Have you ever been fired (lower case)

[Mr._Graybeard]

I mean sh!itcanned, told to turn in the key to executive washroom, escorted out of the building. If so, please share your story.

I my case, I landed a job editing magazines on subjects I had no interest in. I discovered that the magazine business often has a narrow field of advertisers, and the job of editor has a prominent marketing role as well as that of wordsmith. Throw in my tendency to be a smartazz, and things were not likely to turn out well. They didn't.

 

[38Chevy454]

I was laid off, not fired. Same effect in the end though, had a person watch me load my personal items from my office and then escorted out the door. The company did provide a (small) severance and a job search resource with contracted provider to help those laid off to find new jobs. I ended up getting new job just as the severance ran out, so no real time off without pay after it all settled. Was not fun during the process, but I was confident that I would find a new job and move on in my career.

 

[John Galt III]

Quit about a dozen jobs, got laid off (not as painful as being fired), got fired from about 10 jobs, probably more (wow). Back before I got into my 'career' as a programmer, I had a million different awful jobs. Got fired always due to 'I think you're OK, and you do a good job scraping the debris off the gambit-jumbotron machine, , but so-and-so doesn't like you'. Or 'you do the job OK, but you don't smile and laugh and bring joy to the world as you do it, which is a job requirement here. And the high school dropout drug addicts you work with think you feel superior to them with your highfalutin college degree'. The exception to the rule was cab driving. They never fired me. Did that for a year and a half. How bout that? Liked it, too. Found my niche, lol, before programming.

 

[Mr._Graybeard]

Quit about a dozen jobs, got laid off (not as painful as being fired), got fired from about 10 jobs, probably more (wow). Back before I got into my 'career' as a programmer, I had a million different awful jobs. Got fired always due to 'I think you're OK, and you do a good job scraping the debris off the gambit-jumbotron machine, , but so-and-so doesn't like you'. Or 'you do the job OK, but you don't smile and laugh and bring joy to the world as you do it, which is a job requirement here. And the high school dropout drug addicts you work with think you feel superior to them with your highfalutin college degree'. The exception to the rule was cab driving. They never fired me. Did that for a year and a half. How bout that? Liked it, too. Found my niche, lol, before programming.

So you didn't think you were superior to the high school dropout drug addicts? Not that you weren't.

I had a couple summer factory gigs that barely qualified for employment, mindless jobs that nobody could possibly screw up -- but I did. I changed a couple things to my way of doing things, but it turned out the mindless way was the best.

 

[REWahoo]

<deleted>

Started to post about my experience and found after all these years it is still too painful to talk about.

 

[Mr._Graybeard]

<deleted>

Started to post about my experience and found after all these years it is still too painful to talk about.

Getting fired can cast your sense of self-worth into doubt. It was devastating to me when I lost my magazine job in 1981, and jobs were not plentiful at the time. It took me more than a year to get back into my career field.

In retrospect, though, the change put me onto a better path.

 

[homestead]

In 2008 I was laid off after 31yrs of working for a tech company. They wanted me to stay 3 months and gave me a great severance and retention bonus. They wanted me to train my replacement.

I stayed for the 3 months and even went back several times after to help out my replacement. A new company had bought out my company and their first act was to get rid of me. I think they thought I made too much.

No hard feelings on my part and I eventually decided to retire.

 

[Mr._Graybeard]

In 2008 I was laid off after 31yrs of working for a tech company. They wanted me to stay 3 months and gave me a great severance and retention bonus. They wanted me to train my replacement.

I stayed for the 3 months and even went back several times after to help out my replacement. A new company had bought out my company and their first act was to get rid of me. I think they thought I made too much.

No hard feelings on my part and I eventually decided to retire.

Did you get your severance?

 

[Maenad]

Ugh, yes. I got fired once and put on PIPs twice before my doctor finally proposed that the cause of my issues may be depression. Started medication and turned my career around. I just wish I'd figured it out sooner (I was 32, so not too bad, but still). I still feel like **** about it, and have sworn that if I were to run into any of my old bosses I'd apologize and explain.

 

[Jerry1]

I got laid off from my first job out of high school. Economy tanked and I got the boot. No shame, but that caused me to figure out other options and I went to college. I had no plans as a teenager in high school to go to college, so going to college changed my life. Fast forward to my last job and technically I got canned again. Of course this time it came with a severance package and some gratitude on my part so it was quite different. The one thing that getting let go, versus retiring, does is cause the company to basically walk you out. I never thought I’d want a retirement party, but in retrospect, I would have liked the opportunity to have thanked a number of people that made my success possible and say goodbye on my way out. Oh well, three years later and I’m past that.

 

[Koolau]

Never fired, but sent elsewhere in Megacorp due to perception I wasn't a fit where I was. I tended to agree. Oddly, Megacorp never seemed to FIT folks to a position (you know, look at their education, background, experience - or interest.) It was "We need someone here. You are it." When it turned out NOT to be a marriage made in heaven, it was off to the next round hole for this square peg. I finally more or less created my own niche and, for a long time, they let me fill it. When they decided I was having too much fun (probably unfair on my part - they really did need someone to do the unpleasant j*b they wanted me to take) I FIRED myself. YMMV

 

[stepford]

I was once laid off from Megacorp, while in the process of transferring to another division of the same Megacorp. Talk about spite. The new division rehired me soon enough and I was only out of work for a few weeks, but I've always thought this was particularly petty on the part of my earlier management.

