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Dear NBC: Please don't make me look like a dork
37 comments
The great pay debate rages on
33 comments
It could be much worse
27 comments |
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I was a stay-at-home mom in a crumbling marriage when a nice man came to our house to refinance our mortgage. He went on and on about how it was a perfect career for him, as a single dad, and I mentioned that I was thinking of trying to find a family-friendly part-time job. He gave me his number, and shortly thereafter I became a mortgage broker.
It was the worst job I ever had. Part of the problem was that my personal life was in shambles, of course, but most of the problem was that I’d spent my entire professional career with meticulous, highly-educated engineers, and suddenly I was outranked at work by folks with half my education, but who made piles of money in ways that oftentimes bordered on (or crossed over into) the unethical.
I did the work I needed to do, but I quietly refused to do anything unscrupulous. I was still surprised, though, when one day as I was working through a mountain of paperwork, I was called into a conference room and fired.
At the time, it was a horrible blow. I had little kids! I had no income! I had never been fired from anything, ever! How could they?? I gnashed my teeth and wailed and applied for Unemployment and generally felt terribly wronged. Even though I hated that job with every fiber of my being.
After a while, I found a new, better job. It was going to be fabulous. It was in marketing, and it was working with engineers, and I was being groomed for a more advanced position that would be more befitting my talents. It was perfect.
Well, it was perfect except for the fact that it was full-time and I had to put the kids in care. And my bosses turned out to be a little weird. Okay, a lot weird. And then there was that time that I went and worked unpaid overtime practically the entire weekend (as a single mom! with little kids!) to finish a project, and instead of any recognition or thanks I got chewed out over something that turned out to be someone else’s fault. And I do mean chewed out, as in I was treated in a manner I didn’t know that people in professional settings could still get away with in this century. Honestly.
It was downhill from there, and so when I was fired from that job I really wasn’t surprised. Again, I was stressed out because of the income issue, but I also recognized—immediately, this time—that I’d been in a toxic situation, one that had been taking a toll on my health. My pride was wounded; how had I gone from the the top-of-the-class teacher’s pet I’d always been and then on to a successful software design career and somehow from that to being fired from two jobs in a row?
I found myself wondering what I was doing wrong. What’s wrong with me? I kept asking.
That second termination is what propelled me into freelancing; any fears I’d had over the risk and instability of being self-employed were greatly overpowered by the aversion to taking another job I hated, working for people who treated me poorly. Nowadays, when I recount those tales, I credit that second horrible job with being the shove I needed to get where I am now. And where I am now is pretty awesome.
Last week I decided to (calmly) speak my mind to one of my employers about the job I was being asked to do. The specifics in this particular situation are unimportant, but let’s just say that what started as a simple and appropriately-compensated assignment became more difficult over time. A lot more work was being demanded for the same payment, and I’ve had some grave concerns about how business was being conducted. My tentative attempts to address some of those things over the last few months were all ignored. For various reasons I had seriously considered quitting but kept putting it off, hoping things would improve. Instead, I compiled my concerns into a single email and pressed send.
Guess what? They fired me. And I was not altogether surprised to realize that my only regret was not resigning, first. It’s petty, I know. (”You can’t fire me! Because I QUIT! Also, your mother dresses you funny!”)
Here’s the thing about getting fired: It’s just like getting dumped. It may or may not have anything to do with you. No one likes to be rejected. But there are many more fish in the sea, and after we lick our wounds and learn our lessons, it’s on to the next adventure. Maybe even a better one.
The spectacular thing about freelancing and working for a dozen different places at once is that being fired doesn’t mean financial ruin. I’m not advocating just blowing off contracts any time you get annoyed, but it does mean freelancers have the relative luxury of picking and choosing work situations they find tolerable. Having had the good fortune to work with a crop of really great people, so far, I fell into the “it’s not you, it’s me” mode of employee thinking. If there’s a problem, it must be me, I figured. I should tough this out and make it work.
Some situations aren’t workable. Lucky me, I can walk away—or be shown the door without freaking out—when they’re not.
Oh, and by the way? I figured out what’s wrong with me: I don’t react well to being treated like a moron. Go figure.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008 at 7:26 am and is filed under Deep thoughts.
Tags: freelancing, getting fired, quitting
January 22nd, 2008 at 7:54 am
This was an interesting post to read from my perspective. I live in Scotland so we have the UK/European Union employment rules over here. To summarise pretty heavily: it’s actually quite hard to fire someone here. If you lived here, I suspect both of your firings (is that a word?) would have resulted in a successful claim by you for unfair dismissal. In fact, the bad treatment could have been actionable long before you were fired!
As an employee, that is cool, but as an employer (which I am) it can make life difficult when you do need to get rid of someone who is not only not doing their job but stopping all your other staff from doing their’s too! I’m interested to know - is there any form of employment protection legislation over there? Or can you pretty much be fired if your boss decides to?
