THE ART OF GETTING FIRED!

One of the key emotions likely to be felt is that of shame, and this one is really close to home for me. I was first fired when I was twenty-one years old, and at that time in my life, it was the most traumatic thing I had experienced to date. But to understand why, you need to understand more about me. All through school, I had been a ‘straight A’ student who had never experienced failure in my life. One of the reasons I never experienced failure is that I never tried anything where I thought failure might be a possibility. I had what Carol Dweck calls a ‘fixed mindset’. Dweck is a world-renowned Stanford University psychologist who has spent decades researching achievement and success. In her book, Mindset, she talks about how our minds have greater power over our achievements than the qualities we are born with.[1] In my case, I had a preconceived belief about myself that I was smart and successful, and carried around a huge fear from early childhood of being proven otherwise. Therefore, I avoided anything that was too challenging or difficult. But the fact remained that being successful was at the very core of my identity and was really the only thing that made me feel valued. I cannot tell you enough the extreme shame that I felt when I was fired at twenty-one years of age.

       I’d been working for a small to medium-sized importer firm as an accounts assistant for about six months when I was fired. I could not stand my boss; in fact, nobody else at the company could either. To say he lacked people skills was an understatement. He was incredibly arrogant, and he couldn’t connect or relate to anyone there. Meanwhile, although I struggled to deal with him each day, I was diligent and loyal to the company and was trying my best to do my job well. But at that time, I suffered from what I can only describe as an extreme lack of confidence which was essentially a manifestation of my fear of failure. It meant that I couldn’t show any initiative at work because I feared not being able to do something new. I was doing all aspects of the job that I’d been taught, but I wasn’t doing anything else. I did ask to expand and learn new things, but I would only do a task after I had been taught exactly what to do. The bottom line is, my boss fired me after six months in the job because he wanted someone who showed more initiative. I had only received feedback from him once and that was three months prior when he expressed that I should probably be a little bit more ahead in my learning curve at that stage, and he outlined a few areas I should focus on. At that time, I was also given a small pay increase for encouragement. Talk about mixed messages! Despite the pay increase, I did feel truly badly about the negative feedback (there it was again—fear of failure!), and I worked very hard to address everything mentioned and more. By the time I reached six months, I really had come a long way and my confidence in the job was much improved.

       So, it came as a great shock to me when I was pulled into the HR office at 5 pm on a Friday, and sacked on the spot. That meeting three months earlier (with a pay increase) did nothing to warn me of the seriousness of what might happen, even though I did take all the feedback on board. But what I later realized, upon reflection, is that the decision to fire me had already been made by him three months before. The feedback session and pay increase were to appease HR, but actually, at that time, I didn’t stand a chance. His mind was made up.

       I suppose I didn’t know anyone else who had been fired before and I assumed that it only happened to the stupid or the lazy, so to now find myself in that category of people made me feel like I wanted to hide in a dark room and not come out. Of course, I was very concerned with what my friends and family were going to think of me. I told very few people, only those who would find out anyway. Although I did find another job straight away, I had this terrible secret and carried the burden of my shame around on my shoulders for a good few years after. As it turned out, getting fired that day was one of the best things that could have happened to me;  more on that later.

[1] C Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Ballantine Books, 2007.