This Is How Fast Your Boss Can Drop You

[MJ DeMarco]

Lesson learned: When you start feeling comfortable at your job, just remember that you can get dropped at the snap of a finger and your life was always in another man's hands.

Keep in mind, customers can fire you at the drop of a dime as well.

As entrepreneurs, we're not immune from getting fired.

We go from 1 boss (a job) to hundreds, hopefully millions.

 

[Vigilante]

It's a great education. It will strengthen your backbone. And... life has much more in front of you.

EVERY employee other than the owner is 100% dispensable.

 

[AlexLegault]

So I've been fired from my job today. I'm kind of pissed, not gonna lie.

I was working a dead-end job as a restaurant host here in Canada.

Long story short, my boss (manager) made me come in to work for nothing to work half an hour and they sent me home and didn't want to pay me the full 3 hours (I offered to stay for at least 3 hours so they don't waste their money).

Naturally, I complained about it to the owner via text message.

I figured, "hey, he's the big boss and he's probably objective and will understand, right?"

Wrong.

Not even close.

I texted him to tell him how I didn't appreciate having the manager tell me to come in for nothing and at the very least would like to be compensated for 3 hours since they wasted my time and money to get to work (I was supposed to spend that evening with my father for his birthday too).

He told me he wouldn't pay me since I "wasn't on the schedule" and started getting mad saying I was "causing him so much trouble".

By the end I stopped replying and he said he'd pay me the three hours.

That's when he said we obviously didn't see eye to eye on the situation and that he could see it being an issue later.


And that's when the magic words came.


"You are being terminated effective immediately, thank you."


And that's how fast an a**hole boss can drop you.


Lesson learned: When you start feeling comfortable at your job, just remember that you can get dropped at the snap of a finger and your life was always in another man's hands.

 

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[Late Bloomer]

I've been there too.

Life lesson:
"Employment at will" means that at any time they can say, "We won't."

One of the top reasons I've got to make business work for me, is so no one person (other than me) can ever again cut off 100% of my income.

 

[Late Bloomer]

No business will fire an employee that is doing good work.

That's total bullshit. There are a lot of places where office politics, pecking order, scratch-my-back favorites, nepotism, entrenched incompetents circling the wagons to protect each other, conspiracies both legal and illegal, matter a hell of a lot. And objectively provable excellence at the assigned tasks and functions of the job, don't matter.

 

[Deleted50669]

You are not alone, sir. I've seen it happen to numerous colleagues of mine. Even folks with masters and PhDs who you'd think are insulated from the risk of termination. We are all replaceable in the labor market. That's why we have to leave the labor market and create our own product market. Develop a product and put the product to work.

 

[ProcessPro]

So I've been fired from my job today. I'm kind of pissed, not gonna lie.

I was working a dead-end job as a restaurant host here in Canada.

Long story short, my boss (manager) made me come in to work for nothing to work half an hour and they sent me home and didn't want to pay me the full 3 hours (I offered to stay for at least 3 hours so they don't waste their money).

Naturally, I complained about it to the owner via text message.

I figured, "hey, he's the big boss and he's probably objective and will understand, right?"

Wrong.

Not even close.

I texted him to tell him how I didn't appreciate having the manager tell me to come in for nothing and at the very least would like to be compensated for 3 hours since they wasted my time and money to get to work (I was supposed to spend that evening with my father for his birthday too).

He told me he wouldn't pay me since I "wasn't on the schedule" and started getting mad saying I was "causing him so much trouble".

By the end I stopped replying and he said he'd pay me the three hours.

That's when he said we obviously didn't see eye to eye on the situation and that he could see it being an issue later.


And that's when the magic words came.


"You are being terminated effective immediately, thank you."


And that's how fast an a**hole boss can drop you.


Lesson learned: When you start feeling comfortable at your job, just remember that you can get dropped at the snap of a finger and your life was always in another man's hands.

I almost got fired from my job as a bank teller all because of a foolish micro manager that loved to give commands/exercise his authority just for the sake of it. I used to assert myself unlike the other employees in our branch and he never liked me as a result. He was literally waiting for me to make a mistake. One time he came and intervened my transaction with a customer for no good reason which I felt was against the banks documented procedures, so I told him no, refusing to take his instruction. Next thing, I was called into his office and accused of insubordination, which it was, but simply because I was not complying with an instruction that defied the bank's procedure and my priority as a teller.

