Have you been fired from a job?

[simplyforum]

Just a quick poll to see if you have ever been fired

[aoco]

Wait a second here. What if one of us wanted to apply at Simply Hired (hypothetically speaking of course). This wouldn't creep up in an interview would it?
:D

[SimplyDave]

well, let's just say some of us here have PUH-lenty of skeletons round in the closet. hasn't stopped us so far ;)

[simplydamon]

"well, let's just say some of us here have PUH-lenty of skeletons round in the closet. hasn't stopped us so far "

My skeletons could populate a graveyard;)

I think it would be hard for any organization to assume that any potential employee hasn't had at least ONE issue at work.

[lifesab-andthenyoudie]

....what happened to the rest of the posts on this thread? I only see two. Are the techies sleeping on the job? :eek:

[simplydamon]

Not really sure what is happening here...

There is another thread with the same title that appears to be the same one? :eek:
http://forum.simplyhired.com/showthread.php?t=40

[George]

Looks like the majority of people have been fired once in their life.

[GetFiredUp]

I have been fired a couple times, though one time I was fired, and I didn't even know it. The boss had trouble with english, so on the phone, I couldn't tell what she said. I showed up for my next scheduled shift, and luckily the assitant manager was there, so then I could know I was canned.

[Florida Lizard Queen]

I got fired once because someone else was sabotaging my work in the computer system. It was a program where you could fax documents right from the computer, and only half of my stuff was actually going through. I had a feeling that someone else was going into the system on the documents that I was faxing and she cancelled each job that was pending to go. Then my supervisor came over on my last day there and told me that it just wasn't working out, and that they didn't have the time to go in and second check all my work behind me. Apparently they had time to cancel the fax jobs that were supposed to go with my ID attached to them.

[oriondarkwood]

I think a more interesting question would be:

Have you ever had to fire someone?

Because like most of the people here I been fired from a few jobs, downsized from a few, rightsized from some and quit the rest.

I had a boss so emotion from telling me they had to let me go (the company had to let 95% of the staff go cause they did alot of expansion just before the Internet Bubble burst). He had to take a few tugs off of the old bottle to do it.. (one of the advantages of a small company especially one ran by a Irishman lax drinking rules..)

And to answer my own question Yes, Once.

I was project manager of a team of 4 people. It was a make or break project for the company, tight deadline, brutal hours etc.. etc.. Well one of the coders (call him John) well he liked Jane.

And as you can guess Jane didn't like John, however John didn't take the hint.. and it was causing alot of tension. So I got both of them in my office and ask Jane in front of John what her feelings where for John (of course Jane told me what I already knew John was a okay guy, a decent co-worker but that was it and nothing was going to change that fact).

So I asked Jane to leave and told John that I heard it as well as he did so please stop (not to mention I also showed him a log of all the emails he had send her). Everything was okay for a couple of days before he started up again.

I told John last warning, she is not interested in you. Nothing will change that fact and we had a job to do. I really didn't want to fire John, he was a good coder and a decent person....

Anyhow the next day John send Jane flowers along with a letter declaring his undying love for her.. I had no choice I called him into my office and asked about the flowers, he admitted he sent them. I told him that he had 30 mintues to pack up his bags and get out. I asked another worker to watch him while I disabled his network, email and remote access.

[HDhug1200]

Killjoy! :p

Seriously, that must have been sticky. I hope there was no stalking after the fact, and that he didn't show up at the office with a shotgun to further pursue his unrequited love. That must have been tough to deal with, for all concerned. You did the right thing, as far as I (and any sexual harrassment lawsuits) would be concerned!

[oriondarkwood]

Killjoy! :p

Seriously, that must have been sticky. I hope there was no stalking after the fact, and that he didn't show up at the office with a shotgun to further pursue his unrequited love. That must have been tough to deal with, for all concerned. You did the right thing, as far as I (and any sexual harrassment lawsuits) would be concerned!

No thankfully John never showed up or talked/stalked/emailed/send flowers etc.. etc... to Jane. I guess he realized how clouded his judgement was.
Last I heard John found Ms Right and was doing well for himself working for a large corp..

I had a few cases where people of my teams have been fired by those above me (lucky for me, with Saraby Oxley and other measures its been a few years since I done project management, and hopefully keep it that way).

[cigargirl]

I had to fire a woman I hired after only 2 weeks. She was afraid of heights. During the interview one of the main items we discussed was running CAT 5 & 50 pair(phone). I took her around the warehouse and showed her the boomlift, showed her the hubs that were perched 40 feet up in the rafters... and asked her if heights would be a problem for her. She said no. Well the first time I got her into the boomlift was comical. She white knuckled it. I had to let her down after 20 feet or so. I thought maybe if I let her control it (drive it around, move the boom, go up and down small heights) she might get over her fear... well she scared the he$$ out of me! I felt really bad because as a PC Tech she was great.

[oriondarkwood]

I had to fire a woman I hired after only 2 weeks. She was afraid of heights. During the interview one of the main items we discussed was running CAT 5 & 50 pair(phone). I took her around the warehouse and showed her the boomlift, showed her the hubs that were perched 40 feet up in the rafters... and asked her if heights would be a problem for her. She said no. Well the first time I got her into the boomlift was comical. She white knuckled it. I had to let her down after 20 feet or so. I thought maybe if I let her control it (drive it around, move the boom, go up and down small heights) she might get over her fear... well she scared the he$$ out of me! I felt really bad because as a PC Tech she was great.

Sounds like you didn't have a choice, but you told her from the start.

[Rumrunner]

I'm not afraid of heights, I'm afraid of the fall...

I don't know if being 'laid off' counts as being fired, but I have had two instances of being 'laid off' and one instance where I was illegally fired (and successfully litigated a settlement that cost the a-holes a ton of cash) and one time that I was working under contract and decided not to renew the contract (and gave a full month's notice of the fact, thus parted on very good terms and even continued to do short term contract work for that company).

I was also terminated from a part time job that I had as a kid, I was told at the time that the business had 'slowed' but found out a week later that the owner's son was working the exact job...oh well, it was his business, I would have appreciated honesty but I guess that's too much to ask for...). About a month after that the owner asked me to come back (evidently junior didn't work too hard at anything...which is typical when you give a kid everything...) but by that time I already had found a new part time job and besides I had decided at that point that working for a lying SOB was not in my best interests, a rule I keep about my jobs to this day.

Other than that, I pretty much keep the jobs that I get. I'd like to think it was a combination of work ethic and technical brilliance, but it could just be dumb luck too. I also am pretty choosy about who I will work for, life is too short to take a job that you are ultimately going to hate. I think a lot of people put more thought into what to order for dinner than the career that puts the dinner on the table.