 

[Scrapr]

Only once (to my surprise) I was working on a farm in the Winter. That meant a bunch of mechanicing. i'm terrible at mechanicing. Thus the layoff/fired/asked not to return. I was going back to college in a few weeks so it was OK

 

[travelover]

Never directly. When I was 16 I worked at a hardware store and they reduced my hours to nothing and hired a new guy. I think they didn't want to pay unemployment so it was a way to squeeze me into quitting. I did quit and got a better job at a competitor.

At MegaMotors I got on the wrong side of management and was asked to interview for my own job and was not picked, or even notified of the decision. Fortunately, it was a big company that did not like to fire people, so I sent out an SOS to friends in another division where I'd started and got an equivalent position there.

Needless to say it is hard on your ego and just, generally, sucks.

 

[braumeister]

I was fired once and it turned out great.
I had started with a tiny company and it grew to about five times its initial size during the 3-4 years I w*rked there. As a project manager I was the liaison between customers/prospective customers and the company. Our focus was on megacorps since they were the only ones who could afford our services (a very small niche).

The marketing folks had hooked a big fish and sent me out to handle the details. Very enjoyable until I discovered that they had promised an enormous deliverable and received a relatively small retainer to do the required investigation. It became apparent to me that what we had been paid would cover at most 5% of our cost to produce what they wanted. In fact, by that time we had spent most of the retainer and had accomplished nothing but a list of requirements.

So I confronted my marketing folks and told them I would have to explain the situation to the customer and give them the bad news. I was told that was impossible, and I should just keep stringing them along until they lost patience and offered a big additional payment to get the finished product.

I refused, and was told "Well, then this is your last day here."

Not really a problem, since I was offered a better job by another company the next week, and at least I could face myself in the mirror. It came as no surprise that the little company went out of business about two years later.

One interesting side note is that that marketing guy went on to become a prominent venture capitalist.

 

[MRG]

Never. I quit a few throughout my working and did my share of leaving bad organizations within Megacorp until I left.

I did fire a number of people, many in the sawmill, I fired 6 guys in one morning there. They were brand new hires that thought they were working inside in 70° heat, their jobs were outside in 0°.

I let a few go from Megacorp too, one was a gal whose same grandmother died twice, another well he harassed a female. HR wasn't on board at first they wanted him left in the department until they investigated and figured out what to do. I told him his new desk was in HR and sent him there. [emoji11] They weren't very happy with me about that, but they ultimately terminated him after reviewing the documentation.

 

[mystang52]

I STILL get angry about it. I got financial revenge on them, if you get my drift, but I still hate the m*^H$r-f&$#@rs, now almost 11 years after the fact. Anger is purely emotional hurt, I wasn't affected in the financial sense.

 

[corn18]

Never fired, but it's hard to get fired in the military. My 13 year civilian career with megacorp went well. Eventually ended up as the president of a division and had to let a lot of people go. That sucks. My final move was a request to be RIF'd (too young to officially retire) and that worked out well, at least for the 6 days I have been retired so far.

 

[Markola]

Yeah, twice. I chalk it up to being willing to try new things, even if they didn’t always work out. I was lucky to be in a high-demand, high-turnover profession and, in both cases, I left with strong references and fell-forward into gigs with higher pay.

 

[Aerides]

Oh come on you all no one fired for cause yet? No scorched earth?

I'll go first. I was 20 I think? Worked evenings at a hotel front desk. Boyfriend lived in another state but was visiting for the weekend. I marked an unoccupied room as unavailable, and we snuck up there at the end of my shift, and we went and had a little party. Somehow the late manager got wind... and we got booted out around 2am.

Was formally fired on the Monday but was allowed to say I resigned for HR purposes, so that was nice of them. Within 3 weeks, I had a job paying 25% more, which became my 25+ year career.

 

[homestead]

Did you get your severance?

yes, severance and retention bonus + 8 weeks vacation pay.

 

[PaunchyPirate]

Never fired. Never laid off. Was hoping for a layoff with “a package” during my last 2 years, but no such luck.

 

[retire to nature]

yes, I was an RN and transferring case manager to QA position in hospice and learned they are doing medicare and medicaid fraud way such as changing dates to be paid more. it may be commonly doing it at that time. lazy boss was changing things around to cover up her ass. but my personality didnt let it be. I reported upper management and they didnt take seriously. there was a manager below the boss, and I found out he is abusive with his position and so ignorant how to run healthcare provider way, so I tried to let them know, but they fired me. yes they walked me out hahaha.

I claimed unemployment fund because I claimed to the court they fired me because I was a whistle blower, they didnt show up the case. I won the case collected the check for a year so. haha, and tired about all the business is BS and prepared FIRE.

I didnt reveal that to the next job though.

once in a while, I checked the company website, the boss seems to be fired at that time. but the manager is a charging officer in one of the branch. Sadly, still learning the world is run by full of this kind of people.

Couldn't be happier at FIRE now.

 

[brett]

Yes. My last job. Fired, **** canned, laid off, position eliminated...whatever.

And I was thrilled to walk away with approx two years of salary plus bonus.

Delayed fire by 9 month in anticipation of the the event. Well worth the wait.

The cherry on the top....I had to work (and be paid) another four weeks before the termination notice would be official .

Gave us time to start thinking about getting retirement plans in gear and engage a lawyer to negotiate the package.

 

[jimnjana]

Got canned from a part time job after graduating from college. Long story short, disgruntled customer that by the time she got to me didn't want to hear anything but yes. She asked if I would load her car and I said she would have to drive into the loading zone (company policy). Any who, best thing that ever happened to me. Allowed me time to visit a college and score an internship that paid for my degree and set me up for a career in the Army. I always wanted to thank Me Boscov.