The next day, I was placed on a program for performance improvement, which is really a sort of warning program, one step away from being fired. Long story short, something similar happened again, and while the bank was deliberating on how to handle it, I took the initiative to resign, because I knew I would be fired. I know I'm not being biased and mis-perceiving the scenarios because most of the employees in the branch hold the same opinion of him and have had similar experiences with him.

For the next few months, I went to work in my mother's pitiful little shop. Talk about a step down. Decided to download some books to read to deal with the boredom, because the shop was so dead in terms of customers. That's how I found and read TMF (bought my copy honestly at a later time out of respect for MJ and a sense of obligation/conscience for the transformation it had on my thinking.)

Also purchased unscripted and now finishing it up with my mate. Honestly, if I did not get 'fired'/forced out, the series of events will not have led to me reading TMF and being in the pursuit of the unscripted life as I am now. I felt as if my world crumbled during those days following that meeting in the manager's office etc. You probably feel uncomfortable too, but a couple years from now, you'll look back and be glad. If the market confirms that my asset is a productocracy, I'll be making my manager's annual salary in a month or less. Hope it works out for me, and also for you, and together, we'll laugh at those scripted fools.

 

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[biophase]

That's total bullshit. There are a lot of places where office politics, pecking order, scratch-my-back favorites, nepotism, entrenched incompetents circling the wagons to protect each other, conspiracies both legal and illegal, matter a hell of a lot. And objectively provable excellence at the assigned tasks and functions of the job, don't matter.

Sure there's always office politics and friends and favors, but when it comes down to cutting someone, you have to ask if that person is indispensable or not.

I've been in enough meetings we where talk about who stays and who gets laid off and I will tell you that if there is a dickhead that nobody likes, but they can't get work done without him, they will keep him. Alot of times, it comes down to, can we function without the guy? Managers think about their own job and day to day. So if firing some guy means that he will then have to pick up his slack and stay extra hours, he will find some way to keep the guy.

I guess I should not have used the word "good", I should have said "essential" and so as an employee, you have to make yourself "essential" not just "good".

 

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[AlexLegault]

UPDATE*

I helped someone for free a few months back with some sales copy and that person recommended me to a business owner the other day and we met up for an interview!

He offered me contract work to help get him get digital marketing clients as well as do sales copy for his website from home.

He said he'd teach me how to do everything from sales funnels to setting up wordpress, using google analytics, cold calling and even doing sales presentations.

I'm excited and look forward to working hard and learning from someone who's actually doing it!

And the funniest thing is, he's a high school dropout..

Our interview lasted 3-4 hours and we talked about how the school system is backwards, entrepreneur mindset, digital marketing and pretty much everything else you would read from Unscripted .

I was so excited to finally meet someone in person with the same mindset and common goals as me and everyone else on this forum.

I'll have to keep you guys updated in the Execution threads!

 

[biophase]

So I've been fired from my job today. I'm kind of pissed, not gonna lie.

I was working a dead-end job as a restaurant host here in Canada.

Long story short, my boss (manager) made me come in to work for nothing to work half an hour and they sent me home and didn't want to pay me the full 3 hours (I offered to stay for at least 3 hours so they don't waste their money).

Naturally, I complained about it to the owner via text message.

I figured, "hey, he's the big boss and he's probably objective and will understand, right?"

Wrong.

Not even close.

I texted him to tell him how I didn't appreciate having the manager tell me to come in for nothing and at the very least would like to be compensated for 3 hours since they wasted my time and money to get to work (I was supposed to spend that evening with my father for his birthday too).

He told me he wouldn't pay me since I "wasn't on the schedule" and started getting mad saying I was "causing him so much trouble".

By the end I stopped replying and he said he'd pay me the three hours.

That's when he said we obviously didn't see eye to eye on the situation and that he could see it being an issue later.


And that's when the magic words came.


"You are being terminated effective immediately, thank you."


And that's how fast an a**hole boss can drop you.


Lesson learned: When you start feeling comfortable at your job, just remember that you can get dropped at the snap of a finger and your life was always in another man's hands.

