You’re Fired

Susan Winkelaar

The Execution of Lady Jane Grey by Paul Delaroche 1833

Word Count 1584

My heart thumped as I read the invitation to a 9 a.m. meeting with my boss. After months of rumors, whispered conversations at the microwave and clues in the cryptically generic messages put out by executives, I knew the day had come when all would finally be revealed.  Would it be me who was cut, or the people I managed?

It was both, as it turned out. My position was being eliminated and two-thirds of my team would soon be in the same situation.

I called my husband from the stairwell. “It’s happened. I’ve been fired.” My voice cracked on the last word and tears began to flow.

“You’re kidding,” Dan said. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, given how much we’d discussed the possibility. He quickly recovered himself. “It will be okay. We’ll get through this.”

As firings go, it was probably among the gentlest a person could have. There were no security people waiting to escort me from the building. I had six months to find a new job and was given access to employment counseling. But the sting of rejection prickled deep in my bones.

“This is not personal, and it’s not about performance,” said the employment counselor.

Damn right. I’ve had excellent performance ratings for 16 years!

I had worked my way up, taken on more responsibility, and broken out of my original Communications role to manage two farm funding programs and a team of nearly 20 people. And yet, here I was. Someone had taken the measure of me and decided I wasn’t worth keeping. How could it be anything but personal?

Rage burned as I thought about the long hours I’d spent at the office, the evenings reviewing reports and answering emails. My daughter’s voice echoed in my head – “Mommy! You’re not listening to me!”

I worked through my contact list, breathing deeply before each call, shaking off the cloak of shame that kept settling over me. Shuffling through the stacks of business cards in my desk drawer, I found old invitations to receptions I’d never attended and kicked myself for not being more of a networker.

“It’s all so fake,” I’d complained to my friend.  “I’d rather get home to my kids.”

Now, an inner voice berated me: You just don’t like making small-talk. Maybe if you’d tried a little harder you wouldn’t be in this situation.

The employment counsellor had told me not to feel badly reaching out to people I hadn’t spoken to in years.

“People will want to help.”

He was right. I was surprised by how generous people were with their time, offering possible leads and words of encouragement. My boss asked me to take on a new assignment for four months, acting for a colleague, and I continued to go into the office and work late as I always had. 

“I can’t believe you agreed to that,” said a friend flatly, over lunch. “I would have told her to go fuck herself!”

“I think she’s trying to help,” I said. “It’s a different role, a better title... it will strengthen my resumé.”

She shook her head and stared off to the distance, mouth set in a hard line of disgust - at them or at me, I wasn’t entirely certain.

My inner voice agreed with her. You’re pathetic. You are SUCH a people pleaser!

True. But it wasn’t just that – I needed to recover my reputation. Too many people had seen me ugly-cry on the day of  the lay-offs. I needed to show them it had just been a momentary lapse.

They didn’t need to know I now had a prescription for sleeping pills; didn’t need to know about the moments when panic and fear would suddenly engulf me, and I would close the door of my office to cry quiet, gulping sobs before gathering my wits and re-setting my mask of competent composure.

July came and we took a holiday with the second-hand trailer we'd decided to buy the previous fall, despite the lay-off rumors already swirling. That seemed like an idiotic choice now. The height of arrogance. While the kids swam and boogie-boarded, I scrunched sand through my toes and worried.

You should be looking for work...

 But everything slows in the summer – nobody is hiring right now...

You shouldn’t be spending money you might not have if you don’t find something soon.

When I verbalized my worries, my husband was reassuring. “Something will come up. You have time.”

Will it, though? asked the voice, loudest in the middle of the night. Who wants to hire a woman in her late-40s? What skills do you really have?

My mother called weekly to see how I was doing. I gritted my teeth for the inevitable question: “And how’s the job search going?”

“I wish you’d stop asking me that,” I finally barked one day. “I will let you know when I have something to report!”

My mother was one of the reasons I’d been able to climb the corporate ladder. On school breaks, she took the kids so I could work. When they were young and got sick, she came to our house, held them in her lap, read them stories and stroked their hot foreheads. When they were older, I dropped them off at her house, where she bundled them into blankets on the couch and gave them hot soup and cookies — so I could go to work, uninterrupted by the inconveniences of parenting.

You’re not only a washed-up career woman, you’re a crappy mother and an ungrateful daughter, said the voice.

The six-month clock ticked into the final weeks, and I interviewed for a Communications job. When the offer came later the same day, I forced excited enthusiasm into my voice and tried not to think of it as a backwards step.

A lot of things had changed in the 10 years I was away from the field. Social media had sped up what had already been a frenetic pace. The new job forced me to learn new skills and re-toned lapsed cerebral muscles. The relentless demands were grueling. I would fall into bed each night, completely spent. I was an aging hockey player on a rink full of top-ranked rookies.

But I learned that I had a veteran’s wisdom as well. My time away from the field had given me different experiences from my new colleagues. I negotiated and won some battles with influential executives, got praise from my new boss for introducing cost-saving innovations, and my team appreciated how I stood up for them.  A year in, I was promoted to an executive-level position.

You’re back, said the voice.

But anger still flickered, embers on a dying fire.

One evening, catching the bus for my commute home, I had my eye on an empty seat when I felt a tug on my sleeve and turned to see an ex-colleague.

“Susan, hi! It’s great to see you!” She was warm and bubbly and oblivious to what I’d been through. I remembered conversations with my former manager peers in which she was judged to be an “underwhelming” performer. Yet she was still there, while I’d been kicked to the curb. I smiled tightly.

 “So, when are you coming back?” she asked guilelessly.

The anger sparked into flame.

“Never!” I snarled. “I hate that place.”

She drew back, eyebrows arched in surprise, while I continued down the aisle and sat down. My hands were shaking.

Where did that come from? My hammering heart calmed and the wave of rage ebbed, shame and embarrassment filling its space.I stared out the window, feeling again all my failures, this one just the latest.

My son called that night, frustrated that he was still working in a restaurant job almost a year after graduating university. 

“You’re anxious because it feels like nothing is in your control,” I said. “So think about what IS in your control … just keep reaching out. It’s like hockey – keep shooting and the puck will eventually go in.”

He laughed. “My mother, the hockey analyst.”

Maybe you should listen to your own advice.

Hanging up, I thought about the incident on the bus and realized I was still holding onto resentment because I’d been forced to choose a job I didn’t want.

But you like your job now. Let it go. But don’t get too comfortable.

I began casually looking for other work. I wasn’t unhappy but if the right job came up, I would take it. I got an email from a former colleague, wondering if I’d consider coming back to my old workplace, since she’d heard I might be looking to move.

Reading it at my computer, I scanned my body for reactions. No stiffening of the spine or tightening in my neck. No heat flooding into my ears. Just a cool curiosity.

I typed a short response — “Sounds interesting. Let’s have a coffee and talk about it.”

Sipping wine on the patio that night, I described the job to Dan while he barbecued our chicken.

“So, do you think you would actually take it?” he asked, checking the temperature of the meat.

“I’m not sure. I need to find out more about it.”  

The sun was gold in the sky behind the neighbor’s tree, and I felt its warm glow on my arms and face. I breathed in the scent of crackling chicken skin and felt contentment.

“Probably not,” I said, taking another sip of wine. “I think it would feel like going backward.”

Susan started her career as a journalist before moving to government communications and project management. A life-long journaler and scribbler, she is excited to turn her efforts to more creative pursuits. This her first publication of creative non-fiction. Susan lives in Ottawa, Canada.