Whether you have done something purposefully, had a momentary lapse or reason, just plain stuffed up or been dismissed unfairly, even the best of us have been fired at one point in our lives. J K Rowling was fired from her job as a secretary for writing stories during work hours. Sure, this would have been a humiliating blow at the time but maybe you should ask her how she is doing these days and where she thinks her life would be now had she not experienced this traumatic event.
I was recently fired from my job working for quite a large and reputable global company, something I initially thought would absolutely destroy my life and leave me on the dole forever. While the circumstances surrounding my dismissal are humiliating, my employer somehow getting access to my personal life and turning it into reasons for accusations of serious and wilful misconduct, it seems clear to me now that my heart was not in that job or that company and I am much a much better person for not being there.
But what do we do when our lives are overthrown so swiftly and possibly undeservedly? How do we begin to pick up the pieces and make ourselves truly believe that we are not worthless fuck ups and that we are better off? There is no way we can change what happened, unless we go down the legal path but at the end of the day I had to ask if it was really worth all the time, energy and whether I wanted this incident to sit in the forefront of my mind for an extended period of time or if I wanted to recover and move on as quickly as possible. I chose the latter but some one with more time, energy and vengefulness may pursue. I guess in the end I felt that my own torment and humiliation was not painful enough (or too painful, really) to want to risk dragging it out longer for the sake of retribution.
I guess the argument lays in the fact that maybe that’s not where you belonged in the first place. I feel that since being fired from my big corporate job, my perspectives have changed. I am beginning to remember that this job was simply a time filler while I pursued other paths and that I somehow got lost in the cash, the modern office setting and the cute corporate attire. At the end of the day I did not agree with the business practices of this company in the first place, did not want to work for a large corporation (a promise I had made myself many years earlier) and felt that I didn’t belong there. These very big epiphanies were a bit late in coming and I guess were the reason behind my getting fired in the first place. Whatever. So I guess when this happens you have do ask yourself what it is you really want to be doing with your life. Did you see yourself at that same job 10 years down the track or did you see yourself somewhere else? No matter how unrealistic that somewhere else seems to you, maybe that’s what you need to aim for because if that’s where your mind and heart was to begin with then maybe you didn’t really belong where you were.
Once you try and put your mind at ease, damage control must ensue. Get yourself back in the market as soon as you can, but this time be selective. Apply for jobs you could be really passionate about, with employment conditions that you are happy with. Don’t step backwards out of desperation because it is not going to help with the dire feeling of worthlessness your last employer left you with. I started looking for jobs with smaller businesses, and am refusing to go back to weekends. I have decided that this time I am not going to go for the first job offered to me because I’m sick of looking. I will be persistent.
Also, reassess your life. Do you really want to work full time? Do you want to study? Do you want to do some volunteer work? Money isn’t the be all and end all of how you conduct your life, reassess your situation, do what makes you happy. For me that was freeing up some time to really throw myself into my honours degree and taking up some volunteer work, leaving me with only two days a week for work, not four. This has given me some balance, and while I will make much less money, I have come to the realisation that the money I was making prior was going to a lot of unecessities anyway, not to mention lunch and parking four days a week (you can literally take $100 per week off for that alone!) so while I just get by, and shopping has become seldom, my life has done a complete turn around. I am finding pleasure in the everyday now, rather than just the weekends when I can go and blow my pay to feel better about being a slave for the wage.
At the end of the day it is your life, and we orchestrate our own fate, if you have been fired, it really sucks but while you can’t change that alone, you can change what you do next.
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