I was fired last week. There, I said it. I’m getting it off my chest. I was fired last week from a job that I severely disliked and I was admittedly miserable at. I dreaded going to work ever single day. It got to the point where, when I was let go, I felt a massive weight come off my shoulders. I wanted out and this was the most blunt way of it happening.
I was fired last week. The proverbial professional “f” word. The one that future companies will enquire about. Perhaps he was a bad egg. Perhaps he was lazy and constantly late. Perhaps he drank on the job. Perhaps he wasn’t smart enough or qualified enough for the position. Perhaps he was already thinking about leaving and was mentally checked out. Getting fired is the career equivalent of getting divorced. Even if it’s “irreconcilable differences” and the parting of ways was almost mutual — there will always be that judgment. That black mark. A smudge on your past that you can’t fully escape.
I was fired last week. Coming from someone who is a self-described “workaholic”, it was a blow. Someone who, even upon when I was terminated, I was told I was probably one of the most thorough individuals who have ever held that position. Too thorough, evidently. They say that, psychologically getting fired can be the mental equivilent of losing a loved one. You rarely see it coming and most of us define our careers as an extension of who we are. So being let go is, in a way, someone telling you that you are a lie. All that you thought you were professionally was just an illusion.
I was fired last week. And it sucks. There’s no bones about it. Even Muhammad Ali took some blows that knocked him down — and I’m hardly the man that he was. But laying on the mat isn’t an option. Self-pity is not a road I can afford to travel down. The importance behind the saying “get back on the horse” is that if you don’t, it starts to affect you. You begin to fear the horse and you will eventually never ride again. Your defeat drags you down. Getting fired is no different.
I was fired last week. But that’s not who I am today.
No comments:
Post a Comment