What do you do when an otherwise great boss blindsides you with the news that you are no longer an employee of his? Well I don’t know what others have done but me, I took the strong, silent route. Seriously. You could’ve knocked me over with a feather and I was sitting down when he told me. I don’t recall the exact words he used, but the tone of it was along the lines of, “Well you’ve been great to work with but you don’t have that much experience and well, we need someone who can take initiative here. So let’s just consider this your last day. Oh by the way, you owe me money for that dental cleaning you did on your own cat so we’ll just take it out of your last check.”

Let me backtrack a few steps: I’m a licensed Veterinary Technician who graduated in 2009. I got not one, but two new jobs at the same time. One was for my local humane society which, unfortunately did not have an opening for a vet tech. So I took an adoption counselor job, which I still have so obviously I’m doing something right. The other was a vet tech (part-time) at a small, and I mean hole-in-the-wall, vet clinic. It was a bit overwhelming between both jobs, learning new skills at two different positions. It’s tough enough starting one new job, let alone two.

I should’ve known it was going to be all kinds of bad at my vet tech job. When I first started I was told I’d only be given 3 days of training. I was given six WEEKS at the humane society, and that was only for a crappy adoption counselor job. Is there something wrong with this picture? About six weeks into my vet tech position I was pulled into the office by the doctor. He explained that he wanted to see me take more initiative. Apparently I had not been vocal enough about my desire to be trained and he wanted to see me just “jump right in”, as he put it. Never mind that this was my very first tech job and he and his employees weren’t exactly falling all over themselves trying to get me practical experience.

Fast forward five and a half months. I’d been slowly getting into the groove, trying to carve a niche for myself as a useful (albeit inexperienced) technician. I’d gotten used to the routine and though I still needed practice with a lot of things, I felt that over time I would get it bit by bit. Not so fast! One Friday afternoon (note that you should not let go employees on a Friday, when they now have all weekend to do nothing but scheme about ways to exact their revenge), I was called upstairs by the doctor. Uh-oh; by now I’ve learned it’s never a good sign that the doctor wants to speak privately. Guess I was right. I sat there as he told me I was being dismissed, hardly able to keep myself from bursting into tears. The only thing I could do was to agree with everything he said. He was right after all: I did need more training (and if his staff had been willing to do it we wouldn’t have needed to have that discussion). All I could think about as I left that day was the mountain of bills I’d been slowly chipping away at over the past few months, and how I’d surely be maxing out all my available avenues of credit yet again. Luckily I was still employed at the humane society so I had a bit of a safety net there.

Fast forward about a year. Right around the beginning of the summer I ran into one of my former workmates, a highly trained, experienced technician who, you guessed it, was let go from the same place I was. She informed me that as soon as I left, I was replaced with a person who knew the good doctor. How’s that for favoritism?

Fast forward (I know, AGAIN?) another two months and lo and behold, I meet the girl who took my job. WOW. How’s that for fate? She showed up at the adoption shelter where I work and when I saw her place of employment listed on her application she was only too happy to talk about it. Of course she had no clue I was pumping her for information. Turns out she is the niece of the good doctor’s golf buddy. She graduated at exactly the same time I did and spent the first year afterward down at Disney World. That’s right: DISNEY WORLD. She interned (translation- worked for free) at the vet hospital in Animal Kingdom. Here’s the best part – they didn’t even let her do anything technician related. She got to be an assistant, that’s it. So she had no more technical experience than me. In fact, I even had MORE because I’d actually been working as a tech for six months.

I guess now I don’t feel so bad but I still managed to lose out because after all, I am the one who got canned.

This post was submitted by Jenn.

All my life I have always heard that longevity in a job shows you are stable and looks real good on your resume’. Well, I am a stable person by nature anyway, so staying at the same job is no problem for me. The problem is the career path I chose. Actually, I didn’t choose it, I fell into it quite by accident.

Way back in 1982, I saw a want ad published by a recruiter for a dental assistant for $15,000. I inquired about it and when I had the interview with the recruiter, all she talked about was a job with Loyola Federal as a mortgage processor for $6700.00. I asked what about the dental assistant job? She said, “oh, that’s not available”. So there goes my start in the mortgage business. I was only 17 at the time and still living at home, so I was not pressed to make a certain salary. Anyway, fast forwarding to 2011, I made an observation. I never lost a job the first 14 yrs in the mortgage industry. In the last 16 yrs., I have been laid off 4 times. I have now been laid off for 7 months. I am a mortgage underwriter and my 30 yrs of experience apparently is meaningless in this crappy economy.

