BEFORE YOU READ ANY FURTHER I HAVE NOT BEEN FIRED FROM MY MOST CURRENT ROLE!
This is a difficult thing to write about because for many, myself included it can represent some of the worst days of your life.
We spend 60% to 75% of our awake life at work after Top 3 Chit-Chat Olympic Medal Topics of; “How do you do?”, “Where do you live?”, “What’s your name?”,
“What do you do for work?” is almost always the next one…
But something that is not often talked about and often leaves people reeling is getting fired or losing their job; for many of you, I hope you haven’t had to heard the following too many times;
“We’re letting you go”
“It’s not working out here”
“We are facing significant reductions in workforce”
“You’re shittier than a Clapham Junction toilet”
“I’ve boiled eggs with more meaningful personality than you”
I have been “Let Go” no less than 3 times; each time worse than the next – to the point where I would equate the last one to almost near perfect heart-break. So cringe inducing was my personal distress on the last occasion; that I actually hugged the two people doing the firing at the end.
My actions in hindsight seemed so bizarre I wonder if I may have ingested an extra-curricular substance on the day in question without realising it.
The reason I bring it up now is two-fold; I feel happy in a job that is truly challenging and in the intervening years since last being let go lessons have been learned. It’s never nice and never enjoyable – in all 3 of the circumstances I have learnt a valuable truth.
1st Firing
I was hired as a Restaurant Manager with a Contract Caterer; I had delayed my start after a Contract Role at the Olympics due to ankle surgery from a Squash accident that summer where I rupture a ligament and fractured my ankle. Truly an amazing feat for a man described in one school PE report as;
“Rotund but with surprising athleticism, especially when gravity intervenes”
I arrived to the role in the October with a sexy air-boot on my right ankle after delaying my start for 6 weeks whilst I recovered. I fluffed my first project given to me and whilst I made positive strides with team integration, learning and quality control. I felt like an outsider or interloper in that place - my fate was sealed by January.
Sat in the HoD’s meeting we were informed the client was making 30% reductions across the board, including catering and that redundancy was being discussed across all outlets. Once the meeting finished, I loitered for the General Mananger and sheepishly asked;
“As I was the last one in, does that make me the first one out?”
“Yes” was the answer…
1 month later as my notice period concluded; I left with no job and no answers to next steps.
The Catering company gave me no other sites to move into and my outreach to colleagues internally left me with nothing to save my employment.
TRUTH 1
BUILD RELATIONSHIPS HARD AND FAST: Circumstances can suck but what hurts more is feeling like your connections weren’t meaningful enough to leverage. Don’t underestimate the power of your story and personality. It might be the thing that saves you one day…I do not think I was positive enough in the role (and macro-economic situations can sometimes suck which is entirely outside of your control!)
2nd Firing
FACT 1 - This came 9 months after the first one, the day before my Grandmothers 80th Birthday with full family reunion. (Just imagine my hangover…)
FACT 2 - Twice in a year will test your personal resilience, I promise you that!
This was a hard because my analytical business sense had been telling me for weeks, maybe even months that the business could not sustain the payroll and operation constraints we had in the business, but I had worked really hard to deliver on my potential and I wasn’t going to give up without a fight!
Initially hired with a group of 4 supervisors; I was offered the GM role I desperately wanted; it was an amazing confidence boost to be given such responsibility and to feel as if I was contributing to the business.
In this time;
· I wrote my first wine list
· I got the best education in cocktail making and the history of cocktails
· I designed menus, ran beautiful events and developed service I was really proud of!
· Served a Prime Minister
· Launched a 5-story business with a roof terrace
· Earned the trust of professionals who still value me to this day.
It was ultimately, my own naivety and inexperience that brought about my downfall here – whilst I hadn’t done anything inherently bad; mistakes were made whilst some of them are hard to accept even now, some of them were my own doing.
The worst of these mistakes was leaving a journal/work diary in the small shared office, where I enumerate the ways in which I felt emasculated and undermined by the Operations Director.
It was found and read … Feel free to peel your face like a tangerine when at my one to one the following day it was quoted back to me, I feel sick now remembering it!
I was let go by the Events Director; the other two Directors (Culinary & Operations) of the Business choosing to hide away. She executed me quickly,
“Business could not afford to keep me, I was being let go...”
It hurt, but I now have a warm and caring relationship with her and from that connection I have more context surrounding my own loss of job.
TRUTH 2
EMPLOYMENT IS WORK; NOT YOUR FAMILY NOR YOUR BUSINESS - Just because you believe that you have agency and ownership in a role, you are most of the time an employee just like so many others. Until you have two years in role; short of illegality/gross misconduct you can and will be replaced. Be mindful, be aware and trust your gut.
3rd Firing
This is still hard to come to terms with because I will probably never get closure on this, ever. For a long time, it has eaten away at my like Pac-Man on the Super Cherry!
I had told my wife the night before it happened that I was going to be fired, I knew it and my gut was telling it was going to happen.
I had a previous relationship with the owners and for my part in it all I had worked and dedicated myself to a role that was a times, incredibly uncertain, stressful and full of complex/confusing emotions.
I had swathes of faint praise poured upon me, given ample responsibility and contributed as much as I could to the delivery of the project. Conversely, I was also publicly berated in some of the most humiliating moments of my working life and that hurt.
I was ultimately let go a few days after my birthday and 2 weeks into the soft launch of a restaurant. This was whilst my wife was on maternity leave with our 4-month-old son. I had left a job in Selfridges, where I would have received a solid paternity package and protection from COVID unemployment that followed in March 2020. I had been thriving at Selfridges although, I struggled with some elements of feeling like I truly belonged in the big yellow store.
I was so excited for the possibilities of this role and it was a 10-minute walk from my house too.
Convenience and nostalgia should never play a role in taking a job, they should however play a part in choosing your dinner on a Friday night.
I took the sacking like a champ – said my goodbyes, hugged my team and wished them well and cried a lot
I went home and for the first time did not get shit-faced drunk, I cried, I mourned that loss of identity. I actually took a bath with my son instead and revelled in that most wholesome of moments.
TRUTH 3
HISTORY HAS A NASTY HABIT OF REPEATING ITSELF IF YOU DON’T LEARN.
I guess this next little anecdote is the epitome of this truth…
At 5 years old, on two different occasions, within 6 months of each other. I snagged my own willy in a pair of zippy front pyjamas.
A hard lesson to learn at 5, something I have never forgotten but at that age it’s hard thing to realise that you may have been in part responsible for something that catastrophic.
Learn, improve – and never where zippy front pyjamas. - words to live by! It can take three profoundly hard moments for you to realise this and sometimes it takes fifty – but as long as you’re still prepared to learn from it; you’ll always be better for it in the end.
It’s about the habit of learning rather than solely focusing on the outcome; at least it has been for me and I'm pretty happy with where I am now!
Love
Goose
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