How's it feel?
...to get fired
By As told to Steve Lange by Anonymous Female
I thought my boss, at the least, thought it was good for [our department] because I questioned everything all of the time. I liked to challenge everyone’s thinking. I had my share of run-ins with coworkers but it was only about work situations and never anything personal or anything like that. My reviews went fairly well. Although, looking back on it all now, my boss was always saying little things like ‘Now let’s not cause a big scene’ if we had some big meeting coming up. But she always laughed about it. She never warned me about any of it directly.
Anyway. I had a run-in with a male coworker on a Tuesday and got called into my boss’ office—we both got called into her office—that afternoon. There were a lot of big meetings the rest of the day, with my boss and her boss and others, but I didn’t think anything of it. Then nobody really talked to me the rest of the week. My boss was always busy when I went to talk to her.
Then on Friday afternoon people from the office were planning to go out for a drink after work. So, like at 4:30, my boss calls me in. Her boss and the human resource person were sitting in her office. They asked me to close the door. I really didn’t have any idea. I thought they might be putting me in charge of this new project.
Then they told me I was fired.
I just sat there. I didn’t say much of anything. I don’t even remember what else they said. When I left the office they had a security guard waiting for me and escorted me to my desk.
The group that was going out after work was waiting for me. I couldn’t even say anything to them, I was sort of afraid I might cry or what I might do, so I just shook my head. At first I considered going to my boss and groveling for my job back. I was thinking I’d say ‘I’ll do anything you want’ and all that. I’m so glad I didn’t do that now. I did, though, go into TGI Friday’s and yell at a few people from work that I thought had it in for me. That was not a very pretty scene.
I went home and just sat there. I couldn’t even tell my husband or my kids what happened. I kept hoping my boss would call back and say it was a mistake or something like that. The next morning I finally told my husband. He didn’t think it was that big of a deal. He just said ‘Well, do you want me to print out some résumés for you at work?’
So I took a part-time job and stayed home for a few months. I did some temp work. Then sent out a bunch of résumés. After about a year I got a job that I really liked. It didn’t pay as much as before, but it was a lot of fun in a little office. I worked there for eight years before I left. I wasn’t fired, though! I decided to take some classes and work at home. I do clerical work part-time for my husband’s company.
I do miss working in an office sometimes. I miss the camaraderie. I even miss the gossip and the office politics. But at least I don’t work in a place that would fire you without warning you first.
[Editor’s note: We first ran a version of this story in our 2004 “How’s it feel” issue, and figured we’d follow up to see how our firee had fared.]