Yes, I’ve been fired. Like several of the other commentators, I prefer to work for someone I can respect. Not very realistic, I know. As much as I need the money, there are other things that I need more…sorry, world. As to being fired, take it from whence it comes.

I was a stay at home Mom and decided that being an Avon Lady would be a perfect job for me to earn a little extra money, while the girls were in school. Guess I was not too good at it, because one day I got a phone call from the district manager telling me I was not selling enough products and she was not getting her percentage so I was fired. Welcome to the real world. Even Avon ladies had quotas.

I worked for a family owned company for 2 years. 6 days a week - 10 to 12 hours a day. When I took my first vacation since starting with the company I came back to be told that I was a great person but not the person they needed to take them where they wanted to go. Translation - a friend of the family needed a job so they gave her mine. It was ultimately very liberating especially with the severance package they gave me. NEVER try to screw the Director of HR!

I’ve been fired once while working two weeks only for a family-owned business. I was taken out for lunch by one of the managers who “confided” in me that he didn’t really want to fire me but he was forced to as one of the female staff that had been with the company since the beginning felt completely threatened by me…when I asked him why she felt that way, he told me that she couldn’t deal with the fact that I learned my job so quickly and didn’t require her to train me beyond two days…he also told me that I was the 7th employee to be hired and fired because of her in the previous 8 months. Needless to say, I thanked him for his honesty, rose from my chair (before lunch arrived), shook his hand and bid him a good day. Any company that allows one idiot employee to run others off like that is no place for me.

I was fired last year by a true old fashioned male chauvinist. He couldn’t even give me a reason other than I “just wasn’t right for the job”. I had started as a Vice President of Lending after being in the industry 20 years. He was hired above me and had zero years in the industry. The org chart while I was there was a nice mix of women and men in senior management positions. When I left he promoted 2 men, and the org chart began to look like the “good old boys” club. He would make sexist remarks and was a real pig. Of course my ego was busted, and I was in shock. Once I settled down, I came to love my time off. Having worked since I was 15 (I am 48) it was a time to rediscover who I was…I had lost myself in the corporate world and had become a robot. I soon discovered there were many facets of who I was that had been hidden and suppressed for years. It was liberating to get to know myself again. Many times we define who we are by our careers….we are so much more. I ended up getting another job after 4 months of unemployed bliss, but I will never forget the precious lesson I learned that there is so much more to us than who we are from 9-5.

I have only been fired once, I never saw it coming. The owner of the place that I worked didn’t see eye to eye, I had ethics he didn’t and I called him out on it a couple of times. My husband and I had to leave the state to go home and bury my father and I had to take a couple of extra days cause my sister and i had to get his will straightened out. A month after that he fired me. He waited till he was out of town had the secretary write a letter and say they no longer needed me and that was the name of that tune. I was sad for alittle while but I got to go to school and do somehting worth while. By the way I worked there for nine years.

Yes I was fired once at age 19 by my FATHER!!! Oh, it was ok, I deserved it. I took complete advatage of being the bosses daughter. He taught me a very valuable lesson that has carried me through to age 47. On Novemebr 26, 2007 I was caught up in a major reorg of a global semiconductor company. I was given 7 weeks sevrance pay, my first granddaughter was born 2 days later and I was able to spend the holidays with her and with pay! I couldn’t have planned it better if I tried. God is good.

Yes, I was laid off once and fired once. The layoff was a company-wide layoff and we all knew it was coming. Several of us had been there for 20 years and at the end of the year they gave us a party. And three months later, they laid us all off. No severance pay but they did let us stay and get paid for a couple of months until we could find a new job. Getting fired was an absolute nightmare. I came back from vacation and went to work on a Monday morning and in the afternoon the administrator and a partner came into my office and told me I was fired. The excuses they gave were pathetic. I was in total shock. I’m still very bitter at the law firm but in fact, it was nice having 4 months off with unemployment until I found another job. But if it happened again, I think I’d just do temporary work until I can retire. I’m sick of the daily grind and all the pressure of working for lawyers.

I was laid off several times during my working life. Each and every time I received severance pay and a huge going away party—often to be rehired at a hugh raise after I had been working with another company for awhile. Corporations (banks) no wonder they are in the shape they are currently in—no advance planning. Just do what you have to do for that next quarterly report.

