So...I've been fired. What do I do now? Completely lost.

[MercenaryMuffin]

Hello everyone.

Some of you may remember me, but for those who don't, I used to frequent this forum about a year ago. Had lots of fun venting and talking with everyone.
I used to work Night Audit at a nice little hotel out here near Las Vegas. Used to.


See, one year ago, I was fired from my job, very abruptly. Since I have the ability to explain what happened here, as opposed to trying to work around what happened on a resume or application, I'll share it with you all. Won't take too long.

Every other month or so, we had a big business group stay at the hotel. They were worth $10,000+ in revenue , so we kissed lots of ass and did what they asked of it. I was fine with that, Night Audit is a pretty laid back kind of job, and I genuinely enjoyed most of my nights there.

However, there was one woman who drove me insane...she happened to be the leader of the group. We'll call her Andrea.
Andrea liked to make ridiculous demands, yell at employees, and generally complain about everything. Despite this, management kissed her backside. Whatever she wanted, she got.

One morning, during the tail end of my 10 hour shift (I worked four ten-hour shifts), Andrea came down stairs and said her and her group were ready to go to the meeting center, as they do every time they're in town. Our hotel has a shuttle driver who shows up at 7am, five days a week.
Except that, that morning, the shuttle driver wasn't scheduled until 9am. TWO HOURS LATER. FOR NO REASON.
I was not informed of this.

So here I am, without any way to get the group to their meeting, the spiteful leader of the group burning holes through me with her eyes. What was I supposed to do? I apologized to her and told her that our shuttle driver was not scheduled until 9am for some reason, but I would get her a ride as soon as possible.
She freaks out, and starts yelling at me and saying I'm the worst employee she's ever seen. As she's yelling, a line is forming behind her of people who need to check out. So I'm on the phone with my manager, trying to ask her WTF is going on, but SHE starts yelling at me too, saying I should be handling this better. At the same time, I'm checking out guests, trying to get the breakfast lady to drive the group over (and she didn't speak much english so it took a while), and getting yelled at by Andrea.

My manager tells me to drive them over myself, and I tell HER that I can't, because I'm the only person in the entire god damn hotel besides the breakfast lady, and she can't work the desk. Not to mention that means leaving the desk unattended, which is something we never do, because we have to be able to handle an emergency (as in 911 emergency) at any time.

I finally get the breakfast lady to agree to drive her over, but as I'm talking with her, Andrea gets up in my face and says "You are the least helpful person I've ever seen at this hotel. Everyone else is great, but YOU-" and she jabs a finger at me, "-are the WORST employee at this hotel."

Once again I apologize to her, and explain it was beyond my control, and I'd have the breakfast lady drive her group over in just a few minutes. She says "forget it" and storms off.

This was a Friday morning. Friday mornings always suck.

So I enjoy my three days off, and go back to work. That night, I see a stack of applications for a Night Audit position sitting on her desk. "Oh, Mel (the part time night auditor) must be leaving", I think to myself. Oh, how wrong I was.

Tuesday morning, at the very end of my shift, my Manager walks in, just like every weekday morning. I say hi to her, and she ignores me. I thought it was a bad mood or something, it happens.

By the way, my manager had been there for two months. All of the old employees left when management changed...except me. I stayed. What could happen?

At the end of my shift, I hear her say "Darrin, I need to see you in my office."
So I go in and sit down, and she tells me to shut the door. Not good.

"Darrin, do you remember Andrea from late last week?" she asks.
"Of course," I say, "she needed a shuttle ride but Mike wasn't scheduled until 9. I ended up getting Maria to drive her and the group over, but she wouldn't have any of it." I reply.
"Mmmhmm. Well you need to know something."
Oh shit.
"Andrea says that you're the least friendly, helpful, competent person at this hotel. She is extremely unhappy with how you handled the situation."

I told her that I did everything I could, and I admitted that, yes, I probably could have been a TINY bit nicer as I was getting yelled at by two people at once while checking guests out, but I did what I could, to the best of my ability.

She continued.
"Andrea has pulled the group out."
"...the whole group?"
"The whole group. She says they will never stay with us as long as you're an employee here. Scott (Note: Scott was our sales manager that brought in business groups) is FURIOUS. He's been on the phone for three days trying to get them to come back.

