I got fired several times in a row, early in my career. I was on a subsistence budget anyway, so getting fired really put me in a financial bind. Each time I got fired, I had to hustle to get a new job. I didn’t have time to mope about having been fired.
I had to react fast just in order to pay the rent!
I wasn’t happy in those jobs, so why didn’t I job-hunt? I didn’t do it because it’s a pain in the neck to launch a job search. I kept the job I never should have taken and I ended up getting fired.
Eventually I learned that if you’re likely to get fired from a job, you’re better off reading the handwriting on the wall and job-hunting before that happens.
The managers who fired me — although I hated their guts and vice versa — taught me that lesson!
I was a hard worker. I didn’t come in late or blow off my responsibilities.
I got fired because my managers didn’t like me, plain and simple. Why didn’t they like me? They didn’t like me because I had ideas, and shared them. I didn’t realize or didn’t care that sharing ideas your boss doesn’t want to hear is a great way to lose your job.
Here are ten reasons I’m grateful to every manager who told me to pack my stuff and take off. Those managers didn’t know they were pushing me to do more, learn more, experiment more and be more courageous. I didn’t know it, either, but the lessons still got through!
Ten Reasons I’m Grateful To The Managers Who Fired Me
Getting fired is disruptive. I didn’t expect to get fired when I did. By getting fired several times early in my career, I learned that the panic and shock I felt when my manager said “You’re fired” would soon dissipate. I learned that getting fired is not a big deal.
The managers who gave me my walking papers were not calm and businesslike about it. They were angry. They wanted to send me a message: “This is my castle!” From them I learned that people in supposedly high-level positions can be afraid of people like me in much lower-level jobs. I learned that the elephant can be afraid of the mouse. That’s a great lesson for a young mouse to learn!
The managers who terminated me taught me that picking yourself up and going out to find a new job is a critical career skill all of us need to learn. There’s nothing like a forced job search to teach you how to bob and weave, follow opportunities wherever they lead and keep going until you’ve reached your goal!
Every time I got fired, I doubted myself momentarily. I felt bad about myself until I remembered that long before they got rid of me, each of my bosses had already established that he or she was neither a broad thinker nor a compassionate leader. These managers had nothing to teach me, but it took a shove from Mother Nature for me to realize that. Eventually I got the message that not everyone deserves my talents — or yours, either!
When I got fired I got to — and also had to — re-establish my priorities. I had to think about my career. That’s a good thing for everyone to do, but it takes a big event like a termination to knock us out of our usual complacent state.
The managers who dismissed me taught me to be more discriminating in my choice of employer. I started to value myself more and to ask more of a job than just a paycheck. Since I knew that there was a certain kind of boxed-in, fearful manager who would not be able to deal with me for long, I learned to avoid managers like that when I started job-hunting again.
When I got fired, my skin got thicker. I realized that although I had always heard that only bad employees got fired, it wasn’t true. I could see first-hand that a fearful manager would use the threat of termination or the act of termination as a way of controlling and muzzling people. I learned that I could get fired, even multiple times, and come out of it smiling and feeling stronger than ever. That’s a great lesson to learn!
By getting fired more than once I learned that it’s pointless to try and hide who you are at work, because doing that will only cause you stress. No one can pay you enough to play a part at work that you don’t want to play. I learned to bring more of myself to a job interview to let a prospective manager see my true personality right away. Why play a part at a job interview? It won’t do you any good to get the job by pretending to be someone you’re not.
When I saw that the way to avoid getting fired was to bite my lip and ignore my instincts, I realized that none of the jobs I had been fired from justified that level of self-doubt or self-denial. The managers who fired me taught me that lesson, too. They taught me that I had been shooting too low in my career aspirations!
The managers who fired me showed me how far a fearful person will go to shut out an opinion they can’t stand to hear. They taught me that having years of experience or a lofty job title doesn’t automatically make someone savvy, smart or mature. They taught me to stop worrying about what other people think of me and to be myself, instead.
The managers who fired me were great teachers, but they didn’t know it. I didn’t know it either at the time — but now I am grateful to them and everyone else who nudged me back on my path!
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