I was laid off (along with half the company) two weeks after purchasing my first home. After four months of searching for employment and on the verge of losing my house I found a great job and a new direction in my life. I believe that God only gives you what you can handle, although at times I thought I had been pushed beyond my limit.

Twice. Once when I very young and before sexual harassment was even considered an issue. If I only knew then what I know now! The second time as an RN was much later in life and brought considerably more pain. I cried so hard I thought I might choke to death. One week later I enrolled in an under graduate program. Two years following I graduated suma cum lade with my Bachelors in Collaborative Health and Human Services. Two years after that I graduated with honors again with my Masters of Social Work. You can take me/us down but do not plan on keeping me/us there for very long! Currently I serve as a Clinical Supervisor, RN, Medical Social Worker and ACSW for Home Care. I also teach at the local community college and last year taught at the Cal State U. where I received my BS Degree. There are solutions in life and we wowOwow women can move forward if we want to.

They called it a layoff but it felt like I was fired. I was one of the best employees and had done nothing wrong or been lacking in any way. I was what is called an extended day care aide for a local school district. The center I was assigned to over estimated the number of kinders they would have in the mornings. By the end of the first week of the new school year they knew I would have to be gone because they had no other openings. When my supervisor’s supervisor gave me the news — over the phone — I mentioned bumping some newer hire and she hmmm’ed and haw’ed, then said that would be unfair to the person being bumped but if I insisted … Then she told me that I would have to submit a letter of resignation! She did offer me a chance to be placed at a new site for a PM shift but when I submitted my intent form the previous spring I had made it clear that I could not work a PM shift. The woman tried to tell me that she had never received my intent form so I would have to get my letter of resignation to her within the next three days! I couldn’t believe that she was trying to clear up her incompetence — not honoring my intent form and placing me in a more secure position as I had requested — by getting me to resign. My husband was in a management position with his company and did all the dismissing so was familiar with the labor laws in the state. He knew that under the circumstances the supervisor could not ask me for my resignation so he composed a letter for me. The crux of the message was that I had enjoyed working with the other aides and was disappointed that I had been asked to submit the letter of resignation when my position had been eliminated rather than me voluntarily leaving. I dropped the letter off that PM and the phone was ringing when I walked onto the house not 10 minutes later. It was the head secretary at the district offices. She told me that I could not submit a letter like that and actually ordered me to replace it with a letter of resignation ASAP — which, of course, I declined. After that the local for classified employees contacted and interviewed me about the situation and followed up by raking the district over the coals. Since my husband was transferred within a month I didn’t not go as far as demanding the position I had a right to because I had seniority over several other aides. I was in contact with several folks who still worked for that district and they kept me posted on the trouble I caused — bunches. It had not been the first time a resignation had been demanded of a person who was really being laid off.

I’ve been fired several times, and been “laid off” twice. Each time, I was crushed. But each time I bounced back and went on to something bigger and better. The last time I was fired from a big corporation was in 1977. I was the only woman in a Product Management position in a very chauvinistic company owned by a foreign conglomerate. I was promoted into the position to fullfill Equal Opportunity regs, but the order from overseas was to make sure I failed. Finally, after a couple of years, I was told I wasn’t “promotable.” I took the year off and finished my MBA (which I had been studying for at night). Then I got a better job at a leading New York Ad Agency (not Wells, Rich, Greene). I left that job for a better position in two years, but five years later was laid off when the agency lost a big account. I went to another ad agency as Vice President at a much higher salary, but was laid off when that agency lost a big account. At that point, I decided to go into business for myself, and completely changed fields (at the age of 52). It is now 21 years later, and my business is thriving, and I couldn’t be happier. I attribute it to luck and hard work, but mostly to a positive attitude.

A couple of times and laid off several times. The last was done by a woman who had been promoted far beyond her education and experience. My first day on the job, before her promotion, she became angry because it was necessary for us to share an office space. After her promotion she tried to reprimand me for something I did not do and ended up being told by her boss to apologize to me. The stage was now set. Her boss later left the country on vacation and she concocted a set of absolute lies saying I threatened/attacked her. Of course there were no witnesses. She spoke with the company atttorney, in another state, who advised her to immediately dismiss me. I was denied unemployment, appealed and won. She also found a way to fire the top producing salesman, who had been with the company for over 5 years. She was later fired herself. The entire situation was so abusive I saw a counselor for a year. Don’t ever work for a Sociopathic liar.