There’s a YouTube here of Kramer getting fired. If you can’t see it please contact Google and tell them to stop being evil.
My step-father told me over the weekend the architectural firm he works for is cutting fifty of the three hundred people who work in their Canadian operations. There’s a tonne more being cut in their worldwide operations.
His job is safe, but it’s a salary dump so most of the people going are basically his level. So he’ll be losing friends and colleagues.
I’ve been fired. Not in a while of course because I haven’t worked for a paycheck in four years. But it has happened.
The dumbest time was from my first reporting job after college. I did some really good work for them, but the paper was expanding into three new markets and the owner brought on a managing editor whose background was in sales.
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We didn’t get along. His grand idea was to tie news to ads. Buy one, get the other. When he brought his idea up at a news meeting I laughed. So getting fired was inevitable.
But it ended up being a lot funnier than I thought it would be.
I had the impression he expected me to get really angry, and planned what he was going to do and say accordingly. But I stayed very calm while he kept getting more agitated, like he was going to keep escalating until I reacted in real life like I had in his head.
So the reasons went from cost of expansion, to being late almost everyday, to my attitude in the office, to me not being a good reporter until finally he was waving his arms around telling me I was just not a good writer.
Finally I just left him and found a box so I could pack up my desk.
He called two days later asking to meet at a coffee shop where he proposed I write freelance for the paper. Just weird all the way around.
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So my questions for you on this No Post Day:
1. What was the best job you ever got let go from (laid off/fired/closed)?
2. What was the result?
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...salted lithium. 
That’s a great way to leave. I’m sure he still fumes about it.
Everyone burns through a job or two, especially at the start when you’re not good at evaluating companies well.
I think the best firing that ever happened to me was when I was a waitress at Denny’s. My first night a fight broke out and instead of throwing the guys out, the manager sat them down and gave them each free coffee. I knew I wouldn’t last.
Eventually I got called in for a meeting where it was explained I was being let go because I gave the impression I thought the customers were inferior to me.
To which I replied, “They are.”
Best job?
Shit, I haven’t ever had a real job. Just temporary stuff to keep the funds rolling. Worked for a vet, a fire investigation company, a supermarket chain, as a paperboy and in a pharmacy.
My favourite was working as a paperboy, man that was a piece of piss – just walking the streets with my walkman blasting Metallica S&M or Iron Maiden. I would do that job again in a second.
I was once asked to leave the store at the supermarket for being a wise-ass. I had been being case-counted to see how many cases I was putting out in an hour and I was doing 54ish not 60 so when I was told when the store close I needed to do 78 in an hour or I would lose my job I was not impressed. I did it though. Drew the stand-in supervisor then made same comment about how I should work like that all the time and I said something like I do twice the work he does for half the money and I was told to leave. Came back the next day and Gordon the supervisor thanked me for putting Drew in his place.
jeesh! i just about missed your entire text cause there was such a space in between the picture and the text. i was just happy to see the picture. it’s a cute one. that squirrel certainly loves its comfort eh.
so you response to your questions:
1. as yet, i have never been laid off, fired, closed from a job AS YET and am not expecting this anytime soon. very lucky like that or unlucky depending on how you look at things.
2. the result is that the first job i had was working for family and hated it. worked for them for 3 years. too much stress even though it wasn’t a stressful job persay. it’s just that at the end of the night, even though you are not THE boss, its a family business so you tend to take everything personally. i left it for a retail job which i loved working cash but left that cause it was only part time. then got a job at an investment firm where i worked for 11 years then went over another job within the organization and have been there for 9 years now. the result of all this is that i get a feeling of security, which is good. but what will happen if one day everything changes. i dunno.
I’m quite confident I’m about to get fired from this job. Which has never been great, but has been easy and paid ok.
I was fired from telemarketing when I was like 16. I took that as a personal compliment. Otherwise-never fired. I’m a keener.
Never fired.
I’ve never been fired from a good job…or one I really wanted to keep.
I was fired three times right in a row in what seemed like the Universe fucking with me…
The first job the manager kept telling me how great I was, how fast I was learning and how pleased he was to have me…then one day he came to me and said eyes askance and later eyes with tears in them…yes he felt so BAD he was CRYING. His boss, the owner didn’t like me and said I had to go…I left…that was a magazine and tobacco shop…in college…
Out that job into a waitress job for a busy little french restaurant. The owners were a couple. The wife very nice, the husband, well, basically an unhinged lunatic. He yelled and screamed at all of us including his wife. The second day I was there it was very busy and he asked me to clear a table and seat a couple which I quickly did. Right after seating the couple the table next to them cleared…he came and yelled at me “I told you to clean that fucking table!!” I told him politely that it was the table next to it and I had, indeed, cleared it. He started screaming that I was lying to him. I denied that and he fired me…right there on the spot in the middle of a lunch rush.
The last one…getting desperate… was a pizza joint where people were buying by the slice…I worked the counter and handed out slices of pizza…that’s all I did.
I did it one day. The next day I came to work and was told my cash drawer was $70 dollars short and I was accused of stealing it…of course, I had not stolen it, and I imagine someone else did knowing the unknown new girl would get blamed.
yeah…tell me the universe wasn’t fucking with me?? I’ve never been able to figure that out…never been fired again in my life…and those were three times in a row!!
My condescending bitch of a sister told me it had to be something I was doing….there was not way a coincidence like that could happen for no reason…
I’ve since held jobs with great responsibility and never again been fired or let go. I was about 20 years old when all the above shit went down.
Weird… I thought there’d be more of us. As I was writing this NPD I remembered I’ve actually fired someone. When I was nineteen I helped a local municipality start up a summer daycare program for kids aged 8-13. I had five counsellors and one of them decided the best way to discipline two kids who were screwing around was to lock them in a room and leave them there for an afternoon.
Firing her is not my most favourite memory from that summer. Thing was, since I didn’t know the process, I didn’t tell the people in charge of paying her. So she kept pulling a cheque for six weeks after I told her to go home.
I was once fired from a job by a guy who I’m pretty sure had no idea what he was doing. A friend got me that job.
Then there was the sweet Dot Com job where I didn’t really do much of anything for nine months. I felt a little relieved when they finally fired me.
I don’t know if you’re referring to the incident I’m thinking of, but I forgot we were both fired by the same guy… Brian. What a total fucking dumbass. I ran into him two years later when I was with the magazine in Toronto at a tech gathering. I had a good time telling him about the award.
I didn’t get fired by Brian directly, of course. I got let go by Lyle, and I have no idea what he was doing publishing a magazine.
I also got fired from a summer camp for the emotionally damaged because I was teaching the kids how to swear.
Unconcsiously, of course. I would sing along to music on my walkman (what we had instead of ipods back in the day) and occasionally a song with a bit of spicy language would sneak through.
Whoopsies!
That’s funny. You walking around singing a little Public Enemy, Cypress Hill or Bronski Beat at the top of your lungs… I’d pay serious money to watch kids react to that.
I got kicked out of Christian camp a half dozen times one summer for being somewhat unGodly in my mental and physical uncleanness… but I was volunteering so I’m not sure it should count.
I forgot about Lyle. I never really had to deal with him, but from what I remember he was as dysfunctionally retarded as The Others.
Only job I ever got tossed from was McDonald’s of all things. I got sick and they couldn’t cope. LOL