The other side of the story could be that you weren't doing a great job and they wanted to let you go anyway. No business will fire an employee that is doing good work. Were you a good host? Did they hire another that they wanted to give more hours too? Or maybe you just ruffled a few feathers or didn't get along with other employees. Or maybe the restaurant is losing money and they don't even need a host. All I'm saying is step back and think about it. There might have been things that you didn't see or even notice about yourself.

 

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[Damien C]

It happens man. It's fine and you will be fine. A good life lesson.

Always remember that employment is a two way street. I terminated my employer last week with no notice. Handed in a letter of resignation, dumped the company property and a handover document on HR's desk, and issued a two week sick note to force them to pay out the entire notice period! F*ck em'

 

[AlexLegault]

Yup. When I decided to escalate the matter with Employee relations, it turns out he has friends in that department and they are all one clique, so it was futile. Things I confided to ER got straight back to him etc. And like you, I expected objectivity and a fair hearing per their pathyways to conflict resolution booklets etc. Waste of time.

What a joke..

 

[Late Bloomer]

Why my last regular-paycheck job really ended.

Because it was the slow season, everyone's hours were cut, mine to under 10 hours a week. This would have been valid cause to quit and get unemployment, but I hadn't worked long enough in the new state to qualify.

Also, the company willfully created and perpetuated a physically very dangerous and harmful working environment in part of the site, which was painful, dangerous, and exhausting to all workers. According to the general manager, supervisors were supposed to rotate workers out of there every hour or two, but many managers lazily sent people back there and forgot about them for an all-day or all-night shift. When I complained, I was told that "an accommodation would require a note from my doctor."

Also, one of the supervisors (different supervisors rotated different shifts unpredictably) was a screaming abusive a**hole, looking for reasons to fire people when they didn't do what management had failed to teach them how to do.

Rumor was that she was getting hit daily by a physically abusive husband, which is why she sometimes came in to her shift with a black eye and a vague remark about having slipped, and took it out on the workers.

For example, when the lobby was full of customers, she screamed at the top of her voice at me, from the far corner, that I was late returning from my break... when I actually had ten minutes before I was due to clock in.

I think this was the very same week that three different sweet little old ladies, each on their own initiative, independently decided to tell that manager that unlike the young kids, I always got their orders right and was such a dear and a real keeper.

 

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[Xeon]

This is why I always subscribe to the mantras below:

 

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[Jav100]

sorry to hear about the job, but i think the universe did you a favor.

for me everytime one door closed, 10 more opened - and each following job was way better

find the doors, they are out there

So I've been fired from my job today. I'm kind of pissed, not gonna lie.

I was working a dead-end job as a restaurant host here in Canada.

Long story short, my boss (manager) made me come in to work for nothing to work half an hour and they sent me home and didn't want to pay me the full 3 hours (I offered to stay for at least 3 hours so they don't waste their money).

Naturally, I complained about it to the owner via text message.

I figured, "hey, he's the big boss and he's probably objective and will understand, right?"

Wrong.

Not even close.

I texted him to tell him how I didn't appreciate having the manager tell me to come in for nothing and at the very least would like to be compensated for 3 hours since they wasted my time and money to get to work (I was supposed to spend that evening with my father for his birthday too).

He told me he wouldn't pay me since I "wasn't on the schedule" and started getting mad saying I was "causing him so much trouble".

By the end I stopped replying and he said he'd pay me the three hours.

That's when he said we obviously didn't see eye to eye on the situation and that he could see it being an issue later.


And that's when the magic words came.


"You are being terminated effective immediately, thank you."


And that's how fast an a**hole boss can drop you.


Lesson learned: When you start feeling comfortable at your job, just remember that you can get dropped at the snap of a finger and your life was always in another man's hands.

 

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[AlexLegault]

I used to assert myself unlike the other employees in our branch and he never liked me as a result. He was literally waiting for me to make a mistake.

Man, I can completely relate to that.

That's EXACTLY what they were doing to me (except they were the one's to screw up. Go figure.)

 

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[AlexLegault]

You are not alone, sir. I've seen it happen to numerous colleagues of mine. Even folks with masters and PhDs who you'd think are insulated from the risk of termination.

That's pretty scary honestly.

I lost a shit job so it's not a big deal to me..

But for someone who has a more "expensive lifestyle" and has tons of bills to pay, that must suck big time.

 

[ProcessPro]

Man, I can completely relate to that.

