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Holding a Grudge, Part 2

There was one job I was totally wrong for, I’ll be the first to admit that. I found that out after I started. Isn’t it up to the interviewers to decide which applicant is qualified for the position? We’ve already established that I’m totally honest during interviews. I explained to this company that I’m a quiet person, an introvert, but that I don’t let that affect my ability to do my job.

This place gave me fifteen days to learn a job they admitted takes months to figure out. They decided I wasn’t the right person for the job and dismissed me. But they didn’t explain it that way. No, when they called me into the conference room, they let me know I wasn’t being fired and it wasn’t anything against me personally. They had to let me go due to lack of work, they explained. They asked if I had any questions, so I asked if they had any advice for me for future jobs, and they complained that I was too quiet and that I just didn’t “fit in” at their office.

Whatever. I didn’t agree with their summation, but that’s okay, I don’t have to agree.

So my understanding was that I was being laid off due to lack of work, so when I got home, I applied for unemployment compensation so I could collect money while I looked for another job. For some reason, though, I wasn’t given my first compensation check and when I checked my status on their website, they said there was an “issue” and that I basically just had to wait and find out what they found.

I got a letter a few days later, citing that I might not be able to collect due to what my former employer was stating was my “willful misconduct” at my job. Huh? The letter also stated that I’d be getting another letter soon, a questionnaire in which I could explain my side of things. Before I even got to mail the questionnaire back, I got another letter saying that the employer was claiming that I was let go due to poor work performance. However, it was found that I did the job to the best of my ability, so I would qualify for benefits.

Okay, so I thought the issue was done. But it wasn’t.

A few weeks later, I got a copy of the appeal my former employer faxed to the unemployment office, a letter explaining my poor work performance. In their one page assessment, they lie over and over and over about my time at their company. One example: My “trainer” claims that I folded letters the “wrong” way. The first time I folded a letter there, she told me it was wrong and did it the correct way. The next time, I started to fold it and she corrected me again, so I made an example for myself so I would know for future reference (this was not the way that I was taught to fold a letter, and after conferring with other secretaries I know, it is not the traditional way to fold a letter). In their appeal, it states, “Tonia was instructed on the proper way to fold and send a business letter. She continued to fold letters her way.”

It’s little things like that which make up their entire appeal. Now, will they win the appeal? I have no idea. Will I get to explain my side of it? Again, I don’t know.


When I first saw the letter, I read about a sentence of it and put it down. My hands were shaking, I was that livid. I had to put it aside for a few hours and go back to it later to read the letter in its entirety. The thing is, when I was working for them, they seemed like nice people. A little clique-y, but overall they seemed nice. Now I find that they’re liars and manipulators. It’s one thing to let me go because they don’t think I’m doing a good enough job (like I said, I don’t think I was the right person for the job), but they didn’t give me enough time to even try the job, and then they lied to my face about why I was being dismissed. Now they’re trying to stop me from collecting unemployment benefits by lying about my work performance!

I was honest in my interview and on my resume. They knew I hadn’t worked in an office in almost ten years, so they had to realize there were some things I’d have to learn. If they didn’t have the time to give me to pick up some skills, they shouldn’t have hired me! I told them from the beginning that I want to be the right person for the job or they should let me go so I don’t waste their time and they don’t waste mine. Obviously they came to the conclusion that I wasn’t the right person for the job, but they just didn’t bother to voice that opinion when they dismissed me for some reason.

Were they trying to spare my feelings? Because it didn’t work. It all came out in their appeal, and I feel a ton worse that they lied to my face. Honesty is a very important thing to me, obviously.

Thank God I don’t work there anymore! Who would want to work with these kind of people?! It makes me want to put out an ad in the newspaper, warning applicants. Oh, and that’s another thing – when they called me into the conference room and told me I was being let go due to lack of work, they also said they had no plans of replacing me or hiring anyone new for that position. A few weeks later, what did I see in the newspaper but the same exact ad I answered a few weeks earlier. Another lie. Why am I surprised?

I think I deserve to hold a grudge on this one.