Thoughts after getting fired.

I was fired last Friday, and it is Monday today. Looking for poems on getting fired, I found this one by a Zen monk:

let go

the long weekend

becomes even longer

What I think is the strangest thing about being fired is how people do it. Modern corporative culture is deeply concerned with justifying itself and its power structures, and so people are often fired in a way that seems as closely as possible to quitting; as a decision that had to be taken solely due to personal inadecuacy. Firing someone is an excercise in scapegoating, and when firing, managers have to emphasize that none of the problems that could have lead to your termination were the fault of the company. It is your inability to adapt that gets you fired, leaving them no other choice than to confirm this state of affairs.

sorry to let you go

says the boss —

till the end a hypocrite

I was at this job for three months, having been taken in as an operator to make payments for a large hotel chain. It was one of the unnecessary jobs that have not yet been touched by automation because it is not yet economically sound to do so, or perhaps because the bosses do not know that it can be automated yet. I was fired with no warning, the manager asked me to borrow my company phone and I was fired officially the next day. It turns out they had already fired me the week before, but the person who had to let me know forgot to do so for a few days.

What truly distresses about this is not that I have a time of precarity coming (for as it is said, what difference does it make another strip on the tiger?), but that I never was safe at all. The reasons given for my dismissal were blurry, and had something to do with me being a very nice person, very responsible, who tried very hard and was getting to know the role, but who simply doesn't have the personality for this kind of job. Turns out that it wasn't what I did or did not do, it was simply who I was. A coworker who came in at the same time as I did, said to me: 'It is so strange. They never gave you a chance'.

unemployment line

everyone

looks like me

So, why did I get fired? I will never know. I suspect that they hired too many people too fast, and then they got rid of the excess people, those who didn't fit perfectly for one reason of another. In my case, I think it was because I didn't stress enough, and because I wrote things down in my computer's notepad instead of doing it on paper.

I have savings for three months, and I worry if I will find another job on time.

fired —

how autumn arrives

through my pocket