their lawyer write me a letter stating I was in violation of my non-compete contract! Geez! I called the owner (who'd fired me) and told him to go @#$% himself and the horse he road in on. I told him I couldn't wait to tell a judge how and why I got fired. Unbelievable how awful some folks are.

 

[Katsmeow]

When I was very young in my career (lawyer) I was working for a solo lawyer. I hated the job. So I started looking for another job. One day I get called in and asked directly if I was looking for another job. He said the secretary had told him I had gone for an interview the prior day. That was all true and I admitted it. He said things were obviously not working out and paid me 2 weeks severance and I was gone that day.

What I learned from this:

1. Don't tell other employees your plans (telling the secretary who also didn't like the boss was a mistake).

2. In my next job I had a lot of success and found a colleague I worked with for the rest of my career. Being fired was the best thing that ever happened to me.

3. I should have saved money. I was scared to death when I was fired because I had no savings. My mother said I would move back home (200+ miles away) but I didn't want to do that. I knew that the severance would allow me to cover my next rent but I had to find a job fast. Thankfully, I was able to quickly find a job and it all worked out. But it was a scary couple of weeks.

 

[coveredbridge]

I got hired to replace a guy who was supposedly a legend who left for what he thought was greener pastures. I was never able to figure out my boss or what it was that he wanted me to do, except that it wasn't what I was doing. After about a year of this the legend decided he wanted to come back and I was unceremoniously sent packing to make room for him. Bad part was it was in the middle of the 1991 recession and it took me about 8 months to find another job. Good part is that the new job was the last job I ever had (25 years). Definitely took a major hit to my confidence, but I felt better about it when I learned the backstory.

 

[catii]

Yup. I was dating the chairman's granddaughter, which was fine until I proposed to her. Bang! I was on the street, with no notice. Long story, we just celebrated our 53rd anniversary, so no regrets.

 

[rk911]

...In my next job I had a lot of success and found a colleague I worked with for the rest of my career. Being fired was the best thing that ever happened to me...

you got that right! i was fired from a job on the next-to-last-day of my 1yr probationary period and was bitter and angry about that. but had that not happened i likely would not have tried for the job i subsequently found and had vastly more success with. i spent the next nearly 28-yrs there retiring at 55 as deputy administrator. being fired from a job can be a character builder if one is honest with themselves.

 

[Bflotomny]

The company my DW worked for was looking to replace the receptionist. They ran a blind ad (no company name and PO Box to respond to). The receptionist saw the ad and the required qualifications and decided to reply to the ad. She kept the job for years after that.