I Just Got Fired... and I'm In Heaven

It felt like God himself touched me on the shoulder and said, “Child, your work here is done.” But instead of God, it was my boss, standing there in his navy blue Padagonia vest, all agitated (as though he were the one being fired). And instead of “Now, go in peace,” he said, “This isn’t working out.”

And just like that, I was out of a job.

I’d been working for about four months at this manufacturing company, a loud and dusty affair tucked away in an industrial cooridor on the northwest side of Chicago. I was brought in to be the Business Manager; a combo HR and accounting job. Keep one eye on the safe, and another on the staff, as it were. The pay was fine, not great, but I was feeling lucky to have a job given the state of the world, these days. I’d been feeling pretty good about being some place so “stable” where there was never-ending work, which meant never-ending income for everyone around.

But… the truth had been eating away at me, really, from the beginning.

I wasn’t happy there. The company had some deep, systemic issues. Without getting too deeply to into it, managment wasn’t kind, supportive, or interested in anyone’s privacy, job satisfaciton, or work-life balance. Their only interest was in More. Just Make more. Sell more. Ship more. More, more, more.

When I started at the company, I conducted a series of interviews, for HR purposes. Several of the employees were demoralized; emotionally hanging on by a thread, but terrified to lose their jobs. No one in managment willing to listen to them (except me - and listen, I did). In due time, I would find out that some employees actually owed the company money - a conflict of interest I find morally repugnant. It was too close to indentured servitude for my taste.

But I was new, and I needed the job.

So, I kept my mouth shut, and kept working.

At my first company meeting, the president of the company couldn’t be bothered to even dial-in. Instead, the CFO took the reigns, and gave a strange and rambling speech about how employees should not be talking about each other behind their backs. The atmosphere was thin; as though employees were middle schoolers being forced to listen to an ad-hoc 7th grade social studies presentation about how girls can be mean.

I looked around at a sea of confused faces, and realized mine probably bore the same expression. I put my head down, yet again, but the feeling began to rise in my belly… that same, old feeling I’d had when I’d been in similar situations before.

Sometimes, it’s just not a fit.

Still, it was a bit of a shock to get fired. I was being held solely responsible for a mistake shared by three separate people. One strike, and I was out out. It was a heady moment. Felt cruel, at first. But …if you really think about it, a job is not a fixed thing. It is not a hammer, or a eukelele, or a mule. A job is an agreement (and a tentative one, at best) of labor in exchange for cash, sometimes health insurance, and better A/C than my place. It is an agreement easily severed. The job I’d “had” was an illusion.

But everything is change.

Nothing can be held forever.

Life just doesn’t work that way.

I’ve never been fired before. When it’s come to corporate jobs, I’ve always been the one doing the leaving, usually for some new artistic endeavor. I was almost fired once from an acting job because I couldn’t remember my entrances and exits. This sounds absurd, but: I was playing a saloon owner in an oldie-timie Western, Girl of the Golden West. The idea was, there was plenty more saloon off-stage, so whenever they didn’t need me to interact with the main players, I was to be serving others elsewhere.

I had over 50 entrances and exits to learn, with about 50% of them completely random, motivated by imaginary people in “other parts of the saloon” who were “calling to me.” You have to be a little unhinged to be an actor; so often you’re asked to just do the most absurd things! At any rate, we had all of two weeks to put this thing on its feet, and I just could not memorize this ficticious two-hour stretch, and three days before opening night, I was still glued to my script. With each passing moment, I was sure that either the director was going to fire me, or kill me, which only added to my distress. It was a classic “the show must go on…” moment… but how? Seriously, how?

Somewhere in those final three days, it occurred to me that I wasn’t being graded. That as long as the show didn’t stop, I was doing (some semblance) of that job. I just needed more time to remember the pattern. I could do this…. I just needed a bit more time. And a cheat sheet.

