When I tell someone I’m a Graphic Designer, they’re almost always impressed. It’s such a cool job title. When I tell them what kind of work I’ve done, the excitement fades and an awkward expression comes over their face. It’s a familiar expression and it just says “please stop talking about your job.”

I got my first break in 2006 with a business-to-business catalog company. It wasn’t very exciting products, but it was a start. At the time, everyone else wanted designers with 2-3 years experience. I had just graduated college and, aside from student work, I had no experience. Not to mention I was given a lot more responsibility than I’d get anywhere else. The pay was bad compared to my peers, but after less than a year I was managing the catalog. I figured I’d get my 2-3 years and come out with a very strong resume.

Then the recession hit. I was laid off in 2009 and now everyone wanted 4 years experience for the same work. What feedback I got mostly fit into two categories: you’re over-qualified or you’re under-experienced. I couldn’t get an entry-level job because I’d been a project manager and I couldn’t get a job as a project manager because I’d only been working in the field for 3 years.

Things started to look a little better that fall. There were a few solid leads and I actually had a couple offers on the table. Nothing spectacular, but the work was certainly more exciting and the pay would be a slight improvement over my last job.

Then I got the call. My former department head was quitting. They wanted me to take over her job and head up the department.

You may think me foolish for accepting a job from a company that had already laid me off once. The thing is that nobody, and I mean nobody, in my field manages an art department in their first 5 years as a designer. It’s unheard of. And while I fully expected to be paid less than I was worth, the base pay for this position was twice what I’d been making before.

I turned down my other offers and accepted the job. I’d start in a couple weeks. I’d start back at my old pay with my old job title and transition to department head when the old department head left. In the mean time, she would teach me everything about her job that I hadn’t already done.

When it came time for me to take on my new responsibilities, things changed. The plan had never been for me to take over as department head, only to take on the added responsibilities of the department head. There would be no change in my title and I would not be getting that raise. I’d lost all my other offers to come back and they knew it. Even though I’d been misled and everything I’d agreed to had been misrepresented, times were still tight and there wasn’t anywhere else for me to go.

A couple months later, I thought I had turned things around. I had done the impossible for the company and redesigned a 64-page catalog from scratch in two weeks. It was in the bag and it looked great. I’d worked long hours on this. I’d even been flown out to Maine in order to approve the final prints. I kept thinking how, after just a couple more catalogs, I’d have a much stronger portfolio and resume. I’d taken on something huge and been treated like dirt, but I owed the company nothing and I could use this job to move on to something better.

That’s when the final blow came. After the first samples of the catalog got shipped in, my boss called me into his office and once again I found out I’d been misled. The company had been looking for an outside design firm since before I started. My old department head’s quitting had thrown everything off and they needed someone to fill in until they found the right firm. Now they had. I had six weeks to transfer my files and wrap up my unfinished projects. With the way they’d handled everything, all I could put on my resume was that I’d been let go after completing only one project.

It’s difficult for me to confront the prospect of unemployment again, but I do know what to expect. Plus, my wife has a well-paying job now, so our finances should weather the storm. What really hurts is how cruel and calculating this whole setup was. They could have just as easily hired a freelancer or even asked that the department head stay on for one more project. I get that a company has to focus on the bottom line, but this just feels like they went out of their way to crush me.

This post was submitted by Sam.

On my second day in a new job as a tech support person, I started a download of OpenOffice.org, a free alternative to Microsoft Office. Midway through the process, the system administrator came up to me and asked what I was downloading. When I told him, he stated that “we use Microsoft Office. We sell software, and we support other software publishers.”

I’m not one to take dictation from anyone, and our disagreement became rather noisy and ugly. This was on a Tuesday. Two days later, my boss called me into a conference room and fired me. Why he didn’t fire me immediately? Because he sent an email asking me to talk with him to the wrong email address, and because he chose not to sacrifice a day working at home on the Wednesday.

This post was submitted by Tim Carmell.

I worked for seven years as a copy editor and sportswriter at a smallish daily newspaper.

