Fired Up

The always thoughtful David St. Lawrence has a tremendous post discussing the unpleasantries of being fired from your job.



David writes from personal experience, and having been fired myself in the past, I fully understand his feelings and his point of view. I know where he's coming from.



I was fired, for doing my job too well, and being a perceived threat to the status quo. After all, new ideas are what I do best, resulting in turnarounds of bad situations. The problem with that is twofold.



One is what do you do for an encore, as the explosive increases in revenue and profits during the turnaround period, are virtually impossible to sustain. Based on percentages, instead of as absolutes, used with very bad statistical understanding, and you find yourself explaining numbers.



I know. I did that. No one cared to understand that growth was still happening in larger dollar terms. The percentages, of course, were smaller.



Bad news for me.



Rule to remember:



Emotions will always trump the most rational explanations and numbers, especially when someone has painted a huge bullseye on the back of your suit jacket.



The other problem is struggling branch offices, will get their feet placed to the fire, to get their sales and profits up to the new standard. The employer didn't get blamed for the new higher standards. I did. I became a marked man.



Rule to remember: Upset the status quo and the old boys network at your own peril. I did and soon discovered profits were less important than the status quo, especially if the numbers can be falsely portrayed as an illusion.



I took my firing on my feet without an emotional outburst. In fact, I didn't really mind losing my job, as I had created something good that I was proud of, and really was wanting a new challenge.



I was far more concerned with what was going to happen to my sales staff.



The best two of them, named Krista and Shereen, were soon gone.



Shereen was fired for what was termed "insubordination". Translated, that means understanding the stupidity of the newly installed counterproductive system, and saying so. After all, Shereen and Krista had full authority, working with me to present their ideas for testing. There was none of that input requested by the new regime. They got orders. Not answers.



Shereen is now a manager herself in another company.



My best sales rep Krista soon left, after her pay structure was redone, into one of the most disincentive packages I have ever seen. She was too good for what they wanted her to do. I was happy to see her leave.



She became a very good manager herself too.



Firing wasn't so bad for me.



I work for myself and much prefer it.