I saw my Shitty Manager from Hell at a movie theater once–I was tempted to walk up to him and thank him for getting me fired, since I ended up at a place that was better located with better coworkers, better benefits, and a salary that was the equivalent of more than 40% more than what I’d been getting paid when I worked under him. But I did the mature thing and just kept walking.
I was fired from a job for poor performance in January. (years ago)
I received a big performance bonus in December and I was deeply hurt by my firing. I’d never been reprimanded or warned and I believed I’d done a good job.
I filed for unemployment benefits and the company I worked for refused my claim.
My date with the State of NY hearing officer was a few months later and he took one look at my and shook his head.
He asked me when I announced my pregnancy to the company.
I told him that it was early January, after I passed the 3 month gestation date.
He approved my claim. (I saved the bonus paperwork to show him)
I had it happen to me dozens of times as an unskilled worker, in the days between mowing neighbors’ lawns and working as a professional.
Some were deserved. Taco Bell tried me for a week and fired me for not being fast enough. I wasn’t. Their rule was that by the time the cashier was saying “8, 8, 10, 15, 25, 50, 75, 4, and 5 is ten, thank you have a good day” you were supposed to be handing the customer the completed order. There were only three of us working, one cashier and two folks taking orders. The other order taker would be fixing the next order while you are handing your customer their order, because by then the cashier would be receiving the order from the next customer. You had to be fast with the math on the cash register, too: this was in the days before cash registers did the math for you. (No Taco Bell I’ve been in since runs their lines anywhere near that speed)
Some were NOT deserved. I was hired and driven way back into the back country and set off the back of the pickup truck with a gasoline powered logsplitter, two sledgehammers, and 3 wedges, next to a pile of chainsawed juniper & cedar & piñon pine. I went to work and the gasoline logsplitter bore down and sputtered out and died, unable to split the 2nd stump-segment I had loaded. Grabbed wedge and sledge and chose a crack 180° from where the gasoline splitter’s wedge had choked and drove it in then spent 10 minutes whaling on it but could neither loosen wedge nor drive it in further and log would still not split. Grabbed second wedge and found a crack at a 45° angle or thereabouts and repeated process with same results. Smacked awhile directly on log but could not bang it out of the machine. Rather than bury third wedge in same stubborn log, chose a new log, figuring I’d split as many manually as I could, and it prompty buried itself in a likely crack without achieving a split. OK I’m out here with no trans, no walkie-talkie, no info on where he’d gone with the chainsaws, and all useful tools out of commission, unable to work. Bored. Hours and hours go by, he comes back, is very angry not to have pile of split firewood. I get fired for slacking off.
It sucks, it feels awful.
I’ve also been fired for NOT slacking off a couple of times, and did not care for that. Was once on a team hired to take a flatbed full of scrap metal and unload it at a destination site. We arrived, I hopped out of the cab & scrambled up in back, bent from the waist and alternated arms, grabbing and flinging metal parts in an unending arc behind me onto the big pile in back of the truck, like a dog digging out a hole in a pile of sand. Found out later the crew boss usually needed 3 hours times 3 guys each of whom would walk over, pick up one piece of metal, walk to back of flatbed, aim, and heave, chat bullshit with the other guys, wipe sweat off face, walk back, stare at metal parts, pick one, and repeat. I had half the flatbed emptied in 20 minutes. Didn’t go over well.
I was a manager for a call center and I had to let three people go for performace. It was very difficult for me to do, so I can’t imagine what it was like for them.
The call center had a strict policy, if you can’t keep your average call time below two minutes you get let go.
The policy was explained before you got hired. You had 60 days from date of hire to learn than you “call times” kicked in. Each month if your call time fell below 2 minutes on average you were written up. You had an additonal 30 days to improve. If not, you were written up and given another 30 days. If your call times were above 2 mintues after that you were let go.
It was hard, because the people I let go certainly tried very hard, they just didn’t have the skill. I still feel bad for one girl I let go Frieda, 'cause she tried VERY hard. I even had people volunteer to help her 'cause she was an excellent employee in every other way, except she just couldn’t keep her average call time below 2 mintues.
Even after I let her go, I explaine I realized she tried as hard as she could and I even said I’d give her a good reference, 'cause she did work hard and tried. It was just more than she could do. But I can’t imagine it was any too fun for her.