I wasn't really sure what to say, so I said "Everyone here knows Andrea exaggerates things, you've dealt with her yourself. I did everything I could."
"Maybe she exaggerated, I don't know. What I do know is that group is gone now, because of you."
"...so I'm fired."
"Yep."
She said it so casually it made me want to punch a hole in the wall. I didn't, of course.

"...I see."

Then, after firing me, she proceeded to insult me for the next five minutes, saying I was lazy, and terrible with people, and that she'd received complaints about me before.

All of this was news to me, seeing as how I'd never been in trouble once in the two years I worked there. I mean, sure, you get the occasional asshole who decides that he/she is going to REPORT YOUR ASS TO THE MANAGER AND I'LL SEE YOU GET FIRED, but they're not rational people. I'm sorry I couldn't unbolt a freakin' fridge from a suite and bring it to your double queen bed room, where there is neither the space nor the ability to re-bolt it. I'd always thought those insane people were just shrugged off by management. Apparently I was wrong.


So here I am, a year later, living off unemployment.
Ah, but you can't get unemployment if you were fired due to actions you took, right? Right. Unemployment found that I was, quote, "unable to avoid removal from previous job, and was fired through no fault of my own".

Thank god for Unemployment. For a year --A WHOLE GOD DAMN YEAR-- I've been looking for work. I've applied and sent in resumes and gone on interviews and called and yada yada during this whole time. Not a single person has hired me. I believe it's because I have to put down "Fired", since I can't lie about it, and it just feels like a lost cause.

What am I supposed to say? What do I put down in a resume? No one is going to give me a chance to explain the full story. Not that I could anyway, since that would basically be bashing my old employer (because employers are perfect? ), and trying to spin the story in my favor has been nigh impossible.

I am ashamed to admit that I waited this long to come back here and ask you all, but I figure it's better late than never.

What am I supposed to do here? I can't lie, but I can't tell the truth, either. How am I supposed to explain that a business group left because management fucked up the schedule on the busiest day of the month?
Help a guy out?

[Jack]

Write "lynched" instead of "fired" and then they'll all be so curious they'll give you interviews.

[MercenaryMuffin]

Somehow I don't think that'll work too well.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Avoid working someplace where they're big on customer service to the point where one "good" customer never doing business there again=your firing.

Other than that, I've got nothing. Good luck to you.

[MercenaryMuffin]

Eh, that's the thing. I don't know what else I could do that doesn't involve working with the public in some form or other. Everything around here is customer service.

[It's me]

Here's where you can use the lousy economy to your advantage. With discretionary spending down (both personal and corporate) there have been a lot of cutbacks in staff at hotels, restaurants etc. Which is probably the reason the hotel was so worried about losing that account. So the fact that you've been off a year is bascially because a temporary down-turn in the industry. (Regardless of the fact that you were the scapegoat in this)

[MercenaryMuffin]

The unemployment rate (that is, those that still receive compensation, not including those that are unemployed but don't get anything) is between 12-15% out here in Nevada. It's terrible. Everyone is looking for work, and that doesn't seem to help me out any. People with far more experience and fancy references are applying for the same jobs I am, and because an employer sees "fired", they never even bother calling me back.

Last week, I called around to every hotel in the area. 23 of them. None of them were hiring.

[Imprl59]

There is absolutley no reason to put fired on your resume. You simply list the dates that you worked at each place. Don't list a reason that you left any of them.

When you get an interview and are asked why you left the last position you tell them new management was brought in and everyone was replaced, which is what happened. The fact that the grinches at the unemployment department found in your favor is proof that you were not fired, you were just victim of a bad manager who chose the wrong way to get rid of the last employee from the old regime. Nice try on her part but it obviously didn't work.

I think that you may not understand that what happened to you happens all over the country every day. A new manager wants people that are going to be loyal to them and old employees are going to be loyal to the old manager for some time. If there aren't many employees it's easier to clean house and start fresh. I'm not saying it's right to do this, just that it happens to all of us. This is no reflection on you as a person so don't beat yourself up over it.

Make sure you have a nice one sentence response to why you aren't at the old hotel anymore. Keep any negativity out of it. In your interview you want to keep everything positive and focus on the things you have achieved. If you can use previous employers as a reference.

[ditchdj]

May I recommend a libel suit against "Andrea"???

Even if you can't afford an attorney you can file it in small claims for a low fee and go for $5,000????

I can bet she'd want you DEAD if went that route!

And there would be nothing she could do about it.

