Personal essays
Frustrations while fighting the power
First time
I was twenty-four years old the first time I was fired.
You could make an argument that technically I wasn’t fired - believe me, that’s just the argument I tried to make - but I was fired.
I was teaching High School Math at Laurel School for Girls. I was a very good teacher, supported my students in their sports contests and performances, and was part of a very social part of the faculty that met for breakfast on Wednesday mornings and for beers of Friday afternoons.
It was March of my second year and it was contract time. This was a big year. There was no such thing as tenure at the school, but generally if you were hired for a third year you were considered past your probationary period and expected to be a permanent member of faculty.
My main issue was that I didn’t understand how parents in an expensive private school viewed the faculty.
I should have known. One of my closest friends was an older woman named Rachel (actually it’s funny, she was thirty years older than me but I’m now more than ten years older than she was then and I always thought of her a nice old lady).
Before my first parents’ night, Rachel told me at her first one she told one of the parents how inappropriate the things were that her child said to the teachers at the school.
“Oh,” said the mom, “she talks to all of our help that way.”
So I should have known.
Consistency
As a young teacher, I looked at instruction time as sacred. I hated when the school scheduled things that took kids out of my class.
As a parent I felt differently. In fact, one of my seniors set me straight on this that same year at Laurel. She apologized for missing class but her family was going on a trip somewhere and she was pretty sure that she would get more out of that trip than the couple days of factoring polynomials with me.
She absolutely convinced me. Now parents and kids are punished for missing too much school - but as parents, Kim and I loved to take Maggie out of class to come with us on trips.
Anyway, the school scheduled a multi-day event at which the kids were being told about the dangers of drinking and drugs. They had assemblies and activities around the idea that you could have fun at a party that didn’t serve alcohol.
And then we had a fundraiser event at the school for the parents where they were served alcohol.
I complained at the pairing. Go ahead and serve alcohol but then don’t have a sham teach-in or have the teach-in but then don’t serve alcohol.
Anyway, I was fired.
Not (directly) for that, but for a record of things like that. When you teach high school, you teach by example and I just didn’t think the school set an example that was consistent with our mission.
At my interview, the Principal, a woman, asked me what my dad does for a living.
At the end of the interview she asked me if I had any questions for her.
“Yeah,” I said, “at a school for girls, I’m a bit surprised you didn’t ask what my mom does for a living. I’m quite proud of her.”
Anyway, I was fired.
The Letter
I keep saying I was fired, but it turns out they were smarter than that.
They didn’t even not renew me.
They wrote me a letter saying the board was sorry to have received my letter of resignation. They felt I’d been a valued member of the community and wished me well in my future endeavors.
Wait. Go back a minute.
What letter of resignation?
I hadn’t written one.
I replied and asked that they produce this letter as I hadn’t resigned.
I received a follow-up letter saying that they understood that I might be having second thoughts but that they’d already moved on with the process of finding my replacement.
As upset as I was, I had to give it to them. It was pretty darned clever.
I also have to say that it was best for them and best for me that I left. I would still be there today - I don’t have the sense to leave places when I should.
I loved my time there, but I’ve loved my time since then even more.
Besides, who can fight an organization with the gall and cunning to accept a resignation letter I never wrote.
Seems relevant to tell this story today.
And again
Two or three years later I was fired again.
I was working at WMJI as a DJ at night and on weekends and as an assistant producer during the day.
The station was big enough that the top DJ’s would come into the production studio for short sessions where they would read one commercial after another. We’d listen and ask them to retake this line or say that line a little differently. Then they would leave and we’d edit the recording and add music and maybe some sound effects.
It allowed us to do commercials with one or more air personality’s voice in it without them being in the studio together.
Anyway, I was fired.
They didn’t mean for me to find out, but one day I saw the schedule for the air shifts for the following week and my name wasn’t on it.
I asked the program director and he hemmed and hawed and said something must be wrong.
Then Thursday came along. I think they fired people on Thursdays.
Anyway, that’s when I was fired.
I packed up my stuff and met my usual coffee drinking buddies and told them what had happened. They were a bunch of really old guys who I began and ended my day with. Again, I say old, but I’m at least ten years older than the oldest one of them was then.
They said, “you need to apply for Unemployment.”
The Challenge
So I went and applied for unemployment. The lady told me all of the rules. First, they had to notify my employer.
Then to get the benefit I had to make so many attempts at getting a comparable job each week. Every two weeks I had to report back with my diary of attempts so they could verify them if they needed to.
I also had to go through a training session.
A week later the lady called me and said that my employer was challenging my claim saying I was fired for cause because I just wasn’t a good employee.
So this is why I’m telling you this story now - we’re hearing this story a lot with the US Government these days. They’re firing pepole without cause and then claiming there’s cause so the people can’t get unemployment benefits.
I told the lady that I had had my review in the past two weeks and was rated as exceeds expectations in every category with nothing but positive comments by my manager.
She shrugged.
“Wait Daniel, you said you were talking to her over the phone.”
I was. I don’t know how I knew she shrugged - I just knew.
So there was a hearing the following week and I had to come to it. “Oh,” the lady said, “bring a copy of that review.”
I brought in the review and showed up for the hearing. The lady said to me, I looked it up, they challenge everyone they fire and say they were fired for cause. They never show up for the hearing. Most people don’t bother to show up to defend themselves so they don’t get any benefits.
Twenty minutes later, the hearing was cancelled because my bosses didn’t show up. My record was cleared, and they made a copy of my good review.
The lady congratulated me and said, “while you’re here you might as well go to the training.”
I went to the training and learned two things.
First, things were so bad in Ohio forty years ago, that we didn’t have to come in every two weeks with our diary. Just call in. That’ll be good enough.
Second, things were so bad in Ohio, that they’re advice to us was leave the state. Maybe there will be jobs in other states.
So that’s the story of my first two times being fired. Except now that I think of it, it isn’t. I was fired once before that from the Newton Public Schools. But that’s a story for a different day.
My heart goes out to all the people who are being fired because of an “I resign” email that someone is going to say they wrote or for cause when it really isn’t.
Essay from Dim Sum Thinking Newsletter 260. Read the rest of the Newsletter or subscribe