That's EXACTLY what they were doing to me (except they were the one's to screw up. Go figure.)

Yup. When I decided to escalate the matter with Employee relations, it turns out he has friends in that department and they are all one clique, so it was futile. Things I confided to ER got straight back to him etc. And like you, I expected objectivity and a fair hearing per their pathyways to conflict resolution booklets etc. Waste of time.

 

[Late Bloomer]

Yup. When I decided to escalate the matter with Employee relations

I found out the hard way that Employee Relations is a misnamed department. The term is a euphemism. The actual title is, The People Who Get Employees Cowering So They Shut Up, Quit, And Don't Sue Us. The company where I learned this, was in the news because in other class action incidents, one for customers and one for employees in another division, the company paid a billion dollars, literally, in fines "without admitting any guilt." If you really don't have any guilt, won't a billion dollars buy a lot of attorneys?? After I had left... couldn't get unemployment because I'd "voluntarily quit" when I was concerned about some potentially illegal activity... and the statute of limitations had run out... and the company was in the news for being bought out by its biggest competitor... I found out that the unpaid overtime issue alone, that they got me to STFU up about, was easily another half billion dollar issue for them between the fines and statutory penalties and management's deliberately deceitful misrepresentations. About 1,500 person division, most people working unpaid overtime for years because the company lied that overtime law didn't apply to those jobs when it actually did apply to everyone without supervisory authority, times something like a $1,000/day fine to the state Labor Board per willful violation, plus restitution of all the back pay. Whatever they paid the little cabal that got me to quit and not go to an attorney, it was a millionfold ROI for the company! EMPLOYEE RELATIONS IS PROBABLY NOT YOUR FRIEND.

 

[Late Bloomer]

Wait. Did you get fired via a text message?

That might've been a huge strategic mistake, it should've been by Snapchat so that the evidence was automatically deleted!

 

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[AlexLegault]

The other side of the story could be that you weren't doing a great job and they wanted to let you go anyway. No business will fire an employee that is doing good work. Were you a good host? Did they hire another that they wanted to give more hours too? Or maybe you just ruffled a few feathers or didn't get along with other employees. Or maybe the restaurant is losing money and they don't even need a host. All I'm saying is step back and think about it. There might have been things that you didn't see or even notice about yourself.

I'm very doubtful about that. I always did what had to be done and at one point the owner even pointed at me while looking at the other employees while saying "You see this guy? He's the fastest one here out of all of you."

However.. I DID get the job through an employment centre. The owner had to sign a contract saying he would give me 30 hours a week minimum (which he didn't).

The employment agency emailed me asking why I wasn't "taking the hours". "Your boss says you don't want the hours. Why is that?"

To which I replied.. "Really? That's interesting, he never talked to me about that." Therefore he was caught in a lie and they told him to give me more hours. That was a few days ago.

So to answer that, yeah, he probably couldn't afford it and wanted to get rid of me for that reason.

 

[AlexLegault]

You need to talk with the agency right away. They might be able to work something out. Also, they might owe you money for which they're legally obligated to pay, and it would be up to them to sue the restaurant owner. But don't go there with them, just talk to them and find out. If they give you a "nothing we can do" song and dance, find a local labor law attorney who does free initial consultations, give them the super concise version of the facts, and find out what they have to say. You might only have the right to walk away, but there might be some further option for you to know about.

I have an appointment with the agency tomorrow.

And they definitely do. I called the labor board, told them my situation and they said it fell under "wrongful dismissal".

 

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[KLaw]

Yes. He sent me an email later on but he wrote it initially by text.

That's hilarious! I'm sure you don't think it is but it made me chuckle. Don't waste anymore time on this and move on to your next venture. You'll end up with something better. F*ck 'em.

 

[Thoelt53]

Wayyy too much complaining in this thread.

@AlexLegault you've learned a valuable lesson. What are your takeaways?

What's your plan now?

 

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[Thoelt53]

I agree with this.

But, I'm not as nice as some people are. It's the rhino strand in my DNA I think.

I'd go back in there as a paying customer at their busiest time, with three friends. More if you can get em.

Order some of their delicious water, and maybe an appetizer to share. Two appitizers and four or five waters. Suck up two tables. Have a great time - take your time there and relax. They don't need those tables for other customers.

