Today is a bit of an anniversary of sorts for me. It might be a bit of an odd one to celebrate, but this is the anniversary of the day I was fired.
To be sure, “celebrate” is not really the right word here. The truth is that I have an odd talent when it comes to dates. I just remember stuff. Friends refer to it as my superpower. I remember people’s birthdays, dates of historical events, and dates that have personal meaning to me. I used to be good with phone numbers too, until owning cell phones destroyed my ability (or maybe just my will) to remember seven digits. I can also probably still tell you the postal code of every place I’ve ever lived in, and I’ve lived in a lot of places. But I digress.
Regardless, I feel this was an important day for me. A little background is probably in order.
In a way, this was my first big boy job. After being a student for years and years and then working for the family business for a while, this was my first job “in my field”. It was a job at a Big Company. A company with a name most people recognize. It was meant to be the first step in my career. A career that I thought was supposed to move forward, in a straight line forever. But of course real life doesn’t always work that way.
Why was I fired? Many reasons. Truthfully it wasn’t really a job I loved. The main reason I even took the was because it seemed like a good job at what seemed like a great company. My thinking was that I would get in the door and work my way into a role that I was truly excited about. And that is what I tried to do. I discovered a different group within the company that I wanted to join, I made some inquiries through the proper channels and tried to transfer. But the group I wanted to join didn’t really have a need for more people. Oh, did I mention that this was 2008? Well it was. So when the Big Company decided that it needed to let some people go, to weather the storm through the ensuing global economic meltdown, it was easy enough for my boss to say “listen, I really like you, but I happen to know that you’re not really passionate about this work”. Because I had basically told him so by asking to move to a different group.
And it stung. Like I said, I thought a career was always supposed to move forward in a straight line. You were supposed to graduate, get a big boy (or girl) job, start earning some money, get raises and promotions at somewhat regular intervals and leave your job only on your own terms and only if and when something better came along. But that was not my reality. I had failed. I was moving backwards. How was I going to find another job? I had a black mark on my resume: I had been fired. Canned. Downsized. Let go. Laid off. Made redundant. Any way I tried to dress it up, it stung.
The next day, the sun came up. It came up the day after that too. I got to work trying to find my next gig. It wasn’t easy. I was one of thousands who had lost their jobs at around that time. Finding my next job literally took months. Finding any job at that time was difficult, and I didn’t just want any job. I wanted the right job. It didn’t need to be perfect, or prestigious, or high-paying, but it needed to make sense for me and my career. My career wasn’t going to be a straight line from that point but I felt it still needed to go somewhere. And it did.
It is now nine years and two jobs hence. I think I will always remember the date. I will also always remember the things I have learned from the experience.
First, it’s never a good idea to take a job that you don’t want just because it’s a job you think you should take. Your standing within a company will be determined by the quality of work you do. If you’re doing something you don’t enjoy, faking it can be tough. Even if I hadn’t asked for a transfer to a different group, I’m guessing my boss could tell that my heart wasn’t into the work. How can you succeed at a job you don’t really want? You can’t. No success means no raises or promotions which means the next time the axe has to fall there’s a good chance it will be your neck.
Secondly, when I started interviewing I was happy to discover that being fired wasn’t the black mark I thought it would be. Smart managers know that people will lose their jobs for all sorts of reasons (like for example, because it’s 2008). Sometimes a job just ends up being a poor fit. They tend to be more concerned about whether they think you can do the job for which they are hiring, which often has nothing to do with the job from which you got fired.
Third, a career is not a straight line. It can be, but it often isn’t, and that’s just fine. It’s more important to have the career you want rather than the one you think you’re supposed to have. I have spent far too many years working jobs that made me miserable for my liking. I don’t want to spend a third of my waking hours doing something that makes me miserable. I have come to believe that it’s more important to be mindful of your finances than to worry about earning as much as possible. It’s not so much the size of the pie as how much of it is left over at the end of the day. Do work you enjoy and be smart with your money and you’ll be okay.
Finally, sometimes crappy things happen, and when they do, remember that you can and will get through this. There is no shortage of motivational quotes, posters, or other media to choose from, but my personal favourite comes from Douglas Adams: “Don’t panic.” I have been pretty fortunate in my life and I realize now that people have gone through far worse hardships that losing a job. We all have our own struggles and we all find our own way to get through them.
When I think back to that day, I still remember the sting, and the shock, and the sense of failure. But I also am able to look at what I have done since then and where I am now. And in light of all this, it doesn’t seem quite so bad anymore.
Happy anniversary to me.