One night while I’m at the desk, my boss stops by my desk (on his way out to the casino or the bar, I’m sure) and asks me to come in to work an hour early the next day. No explanation why.

So, next day rolls around and I come in, put my coat around my chair, log on my computer and start building pages and opening copy to edit. About 20 minutes later, my boss walks up and tells me, “They need to see you in the executive conference room.” Uh oh.

The experience of walking from one end of the newsroom to the other, where the executive offices were located, was oddly exhilarating. Looking back, it must have been sort of like what the walk down the final mile to the electric chair must feel like for a death row inmate. On the way, I pass my boss (who had walked ahead of me) and the managing editor. Neither look at me, say a word to me. I see them around town. I’ve never said a word to them since.

In the conference room, there’s a guy I’ve never seen before and seven manila envelopes, face down, on the table. This is one of the newspaper’s lawyers. He takes one of the packets and goes through the spiel of laying me off. Or should I say, “guiding me through this reduction in force.” They offer me a choice: severance of what ends up being less than six months pay or unemployment. One or the other. No insurance extension. No help finding another job.

I’m in such shock that I just walk out, leaving my coat at my desk. The pink slip gives the day’s date as my final work day, so, a couple hours later, I drive back to the paper prepared to finish out my last day. At least I can close out my newspaper career with dignity.

I type in my door code. No dice. They’ve already wiped out my door access. I have to knock on the door to get someone to let me in the building. I go back to my desk and get back into work. I hear quiet discussion coming from the desks behind me, but I don’t pay attention. I’m focused on work, trying not to think about what has happened. A few minutes later, another editor, a guy I’ve known for literally 10 years walks up to my desk. He taps me on the shoulder and tells me, “You need to log out and go.” It was the coldest I’ve ever heard him sound and it was like a sucker punch. They weren’t even going to let me finish out the day.

I gave a short, defeated so long to the two other guys in the department that night, grabbed my coat, and walked out. I’ve never spoken to anyone from the paper again.

I’m back in graduate school, working for half my former salary while trying to establish myself in a new career.

This post was submitted by Eric Farquharsen.

I’ve known for over a year that I was getting laid off. Being a Recruiter in the Human Resources Department, you hear more and know more than you probably should. Defenitely more than the others, which is why you have to keep your mouth shut in HR.

My co-workers and I were the lucky crew who stuffed the severance packages for our employees while we hadn’t been officially informed of our own layoffs, only hearing about it from the business side.

Technically, I am still here. I have a week to go. I miss my ‘job’ because I haven’t hired anyone for a year.

This post was submitted by Laid Off Recruiter.

I started a new job in a new industry in July 2009 after months of unemployment. I went through 3 months and 3 interviews to get this job. In retrospect, that was probably a huge warning sign.

I was trained haphazardly by co-workers. They’d squeeze in 15 minutes before lunch to show me how to do X and then hand me documentation. Or I’d have a half a day of a co-worker complaining about how useless dept processes were under the guise of “training” After a couple weeks working, a co-worker just wasn’t there. I was told that he wasn’t happy with the job and had moved on. In a recession sure… I wouldn’t quit shoveling horse manure in this crummy economy! Then the manager who hired me left the company so I had a new boss.

This new boss was never around, didn’t understand her own department’s processes/reports, and had really horrible social skills. I had maybe 3 meetings with her in 6 months.

End of December a couple co-workers and I were made aware of a huge mistake I had made. In my defense, I wasn’t aware or clear on how to perform the task and had been trained once in July. So, we scrambled to correct my mistake and it looked like most was correctable. So, I thought the mistake would go by unnoticed and didn’t say anything to my boss.

End of January 2010, my mistake turned out to be huge and cost the company a lot of money. I came in Monday morning, none of my computer passwords worked, I had a meeting with my boss and the VP. I was back home with a bag of my stuff within an hour.

I was officially let go three days later. It didn’t matter that I didn’t understand the whole process of how this mistake became so huge. It also didn’t matter that a new hire was given such an important task with no check-up at all for six months. The bottom line was that I didn’t notify my boss. When I was let go, I suggested better training in the future to avoid such problems.

This post was submitted by AnnaB.