After the third time, this buffoon is going to start thinking maybe he should have listened to his mommy about not being a jerk and crapping on people.

Really - they call you in for a half a stinkin hour? This alone deserves retribution. The firing deserves some pain, and the best kind of pain is taking profit out of their fat little hands. I know these things. Don't argue.

Occasionally it is allowed to "stoop to their level" - you'll find out why later in life. The idiots just go through life treating people like dirt. God made rhinos for a purpose. They don't take kindly to being mistreated. Learn the ways of the rhino grasshopper! You will not feel bad about doing this - you will feel empowered and justified. It will build a strong spine in you. Don't let anyone tell you to "take the high road" - you know who started that saying? The idiots that fire people and screw with their lives. Piss on em, THEN forget em.

Um, they wouldn't have take out would they? Hmmmm.

Why bother? That's a complete waste of time. Totally childish and petty.

Life is too short. Move on and do you. They don't matter.

 

[Late Bloomer]

Wayyy too much complaining in this thread.

What's the maximum ceiling on appropriate complaining on a post labeled RANT, in which people rant?

 

[Late Bloomer]

@MJ DeMarco you might get a kick out of this one, from different attitudes about what's Fast or Slow lane.

My 3rd job back had great people. Industry-changing Inc. 500 company. Behind the scenes one of the investors had previously helped finance some Las Vegas resorts. I withdrew for the medical caregiver reasons I've already discussed.

While I was gone, the company hit financial issues. A portion of it was sold and merged into a much smaller, extremely narrow niche targeted company. This was only 1% of the original Big Vision, so most of the people weren't needed any more.

Ironically, one of the managers I liked the most, had been scolded by his friends for his totally risky, dangerous, unstable career move. What was this dangerous way to live on the edge? To become a corporate Information Technology guy, this manager had left behind the predictable, steady, always-there paycheck of his sure thing: previously, he played keys in a popular Prince tribute band on nights and weekends! Sure enough, the software company was soon downsized like it was 1999!

 

[Mr.Brandtastic]

The only thing worse than not having a job, is having one.

 

[buildingbetter]

I saw a few comments from you that you don't have skills and were going to have to take whatever job you could find.

I know this doesn't directly apply to you but hopefully you can take something away from it. I read an article a few years back about how women were statistically far less likely to apply for jobs with prerequisites they didn't meet than men with the same qualifications. The women felt inadequate and didn't even apply but men's confidence in themselves paid off a lot more often than people expected. You miss 100% of the shots you don't take and whatever. After that, I took more chances on job applications and made the experiences I did have fit into the boxes employers were looking for. Since then, I've gotten quite a few jobs I was definitely not qualified for. I don't have a degree and when I first started out didn't even have really basic job experience. I haven't worked for less than $15/hr or even on site in years.

You have customer service experience. That qualifies you for a lot more jobs than you seem to think. Don't discount yourself.

Sorry to hear about how the job ended though. I had a similar experience in the food industry years back. It was awful but it also gives me motivation to work on never being in the position to have to work at a place like that again.

 

[Late Bloomer]

They say they want to build businesses -- which in time will need staffing. How are they going to handle the challenges of being the boss?

In the fortune 500 world, I have been on the other side.

• Wrote job descriptions
• Sent staffing requests to HR
• Reviewed resumes received by HR
• When we got too many resumes, made the screening that HR used stricter
• Decided who to phone screen
• Conducted phone screens
• Conducted in person interviews
• Recommended to my boss who to hire (I didn't have hire/fire authority myself), every recommendation was accepted
• Divided the work between the workers based on their talents and interests as much as possible
• Got scolded by my boss, and he was absolutely right, for doing too much of the work myself rather than defining WHAT to do and letting the team figure out HOW to do it
  
• Developed standards for the work and for coordination with other departments and with outside organizations
• Conducted code reviews of work in progress from the team

So, my saying that someone getting cut from a job doesn't necessarily prove they're a bad worker, is from both sides of the desk, not just my own weird and wacky string of job endings. (Which I'm sharing to show that even some corporate job success is no guarantee of a smooth future.)

Being broke, homeless, sick and hungry has a downside too -- but it's obvious that you've never been there. I can tell you from personal experiece gained when I was young, that those realities are lot worse than having a job.

Same here... and from the same range of experiences.