January 22nd, 2008 at 8:30 am
I have only once “fired” a client, and it was the most satisfying thing I have ever done. They started with nickel-and-diming about my contract, then moved to non-cooperation with basic requests, through personal insults, and, finally, the threat of legal action if I didn’t sign a patently ridiculous piece of paper. (Full of spelling and grammar errors, yet.)
I seriously considered signing the damned thing, because our contract had less than six weeks to go, anyway, and then they’d be out of my life.
But then my self-respect reared up. How DARE they treat me with contempt? And how could I let them?
So, I calmly handed the insulting paper back the next morning, and told them I was giving them notice, effective the end of the week.
That was over five years ago, and I still feel good when I think about it.
January 22nd, 2008 at 8:39 am
Loth: Even jobs with contracts, here, pretty much always state that the employer has the right to terminate for any reason. A really “cushy” contract would state that if termination was chosen before a certain date, payment would still need to be made through however long.
Do you have unemployment benefits in Scotland? That’s a whole ‘nother issue—it doesn’t pay much, but if you work AT ALL to make up the difference, it decreases your benefits.
January 22nd, 2008 at 10:15 am
The stress and pressure and fear that leads up to the firing is so much worse than the actual event of getting fired. When I was let go from my sales job (along with 2 other highly successful AE’s) it was like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders.
January 22nd, 2008 at 11:47 am
I’ve only been fired once, in my late teens, from a crappy convenience store job, where the manager and I just didn’t get along. While I was very upset about that at the time, looking back, I learned a lot from the experience about what to look for when an employer is trying to set you up to be fired, and that’s helped me out a couple times in the years since. In aviation, once you’re fired, it’s hard to get a job at another carrier (especially at a bigger carrier) so avoiding being fired has been valuable to me. Now that I’m finally at a major I hope to avoid the job search thing for a while.
January 22nd, 2008 at 10:00 pm
huh. i think that’s what is wrong with me, too. go figure.
January 23rd, 2008 at 7:45 am
Too bad Mountain Dog had to stay there, though.
I don’t know if this would apply to you necessarily, but my father is a home contractor. For years, he’d actually LOSE money on some jobs because of clients nickle-and-diming him, making changes, etc.
Finally my brainiac mom stepped and started writing up legalese-type contracts for each of his jobs, specifying EXACTLY what was to be done. ANY changes would require an addendum to the contract or a new contract, and of course, changes in what he was going to charge.
He’s done a lot better financially since then (too late to personally benefit MY childhood, hmph!).
January 23rd, 2008 at 7:50 am
Brigitte! What a good memory you have, to remember Mountain Dog. He was the best thing about that job.
As a freelancer I find I’m much more likely to take issue with attitude than actual work changes, actually. Moreover, it’s a struggle not to land in contract hell where your employer wants the rights to everything you’ve ever written, forever and ever amen, so a stipulation such as you’re describing I think would not work terribly well when your commodity is words. But I’m glad it worked out for your father.
January 23rd, 2008 at 11:57 am
Go you! No need to stay in a crappy situation. Bad things come in threes so if that was the third hopefully the next place will be better than ever. I had a string of crazy bosses…oddly two of the three were Engineers in the Social Work field… but anyway- I wondered what was wrong with me. Well, truly, there are just a lot of crazy mean people out there.
Good luck with all you do!
January 23rd, 2008 at 11:20 pm
wow! i have never actually been fired but i thoughti was close once - and i got OUT! my boss was just crazy, i think she was going through personal stuff and i was her target (lucky me!). i have to say my success after having left that situation has been the BEST! also the fact that she took over my department and 1/2 the staff left in less than 6 months LOL i take that as a sign that it wasnt just ME!
January 24th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
When I was in high school I had a terrible office job. No one would tell me when I did anything wrong, they would just complain to the boss. I found out much later that I was breaking dress code (it was the 90s in Seattle), misfiling (files that hadn’t been touched in literally 10 years) and other horrible sins. Not the least of which was that I talked to my third grade teacher when she walked in one day to ask about an insurance issue. Apparently, that was against policy and I was supposed to pretend I was not there.
Anyho, I got fired. I was upset, but not surprised. The three women in the office talked down to me, didn’t help me learn, and actually blamed me for mistakes that were not possibly mine - like a file from 1984 that was in the wrong inactive bin. In 1984 I was six, pretty sure I didn’t mess that one up.
Years later, I was working in an office and was just the star. A new manager came in just before I quit who looked strangely familiar. When I gave my notice she begged me to stay, telling me how great I was and how it was impossible to find help as good as me. Then, I placed her - it was one of the three women who had sandbagged me at that job! She didn’t recognize me, and I didn’t say anything, but I love thinking about that.
January 28th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
I must say that I love your writing but was surprised that you (and Chris) kept working for the company that just let you go after all of the craziness that went on a few months back with them stealing photos off of Flickr. I’m glad that relationship is now in the past for you and I will continue to read you here, there and everywhere else that you write.
January 31st, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Mir, anyone who doesn’t take care of their wonderful, hard-working employees such as you and Chris certainly doesn’t deserve either of you.
May you be 1000x better off without them!
xoxo