That time I got fired

And gave the performance of my life

Hello, and thank you for reading The Honesty Box. Today, I’m writing about how I got the sack from one of my first jobs, which was a bit of a performance.

We’ve all had the sense of being a square peg in a round hole, and I reckon that feeling is particularly acute when you’re in a job that really isn’t working for you. Or, as I felt, I wasn’t fitting into a job I really thought I ‘should’ fit into.

When I was in my twenties, I got fired for the first time (and actually the last time, though I have been made redundant since). For the two years I was in that role, I tried to shave off those square peg angles to become smooth and circular to fit in perfectly.

The company I worked for was a one-year-old advertising agency start-up when I joined, and it had just won a major retail client that it had promised the world to. It was one of the hottest agencies in town, run by big names who had egos to match, in an industry where everything was scrappy and sweaty inside yet had to appear perfectly presented outside.

The man had warned me that we would be having a ‘performance’ meeting (like I was in a show - if only)

My job as an account executive – a bit like a project manager – meant doing everything from drafting my boss’s emails and collecting her St Tropez fake tan from Boots (true story) to organising a lorryload of goody bags to be shipped overnight from London to Leeds at five minutes’ notice, while managing the production of the retail client’s leaflets for deals it sold off the back of a lorry in their stores’ car parks.

‘No’ was not a word in anyone’s vocabulary and weekend plans were frequently dropped in ‘favour’ of spray-mounting endless presentation boards for last-minute pitch meetings or emptying 35 tubs of margarine on the hottest day of the year to show a potential client how many competitors they had and why the agency could solve all their problems.

I’m not a stranger to hard work and was happy trying to climb the greasy career pole so the getting-things-done part of the job was second nature to me.

I had been recommended for the role by an ad agency guy I worked for, and my interview was held in a splintered-floored, brown leather-sofa-ed meeting room above a Starbucks in Soho (do ad agencies still covet this grimy glam look?).

I hadn’t become the super-confident social butterfly with an undertone of asshole that they wanted

I don’t remember much about the questions, but I do remember knowing that the man interviewing me had a real tan from a weekend on a client’s yacht, had floppy dirty blond public-school hair and was slightly flirty. This job was an opportunity to help build the agency’s biggest client, he said, and I would be joining a hungry new team with the chance to go on TV shoots.

Two years later, this was not the man who sacked me.

There were actually two of them: a man, who was head of the department I worked for but whom I’d had little to do with, and the boss with the fake tan who I felt scared of most of the time.

A week before, the man had warned me that we would be having a ‘performance’ meeting (like I was in a show - if only) and asked how I was feeling about my place in the company. Somewhere in my young mind I knew I was being pushed to resign and instinctively asked for a week to think about it.

By then, the agency had moved to a swanky office with a roof terrace bar where it threw white-themed parties, and my sacking was held in a windowless box room on the ground floor.

People who put a foot wrong were there one day and gone the next, while overpaid others gaslit their subordinates in meetings.

The man and woman sat opposite me and waited for me to hand in my notice. Instead, I gave the performance of my life, telling them that they would see a transformation over the next three months, that I would put my heart and soul into the job, and saying how much I was excited about the future. I wasn’t sure if this was true or not, but I knew I didn’t want to roll over and go quietly.

I’ll never forget how their faces fell and the man told me he would have to ask me to leave.

Somehow, I hadn’t expected this. I had thought they would maybe give me time to become what they needed, and I resisted the sacking - but soon the financial director came to give me my marching orders.

Two weeks later I left, payoff in hand, feeling sore that I hadn’t become the super-confident social butterfly with an undertone of asshole that they wanted, and not yet realising that it was the company that wasn’t right for me, rather than simply the other way around.

On reflection, it was the kind of workplace where people who put a foot wrong (non-performers?) were there one day and gone the next, while overpaid others gaslit their subordinates in meetings. It wasn’t the right environment for me to have a great career, but back then I felt like somewhat of a failure because I couldn’t fit into the job.

Then, as now, I had a drive to get out of my comfort zone and say ‘yes’ to things I thought I couldn’t do, but I no longer feel the need to try to squish my shape into a role that simply doesn’t fit.

I didn’t get to say goodbye to the floppy-haired man who interviewed me (and he didn’t come to my karaoke leaving do), but I don’t regret taking the job. It taught me that hard work will get you some of the way, but finding a career that is mutually beneficial to employer and employee is far more important than trying to fit in.

Things I like

Fitness frenzy

Fitness outlet F45 (functional, and only 45 minutes long, thank god) just opened around the corner from where I live. It’s an Australian franchise where there are several exercise stations set up in a sparse room where you do 30 seconds of full-on squats, lunges, rows or deadlifts while instructors encourage you to add more weights to your workout.

Last week, I tried a David Beckham-designed session, inspired by football, and loved it. I’m thinking of signing up for a month to get ready for a holiday in June, and while I know I could just accept that I’m ‘beach body ready’ exactly as I am, to be honest I want to be more toned. And, I’m 44, so strength training is my friend.

Thanks to Austin Schmid and Unsplash for the image that goes with the post on The Honesty Box homepage.