In my most recent job, 4 out of 8 people in our MD office were laid off a week before Christmas and only 9 days after the company Christmas party. Real nice, huh? The rest of us were gone when office was shut down all together, which was no surprise. Problem that I see is that in the first 14 yrs. I never lost a job because I would leave a job before it got bad enough for offices to start closing. I would say safe zone was 2 – 3 years. So I have concluded that longevity in a job doesn’t pay. Keep on moving..

This post was submitted by Irene .

When I am home for the summer it is always near impossible to find employment. However, I responded to a Craigslist ad for a seasonal job, and I got an interview. The interview was with the owner of the boutique, and she said that the job would last until labor day. I was upfront and said I couldn’t work until then (because of school) and she said that she would discuss me with the manager. I was hired, even after expressing doubts, but the owner assured me that she needed me.

So I work for two months in the retail industry. However, the boss is very difficult. For instance, she wanted me to circulate the overall store more, but also pay specific attention to individual (white) customers in the fitting room. I was also told to watch the Hispanics and Muslims (don’t know how you can tell what religion people are by their looks) because they were prone to shoplift. Now I know what she was doing was wrong, but I kept the job because I really needed money. It did become stressful to work though. The owner kept giving me tasks and then changing her mind and holding me accountable. However, I did everything to please her.

After two months, the manager called me in after a shift and out of the blue and told me I was being let go. The reason? I wasn’t a right fit. I guess because I refused to racial profile, I did not belong. I’m glad I’m not a right fit because I’m not going to school to be a retail slave. However, I was upset to be let go. Now my boss used to hold a Cabinet position with the state so she is well published. After doing some research I found out that she didn’t pay income taxes because she often claims losses on her business. Funny how someone can cheat the system! Well I am unemployed but I guess I learned my lesson about working for horrible people.

This post was submitted by EC.

I worked for the owner of a small company, a very difficult man, for over 12 years. He was very happy with my work but was having dire financial problems. We all kind of expected the doors to close at any time.

While I was on vacation at my nephew’s wedding, waiting for the ceremony to begin, my cell phone rang. It was my fiancé, at home. He said, “You got an overnight letter from your company. Do you want me to open it and read it to you?” Expecting it to say the company was closing its doors, I said, “Yes, go ahead.”

So he read me a terse letter saying my position had been eliminated, the HR guy would help me collect my things, and thanking me for my years of service!

Needless to say I was majorly bummed out during my nephew’s wedding. My mother looked at me quizzically when I got my second gin & tonic at the reception (unusual for me). I didn’t want to spoil her beautiful day, so I kept the news to myself until later.

Just today I learned that the jerk won’t give me a letter of recommendation because it’s “against his policy.”

This post was submitted by MktgGirl.

It was 2008. In May, I left my job at my hometown television station as my wife and I left for “greener pastures” in the next state. A more tolerable schedule and pay scale.

While there were disappointments regarding the work environment, and it was a bad year for local TV overall, I felt secure, even when the salary freezes were announced. I was a hard worker, dependable, turned out my assignments quickly and satisfied clients; plus, the company had just invested in a four-day trip to a major city for training.

Six months to the day after being hired, my company had its annual “Thanksgiving lunch.” After I’d just finished my dessert, I got a call from the general manager, asking to stop by his office. Oblivious, I tried to figure out what he wanted. I still didn’t get it when the HR director was there when I showed up. I thought it might be a disciplinary thing, but couldn’t understand what I could have done wrong.

And that’s when it started. “Hardest part of my job … I hold myself responsible …”

What was I going to tell my wife, who I’d moved down to start a new life? How would we pay our bills? Would I ever realize my dreams of film school and filmmaking?

This story might have a happy ending, though. I’m in film school now, making my thesis feature, and it was inspired by my layoff and nine months of unemployment. You can learn more about it at the webpage I listed. I hope you will stop by.

This post was submitted by Cineaste Auteur.