That’s right. Feeling not great about it, but seeing no other choice, I created a cheat sheet. In tiny letters (on a napkin) I wrote down every single cue (Civilians: an actor’s “cues” are the words we have to listen for that prompt our next move, or line) followed by “enter stage R”, “enter stage L”, “exit stage R”, or “enter stage L”. Terrified of making a mistake, I’d stand just offstage and stare at the sheet, waiting for that next “…and whoo hee, I sure did holler!” and spring into action as though my life depended on it.

I fought to keep that job. I had to. Also, I loved that job. And, sure, I was less afraid of being fired than I was of outright failing. But it really was the love of the work, itself, that drove me to fashion a cheat sheet for myself. It’s not about me, it’s about the audience. They won’t know, so it’s all good.

Eventually, I could do the show without the cheat sheet. But it took … another couple weeks. I wouldn’t have made it without the cheat sheet. And I couldn’t be prouder of my younger self (I was in my early 20’s) for figuring it out, insetad of giving up.

Sometimes, we do what we do out of love.

As I sat there being fired, I didn’t even consider fighting for the job. In fact, I was instantly relieved. I nodded and said, “Okay,” and turned back to my computer. One click at a time, I closed all of the applications I had open, and locked myself out. I was leaning down to get a box out from under my desk when I heard him.

“Do … you want to come back later for your things?”

He was still in my office.

“No, I’m good,” I said, and continued packing.

Looking back, I think he was the one in shock, not me. I think he was in shock because he wasn’t getting any push-back. Not even for a second. I was just in one of those “God has full power” moments, and I just let it go. I knew that fighting for it was not the move; surrender was. Maybe it’s all the God moments I’ve had in my life that I can attibute to good luck, and even better Karma, but I just knew: this is a gift.

I could no more control what this man was going to do with his company than the Man in the Moon.

I smiled.

Mr. Padagonia went back to his office, clearly confused. I quickly gathered my things (a yellow-and-white striped mug; a framed baby picture of my son. A plant named Maggie Jr.) and said my goodbyes.

It all fit perfectly inside one single printer-paper box. It was, if I may say so… perfect.

Sometimes, God reveals Himself with simplicity.

As I walked out into the clear blue, June sunlight with my box, I felt excited. Not only was I going to be able to enjoy the rest of the glorious summer day, I felt as though God was with me, simply making way for something better. “Wow, God,” I marveled, as I shut the door of the car. “What must you have in store for me, next?!”

In a perfect world, I would have been able to tell them where to ‘shove this job’ in a month or two, anyways. But we don’t live in a perfect world; what fun would that be? But regardless, ttwo days later, I had temp work lined up, and a week later, I began pre-production on my latest film project, Human Noise. The ups and downs of life of an artist have always been there. But it is, after all, what I’ve chosen to do, and, what I believe I’ve been chosen for.

Control is an illusion.

Surrender brings peace.

… and only Love is real, anyhow.

It is a conscious choice to see things this way. I have chosen this optimism. I’m 51 years old, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned about life, it’s all about how you choose to see things. If it’s a dark void, it is a dark void. If it’s a gift filled with Light, it’s a gift filled with Light. I looked upon this firing as a gift; I chose the Light.

There are things I learned at that job that I’ll probably need in the future, especially if I ever meet anyone else that attached to his (money) Padagonia vest. But this firing didn’t knock me off course. If anything, it righted me. It wasn’t a good fit, and I needed to do more than ‘hunker down’ there. I’m worth way more, too, than a subsistance dependent on some rich guy’s whims.

So, God simply put this particular bee into the correct bonnet at just the right time, and suddenly… freedom.

Before bed that night, I prayed a few words of Thanksgiving; may they never be forgotten: “Dear Lord, Thank you for allowing me to be fired for no cause. I will be able to get severance, unemployement too if I need it, and I’ll get a good recomendation because I never took a single misstep when it came to the money… and I’ll never have to go back there again. Bless you, Lord, thank you! For I do believe… I’m in Heaven.”