[teh_blumchenkinder]

Have you tried applying for state or city jobs, or in repossessions, or towing? Look at other skills you have, or is there any road construction? If there is, consider dusting off old skills and focusing on those types of jobs-- even a temp agency might lead to something. Yeah, temp agencies are of Satan, but it's work, right? In road construction, you could go learn how to be a flagger, or learn how to pave roads yourself.
... ... You could try the sex industry, even if it's only paperwork or something, but that just leaves me feeling gross just thinking about it. :shudder: IIRC... Vegas is special like that.
Point is, you might want to look at the stuff no one else wants ever. Granted, it's usually for a reason-- who wants to bust sod at the ass-crack of dawn, at noon in a desert, then until night? Those people also earn 3-4 dollars over minimum wage (again IIRC), but still. You get wrung out like a sponge.
And, there's the business saying of "when you can't spend, invest." Go back to school, do at-home-teach-yourself stuff, or just hit the internet and use reputable sources to learn more about stuff you've always wanted to know, or you think might be useful.
Worse comes to worse, you could consider moving. Then again, the only thing I like about Nevada is the National Parks.
Best of luck, Muffin.
EDIT: I agree 100% with what Imprl59 posted up there.

[MercenaryMuffin]

There is absolutley no reason to put fired on your resume. You simply list the dates that you worked at each place. Don't list a reason that you left any of them.

When you get an interview and are asked why you left the last position you tell them new management was brought in and everyone was replaced, which is what happened. The fact that the grinches at the unemployment department found in your favor is proof that you were not fired, you were just victim of a bad manager who chose the wrong way to get rid of the last employee from the old regime. Nice try on her part but it obviously didn't work.

I think that you may not understand that what happened to you happens all over the country every day. A new manager wants people that are going to be loyal to them and old employees are going to be loyal to the old manager for some time. If there aren't many employees it's easier to clean house and start fresh. I'm not saying it's right to do this, just that it happens to all of us. This is no reflection on you as a person so don't beat yourself up over it.

Make sure you have a nice one sentence response to why you aren't at the old hotel anymore. Keep any negativity out of it. In your interview you want to keep everything positive and focus on the things you have achieved. If you can use previous employers as a reference.

Oh man, that's such a huge help, you have no idea. I never considered telling them management removed old employees. That's actually quite a damn good idea!

[Seshat]

There's always non-customer-facing or low-customer-facing jobs.

In the hotel industry, there's cooking, housekeeping, other kitchen work, probably paperwork that isn't customer-facing. There's laundering, and hotel supply. There's construction and renovation. Advertising. IT. Uniforms.

In theatrical stuff, there's stagehand, lighting, sound, costuming, janitorial, props, musician, choreography, and lots more. Including all sorts of theatrical supplies.

And someone supplies hardware to the props-makers and hotel-renovators.

And someone supplies food. And water. And power.

And constructs roads.

And feeds and houses all the workers.

And schools their children. Provides medical treatment. Provides a police force.

.... etc, etc, etc.

No matter how customer-focussed a town may be, there are non-customer facing jobs out there.

[AdminAssistant]

In theatrical stuff, there's stagehand, lighting, sound, costuming, janitorial, props, musician, choreography, and lots more. Including all sorts of theatrical supplies.

Seshat, I know you're trying to help, and no doubt there ARE some theatre-related jobs out there, but it's not an industry I would recommend trying without a related college degree and/or experience. The theatrical entertainment market is pretty flooded as it is.

Supply houses, however, that might actually be a good place to look. Also remember that practically none of those theatres build their own sets, costumes, or props, they ship that out to local companies.

[MercenaryMuffin]

In the hotel industry, there's cooking, housekeeping, other kitchen work, probably paperwork that isn't customer-facing. There's laundering, and hotel supply. There's construction and renovation. Advertising. IT. Uniforms.

Except that out here, all jobs that aren't Front Desk related are filled by people who speak little to no English. That's not being mean, that's the truth. Maybe two girls in Housekeeping spoke any English, same for the guy who worked on repairs. They also pay next to nothing :\

I'll have to look into hotel supply, though. Like a corporate shipping center or something.

[Whiskey]

Have you tried applying for state or city jobs, or in repossessions, or towing?

Don't let "the recession" get you down. It took me a while, but I finally got a job as a county library page while my city is sitting at 20% unemployment. It happens, keep your head up.