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Business News/ Mint-lounge / Features/  Fired? You are not alone
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Fired? You are not alone

Look at JK Rowling. She got fired for daydreaming. Then she wrote the Harry Potter books

Fired from her job, Rowling wrote the Harry Potter books. Photo: Carlo Allegri/ReutersPremium
Fired from her job, Rowling wrote the Harry Potter books. Photo: Carlo Allegri/Reuters

My friend P.J. worked for a big, BIG bank. She built up a whole department there over almost a decade, brought in the big bucks, burnished the company’s reputation, and was generally a star all around, besides being a lovely person. A couple of months ago, her boss asked her to come into his office. She went in, and without preamble he said, “You’re fired."

She was too gobsmacked to say anything much, and, in the way of Wall Street, she was told to leave immediately without even going back to her desk. A security guard marched her out, and she found herself blinking in the sunlight outside. Now, many tears and sleepless nights later, she has a new job, but still no idea what happened.

“It certainly wasn’t my performance," she told me. When she phoned her former boss, her calls went unanswered. A few days later, a lawyer called her, and suggested she sue. But everyone told her not to, because it would get her a reputation as a litigious woman and nobody would want to hire her.

“So women don’t sue as much as men because when they do sue, they get branded as troublemakers?" I wanted to know.

“Exactly."

Getting fired. Sometimes it’s a bolt from the blue, like it was for P.J. Sometimes you can see it barrelling unstoppably towards you like Train Number 12960, the Bhuj Dadar Express. Sometimes you know why—you messed up, the boss doesn’t like you, you had the wrong attitude. Sometimes you have no clue, and that’s when, along with your shredded self-esteem, you toss and turn at night wondering what the hell happened, and rage and weep over dinner until your family gets heartily sick of you.

If you’ve had a life of employment and never been fired, great. Especially if your family depends on you to eat. You might have been in the position of doing the actual firing—of employees at work, and of domestic staff at home. As someone who’s been on the other end, I want to remind you to please think about what it might be like to be shown the door. Are you fair? Do you allow the person his or her dignity?

When you’re a woman getting fired, there’s often that niggling doubt about whether there’s some sexism involved. The same dynamics play out if you’re a different size or colour or caste or don’t get along with the director’s nephew. You might have been let go because you didn’t do your job properly, or you might have been let go because you have a vagina. You can’t always know. One gets over it. I was once fired halfway through a cup of hot chocolate in a lovely little café—a very nasty surprise, and I still have no idea why. My only consolation was that I managed to deliver a scathing diatribe, walk out with my head high, and get out of sight around the corner before I collapsed in a heap.

Anna Wintour, editor of Vogue and a very successful businesswoman, once said that everyone should be fired at least once—it’s educational. That’s true. Firing, like any disruption, can lead to all sorts of things. Some of them are definitely undesirable—going back to your former workplace with a weapon is not on the scale of mature behaviour—and some are marvellous. Look at J.K. Rowling. She was fired from her job at Amnesty International for daydreaming, and we are all the richer for it.

The whole firing business isn’t logical, of course. I know I didn’t deserve the epic hot chocolate firing, but I’ve been at other jobs where I should have been fired and wasn’t. What were all those supervisors thinking, at all those offices where I temped during my first year in New York? While being paid to answer the phone, I shamelessly used their computers and printers to feverishly write my novel. They should have kicked me out. If they had, it wouldn’t have been because I’m a woman or an Indian or a Muslim—it would have been because I deserved it.

Don’t get me wrong, please, or hesitate to hire me for your next freelance requirement. I’m very good, I always meet deadlines, and most people I work for would happily have me back. But not all of them. One woman actually fired me before my first day on the job—that must have been some kind of record. I was hired after a long test and interview, to show up before dawn and do news summaries for busy executives to read over their breakfasts. I scored really well on the test and they hired me on the spot. I shook hands and left after some small talk, all set to come back at 4.45am. When I got home and checked my email, they had sent a message asking me not to bother to report for work. I had offended them by saying the job was easy and I was confident I could do it.

If you get fired because you stood up for a principle or refused to partake of a wrong, that is noble. Some enemies are badges of honour. If you were fired for being lazy or venal, that’s not so noble and you should mend your ways forthwith. But at least you know. The worst is when you’re let go, and you have no idea why. That’s when you wallow in doubt and self-loathing.

P.J.’s fine, now. Her new employers seem to appreciate her and her children have health insurance. But she knows she can’t take it for granted. We all know, thanks to another firing, that the world is full of lurking Dementors.

Sohaila Abdulali is a New York-based writer. She writes a fortnightly column on women in the 21st century.

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Published: 02 Oct 2015, 10:32 AM IST
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