The end of this job

[Eireann]

My manager fired me yesterday. I have a few months left at this job.

My thoughts and emotions are all over the place. On one hand, I hated that job. I was under stress all the time. Every time my manager said my name, my stress level rose, because I was afraid that I had made a major mistake. I hated not being one of the Inner Circle (my manager has his favorites, and he makes it obvious). I hated being the one who always made the embarrassing mistakes. I lived in constant fear that I would be fired.

And now, that's happened. I need to start fearing something else, like winning the lottery or inheriting a large amount of money or receiving a huge reward.

On the other hand, it was steady work, and it kept me in the company of other people. I don't think it's good for me to be too alone.

I just keep going back and forth. My manager offered to give me a recommendation, and he was even sitting there suggesting various places I could try for employment. This was nice of him.

He has to adhere to the law of this country, which means you have to give the fired employee sufficient notice. He's even ensured that I'll continue to be paid for the month after I'm gone, which, as far as I know, is not the law here.

I just... I don't know what to do about myself. This isn't the first job I've had where I lived in mortal terror of being fired. (All those other jobs also ended in firing, by the way.) This isn't the first job I've hated. This isn't the first job that didn't pay me well enough. This isn't the first job that didn't fulfill me in any way.

I don't want to spend any more time doing work I hate. I don't want to spend time doing work I don't like. If I get freelance in a line of work that pays well, then at least I'll be more than supporting myself while I retrain for a profession I really do want, and for which I have a real talent. This is acceptable.

I have some months of steady income, at least. And I don't have any plans for Christmas, luckily for me. There is the surgery in January, and now, I don't need to plan it around work. Not around this work, anyway.

Today, I saw several T-shirts that really spoke to me. The first ones were worn by employees at an ice-cream stand:

LIVE WHAT YOU LOVE

The second was worn by a woman walking along the sidewalk:

MAKE YOUR DREAMS HAPPEN

The third one was my favorite:

FUCK THIS SHIT

[XCashier]

It's awful, working someplace that stresses you out far too much. You get constant workmares in your sleep, and driving to work feels like you're driving to your own execution. The office bullies circle you like vultures, and you're on eggshells the entire time you're on the clock.

Then...fired. You're both relieved and terrified.

If you've got enough money for a little while, I'd recommend taking a day or two off to de-stress. You've been wound too tightly for far too long. Take some time for yourself, even if you can't go on vacation, a nice nature walk, a hot bubble bath, curling up with a good book and a cup of your favorite hot beverage will do wonders for your mental health.

Yes, you'll need to start looking for a job again, but you have to take care of yourself first. You'll need a clear head to go job hunting.

I wish you the best of luck.

[Food Lady]

That last line made me LOL. It's funny 'cause it's true, to borrow a line from Karen Walker. Maybe your boss has done you a favor. I've gotten jobs right after being fired, so it doesn't always have to be a problem. I'd take X's advice unless you're the type of person who feels better by attacking a problem immediately. Either way, do whatever helps you.

[MoonCat]

In a play on that last one, I recently saw a thing online somewhere that said "A wise woman once said FUCK THIS SHIT and she lived happily ever after."

So I hope that's what happens for you

[Eireann]

Thanks, all.

This firing has brought up all kinds of negative memories and emotions from the past. I haven't been good enough for a wide range of people, including several family members (immediate family, not extended family). And in some cases, I was good enough for a while, but then deemed unacceptable in a truly brutal way.

So, knowing that who I am and what I am and how I am isn't enough for this job - the response is depression, anger, resentment, and a host of other negative emotions. And I have to wonder if, despite all the things I have tried in order to boost my job performance, I have really been trying. When you hate your job, you aren't highly motivated to improve it. On the other hand, a steady income is a strong motivator.

Up and down, up and down.

[Captain Neon]

I've been where you are at. I worked for a man just as you describe for two years. I was asked for my resignation. I hate that man to this very day. I worked like a slave with frequent schedule changes, and long long unpaid hours. I put in over 3000 hours/yr. and was only paid for 40 hours/wk. I am glad that you are getting a paycheck for a few months while you look for a new job. I had to live off savings until I found a new job. I ended up having to move over 3 hours away to find a new job in another state.

[Eireann]

It's been weird.

Not long ago, I had "the talk" with HR and my manager. He... well. I'm not going to go into detail here; suffice it to say that I'm surprised. I think he's basically a decent guy, and this is good. There are many ways in which he is extremely flexible.

He also lacks what it takes to be a truly great manager, and that's not surprising. Very few people do. How many of us can count our truly great managers on both hands? I can't. I've only had one.

This talk just showed me that, yes, he's not a bad person, but "not a bad person" doesn't mean enough here. He was giving me the bad-cop routine while the members of HR chimed in occasionally.

I watched him without saying a word while he talked at me. I kept my eyes fixed on his face, not looking away. I barely moved.

They're trying to psych you out, I told myself. Don't let them.

He outright lied to me at least once. I don't like that at all. I also don't like his claim that he's been more than fair to me. He may be correct in that statement; he may not. The fact that he was trying to make me feel guilty is what I don't like.

I kept telling myself, say as little as possible. Let him do the talking. Let him get nervous.

The huge advantage here is, I'm not afraid of him any longer. I think he's aware of it. I don't know if he's aware that I was, for a long time, living in fear of him, but even if he wasn't consciously aware of it, I'm sure he picked up on it. It comes across in so many non-verbal ways.

Now, not only do I know there's no need to fear him, I'm simply tired of fearing him. And this is tremendously liberating.

[Captain Neon]

The nicest thing I can say about the guy I worked for is that he is incompetent. His catch phrases: "I pay you a very good salary." "Needs of the business."

His very good salary wasn't all that good. Definitely not worth over 70 hours/week, coming at my regular time and told, "Oh, so and so's not coming in tonight. We've known all day. You need to come back 6 hours from now to cover his 10 hour shift and be back tomorrow at your usual start time." This happened at least once a month. He also liked to call me at home about the time that I would be in my deepest REM sleep to ask me some stupid question that could really wait until my start time. I even remember being told to come to work to take a folder off my desk and hand it to my boss. It was precisely where he had requested that it always be kept so that he could find it if he needed it. He claimed that he couldn't find it.

If the needs of the business are that you treat me like this on a regular basis. The business needs to hire someone to cover the extra hours I am not getting paid for. He was pocketing 10 cents of every dollar that he was under budget for the year. He came in at 10 AM. Took a 2 hour lunch, and left as soon as I showed up by 3:00 PM, and usually took Fridays off. Most of his time was spent in meetings where he blamed me for anything that went wrong and took credit for everything that was going right.

My meeting with HR was with his buddy the facility HR Manager while the HR Generalist was on vacation, boss sat their grinning like he had won the lottery. Company policy was that she was supposed to be present at all termination meetings to make sure that things were done fairly. She wasn't there because she knew what was going on. I had told her. She's been a glowing reference ever since she left the company, but that requires people to actually call her.

[Eireann]

I'm not sure how much longer I'll be at this job, now. I've talked to people who know my manager in other ways (that is to say, socially rather than as a coworker/manager). They don't care for him.

I was rather surprised by that, because he struck me as a guy people like to associate with in a social setting. But, well, not everyone does. Funny how, when you're experiencing so much shit in your life, the people around you all seem to have things going so well for them.

God, I'm glad I'm not my manager.