If you can make it through the twilight

You're Fired!

Before anyone asks, no, I haven't been fired.  But I have been fired from several jobs and only one of them was for, what I consider to be, a legitimate reason.  I’m really not sure how I’m going to get 500 words out of this but it’s on my mind for a couple of reasons…





First, I went into the store from which I got fired (the legitimate one) the other night and they were playing the Neon Trees album and it made me kind of wish I still worked there.  I really enjoyed the job.  The district manager was a sixteen year old tool in a forty year old body but the job wasn’t bad, I didn’t dread going to work every day. 





Second, I am working on moving to a new city and that means finding a new job.  Which means job history. Which means… I have managerial experience but I got fired from being a manager so ….do I mention it or don’t I?  Most people don’t realize that you don’t have to mention every job in your job history, only the ones where you acquired skills that will be helpful in the job you are applying for.  That means if you were an electrician and you are applying to be a sales manager, you don’t have to mention the electrician job - unless it’s your only form of work experience, in which case, the part where you had a job trumps the fact that you learned nothing about sales from said job.





Meanwhile… I’m sure you are wondering what I mean by “legitimate reason for being fired.”  Versus, of course, the illegitimate ones, because no one ever thinks they deserve to get fired.  I got fired from one for coming in twenty minutes before my shift and having a cigarette in the bar (when that was still legal).  I’m not sure that was the reason but it was the closest I got to getting one and in Colorado, I don’t have to be given a reason.





I got fired from another for “avoiding work.”  Now, I will own that I totally avoided work there. I hated the job.  It was $8 an hour to be screamed at because I, me, personally, shut off someone’s cell phone service after they’d gone fourteen months without making a payment.  But…I didn’t avoid work in any sort of visual way, I am smarter than that.  I just took lots of trips to the restroom.  They accused me, however, of putting my phone in idle mode for ten or fifteen minutes at a time between calls and then not doing anything.  I also own that I did do that on occasion…not for ten or fifteen minutes, two or three, usually, sometimes for as long as five minutes…rarely… but I never did it to do nothing.  I did it to finish making notes on a call because I didn’t have time to do it with the customer on the line, because they ended the call or whatever… but never to avoid work.  Like I said, I was smarter about the ways I did that.





Next, and THE MOST ridiculous of them all… I got fired because I didn’t enjoy my job.  That was the reason I was given.  When I asked if I was doing my job, they actually said very well but I didn’t smile and greet the agents (this was in a real estate office).  Some of them, no, I did not. They were bitchy and didn’t smile or greet me either.  And the bosses’ son was in and out 42 times a day and I usually greeted him every third or fourth trip through.  If I greeted him every time that would be all I’d get done.  But I just know, that was the clincher.  I didn’t greet Sonny Boy with a smile because he was a 32 year old (then) baby.





Now the legitimate one sucked.  We could only be over or under on our registers by more than $2 five times before we were terminated.  For starters, all of the other managers had figured out to carry cash and if they were under they filled in the difference to get it to $1.99 (or less).  If they were over, they’d tuck a dollar under the phone, figuring somewhere along the way, they’d figure out where it was supposed to be. And the phone was one of the only things in the managers’ office that wasn’t in sight of the security camera.  But no one bothered to tell me this until I’d already gotten four strikes.  Plus, associates had one register per shift to worry about, managers had up to five plus the safe.  So when I dropped a $5 bill on the floor of the office while filling a deposit bag and the deposit (of course) came up $5 short at the bank, that was it for me :(  It sucked that the other managers didn’t let me in on the tricks sooner but it was still all me.





How was this for a completely boring blog about nothing? But guess what… 800+ words and I warned you in the beginning….some days, most days, this will be nothing but babbling incoherent crap.