Why Being Fired was the Best Thing to Happen to Me (But How You Can Avoid It)
The Dream Job
I got my first job in January of 2012. I was 4 months from turning 21 and I felt like I landed my dream job. I was the Legislative Director to the Senate Majority leader of my state legislature. What else could a 20 year old entry level young professional want?
But reality hit within the first few weeks on the job with how the "real world" was going to work.
First, my chief of staff was barely 26 years old. This was only his 3rd job and his first time managing people. (To anyone hiring supervising staff, I really recommend you find someone that has done it before). He felt his point of view and thoughts were on a need to know base and deemed that I didn't need to know. In a career that is all about being in the know this was tough.
Second, there was no employee handbook, or anything to point me in the right direction. My job was full of legal procedure and precedence and there wasn't person I could call with questions nor any guidance from office tradition.
I say all this to tell you that my job was not easy, cut and dry, or even defined. It was a "we are going to throw you into this and see if you survive." Let me tell you, given the circumstances (and now that I am 3 years in hindsight with nearly 2 years' experience in the same field) I have to say I did a pretty damn good job - things were filed on time and correctly, caucuses were prepared for, and general orders were delivered. When it came to the paperwork of session, I felt like I was balancing everything pretty well.
The Termination
I remember it all so clearly. I had just worked until 3 am, and I was back at work 5 hours later by 8. I worked the whole day finishing up some work from the night before, archiving files from that year's session and such and working on a project that ethically speaking, I probably should not have ever been assigned (maybe I made that too known?). It was 5 pm and my Chief of Staff called me into the boss’s office with our secretary. I thought he was going to give a wrap up of the session or talk about what's next.
Instead he starts with "Kara, we have appreciated having you here. But there have been some gaps and I don't believe we are going to ask you to come back."
I immediately shot a glance to my co-worker who was informed this was happening before the meeting started. She just looked at the floor. I asked if it was necessary for her to be in the room as we discuss this, and then followed that with "where is our boss?"
I was trying to stay calm, although the shock of it all was getting to me. You know that pit in your stomach you just want to BLAH it out? Yeah, that was where I was. So with voice shaking I asked, "can I ask where I failed to meet your and (our boss's) expectations?"
He told me "Well some of the other senators don't think you are very funny. And really there were just some gaps there." (Yes - my lack of humor was actually the first thing he cited - by lack of humor I mean, I don't like Will Ferrell Movies.) I again asked for more clarification and he went on to tell me I carried out all my regular duties well and I asked why he had never approached me before about my work not meeting his expectations (Like I said there were no warning signs here).
He then asked me to work for 2 more months - a whole 8 more weeks! At this point I'm angry. I'm thinking first you wait for me to finish my essential duties today before dropping this on me, and now you expect me to work with you for 2 more months when you just told me you are firing me for not loving Will Ferrell?!
I told him I was done starting now. I went back to the office at 7 am to clean out my desk. I took everything I wanted to keep and trashed the rest (There was no way the secretary who got a promotion was getting any of the ground work I built. She was starting from scratch like me - this was also not my proudest moment).
The next few months I traveled. I went to New York, Tulsa, and LA. I had fun and I tried to shake the dust off my feet. I spoke to other co-workers (some who also were surprisingly canned the same day as me) and we chalked it up to scapegoating and the fact we refused to play dirty.
I took solace in the fact that I wasn't fired due to incompetency on my part but that of my Chief. I had a new job in a new city within 2 months and while that too was a failure (and ironically for similar reasons) it helped me land the job I am in now, which truly is a dream come true.
In my little political world this type of termination happens regularly. It even happened to a good friend of mine just this year! (Bad management is the worse!) But as I told her, things would get better and she would recover and time will go on. Now she is in a more senior level position traveling the country for a big company (talk about an upgrade!)
