On Getting Fired
a story from my late-20s
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So many people in the U.S. right now are getting laid off, fired, or forced to resign. There is still an intense stigma around getting fired. The narrative is almost always constructed as a failure or fault of the worker, not the employer. I figured I would share my story of getting fired.
Picture it: August of 2011. I was living with two roommates on the first floor of a gorgeous old house in Wicker Park in Chicago. I was about to finish a year commitment of doing an AmeriCorps placement at a literacy program for disabled adults at a day center. I needed to find another job asap. I applied and interviewed for various things, but only one went forward. The only job I could get was as a call center representative for a tutoring business who referred to themselves as the “Facebook of tutoring.” Their home base is in Chicago, but they are national. The business was created by two white Princeton bros. To this day, it was the worst place I’ve ever worked.
The company was one of those that would buy groceries to have in the office kitchen. Staff could pick various things they wanted before the grocery order went out for the week. This was such a talked-up perk, and it was quite nice, but it didn’t alleviate how awful everything was.
There was the IT department and the customer service department and (grossly) the IT department was all men while the customer service department was mostly women. The boys got to come and go as they pleased. They got to joke around and take time chatting with each other. The rest of us were nearly chained to our desks and our headsets. For a business that was still new, I was amazed at the amount of phone calls that came through. I was equally amazed at the verbal abuse that many of us received from these callers. The business had a “customer is always right” mentality, so you mostly had to shut up and take whatever vitriol was spewed your way. This, of course, didn’t sit right with me. I would often tear up on the phone with a difficult customer. I would barely keep it together until the call ended. Then, I could finally go outside or to the bathroom to fully break down.
The place was soul-sucking and I cried nearly every day.
Most of my colleagues were kind, but there were two women who had been there the longest who consistently bullied the rest of us. They would stare at me (or someone else) and then whisper to each other. I wondered many times if I had time warped back to high school. It seemed their seniority made them untouchable.
Eventually, my supervisor—whose name is that of a flower which I hate—was given a system on her computer where she could tell how long it took for each of us to pick up a call. If we took “too” long (like more than a few seconds), we were reprimanded. If we were away from our desk for “too” long or “too” often, we were admonished. At one point, my supervisor said to me in a one-on-one meeting: “You seem to go to the bathroom a lot…” I’m pretty sure it was illegal for her to say that to me. I replied, “Yeah, I like to stay hydrated and not get UTIs.”
I got in trouble for not going to work events that were off hours. This showed that I was not a “team player.” In reality, I just didn’t want to be around people I didn’t know well who were drinking. At this point, I had already been raped once while drunk at 18, and at 22 I had a drink spiked at a bar when I was out with friends. Thankfully, nothing happened (aside from getting super sick). I didn’t want to tell my employer any of us—I shouldn’t have had to anyways.
In many jobs, there is the misplaced pressure on employees to hang out with each other outside of the job—or even on the job (i.e. having lunch in the break room together). This can be nice, but not when you feel pressured or forced to do it. In my experience, forcing camaraderie does not actually create camaraderie.
I liked some of the people I worked with and with others I felt neutral. We couldn’t always eat lunch together anyways, because we had to stagger our breaks for those damn phones. I often say, I’m not at a job to make friends. If it happens, that’s cool, but I have a job because I need money to live in this shithole country.
I was mercifully fired the first week of January. I had just gotten back from being home in Madison for the December holidays. I walked to my desk and put my bag on my chair when I was interrupted by my boss: “Hi Lachrista, can you please come speak with me and [the CEO]?”
The meeting was pathetic. I could tell I was in trouble, but knew I didn’t do anything egregious. The CEO looked nervous and threw some words out there about “personality” and me “not being a good fit.” He then said, “We’re terminating your employment with us.” I smiled and nodded. My boss, chiming in as if I didn’t hear the CEO clearly, said, “Today.” I replied, “Ok, thanks” and smiled. I think they both expected me to cry. I’m glad my body didn’t give them that satisfaction.
I walked out of the meeting room, my head held high, in disbelief of what just happened. I collected the small amount of things from my desk. My coworker who sat next to me, whispered, “What happened?” I said, “I just got fired” and laughed. Her eyes grew large. I said my goodbyes quietly. The two women who loved to gossip and bully were trying to be discreet in their watching of me leave. I threw them both a smile.
I felt elated, scared, and relieved all at once. I sat on the stoop of the coffee shop nearby waiting for my latte and started crying. I immediately called my mom. She knew how awful the place I had been working for was. She was compassionate and calm and didn’t assume I did anything wrong (she knew I hadn’t).
Eventually, I was able to get unemployment benefits after a lengthy interview process in which one of the questions was, “Did you ever show up to work drunk?” I got on food stamps, which I was more familiar with since I had been on them during my year of AmeriCorps. The unemployment agency determined that the company had fired me with no just cause. Since I was never given any warning about my performance, I was able to continue getting my health insurance through this employer, even though that meant I had to write a check to them for $500 each month. I may have tried to curse the company through those checks I sent.
I had never been fired before and I’m sad to say that I also gave into the stigma before it happened to me. I felt really bad about myself for months afterwards. I must have filled out hundreds or even thousands of job applications. Nothing stuck. This is what inevitably made me move back home to Madison several months later.
I’ve heard many stories of people getting fired for unethical reasons. It’s happening en masse currently. You feel powerless, scared, and uncertain. I was never one to tie my identity to a job, but getting fired and being unemployed when I was “supposed to be” employed felt uncomfortable and heavy.
When I think about it now, I still get heated. I still feel the injustice.
In the end, I’m glad that shitty company with the ugly logo fired me. I hope that business is getting exactly what it deserves.
Cheers if you’ve ever been fired!
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