Still, I'm Thankful
So why was being fired the best thing to happen to me? Not just because it set me on the path to get the job I really wanted (without that title on my resume, I wouldn't have been considered), but because it was a brutal introduction to reality. From the get go I learned a valuable lesson in keeping track of my daily tasks, my achievements and my correspondence with management.
Surviving in an Unstructured Job
So I'd like to share some tips for those of you in what I call "Unstructured Jobs"
These jobs don't come with a defined roll. They maybe have one or two "Must do responsibilities" But it doesn't come with a how-to guide or even a way to garner feedback.
Maybe your job has all that, and you know exactly what to do but you have a boss who has no idea what they are doing. They are so focused on their own skin, they have no idea what you do or how to tell you if you are doing it right or wrong or if you could do it better. I like to call these types of bosses - passive aggressive. They never really tell you what they want, but they expect the moon anyway.
For us first time employees a little bit of feedback will take us a long way. We want to excel and succeed and prove ourselves but context is needed. I'm not talking about millennial hand holding here. I'm talking to the young professional who has 0-1 years of experience and is working their booty off to do a job well done. We are self-starters, but we don't have industry knowledge because we are brand spanking new to the industry. Many supervisors want young talent, but don't want to groom the talent into a great employee - they want it all and that just isn't reality.
So here is my advice on surviving these jobs with uninvolved but demanding supervisors and getting the most out of your experience:
1. Record Everything
Keep a file of all the projects you are given, any direction handed to you, any clarifying questions you asked and the answers you received (if any). This could be in the form of emails, a notebook with verbal communication written down, even the dates and times of telephone calls or voicemails left.
Nothing is more frustrating than a boss who says "do this and I want it this way" and when you produce the product they say that isn't what they were looking for.
This way you can pull out their exact words and show them what they said.
Write down what you do each day. This is for your benefit and your protection. Writing down your accomplishments can encourage you as you look down at the end of the day and see everything you have completed, it can jog your memory for a to-do list for the next day and when someone says you don't pull your weight you can pull out a log with how you spend your time.
2. Ask for Feedback
I didn't start asking for feedback until after my first job. I thought no news was good news, so I let sleeping dogs lay. Little did I know any annoyance was just being bottled up. Start with just small questions like "Did you like the way I did ____, or would you prefer it a different way?"
Ask for a review. Sit down with your boss and ask to schedule a time to do an evaluation or review - don't leave without a specific date and time set and pressure them to stick to it. Also, be sure to have a list of questions to ask during the review. If your boss doesn't seem to be taking it seriously, be prepared to navigate the ship!
3. Find a Problem and Solve It
The problem can be as small as "the copier was making that clicking noise and I fixed it" or "we have been out of spoons for 4 months and I finally just went and bought a stock" (don't ask for a refund) or my personal favorite - "That contacts excel spread sheet was out of date and I went ahead and updated it". Bosses like people who seem invested in their company. So even if you are faking it until you make it find ways to show you are an investor and performer. This makes it harder to let you go when you end up being the go-to-guy when there is a problem with something or you run the office coffee club.
The Conclusion
When I and a boss mutually agreed I should leave, I left a binder full of all the information needed to do my job. When I gave it to him to pass to my future replacement he said, "Well where was this 3 weeks ago?" He was under the impression I had just started working on my way out! I of course looked at him funny thinking he knew what I did from a day to day basis and said to him, "Well, it was in my head but it won't do you much good if I keep it there." It was in those last minutes as his employee I understood where the miscommunication was coming from. He had no idea how I stayed busy all day and therefore had a hard time justifying my value (which in turn made me feel very unwanted on a day to day basis).
In my first two jobs, I learned that I have to constantly advocate for myself. It isn't about going above and beyond, or being the silent hard worker who waits for their work to be noticed. No, it is about making sure your boss knows you are hard at work for their benefit, it's about constant communication about expectations, and it is about defending yourself. Keeping track of the things that are out of you hand, or directions that were given to you in error is key when you are challenged.
