From fired to fired up.

 

 

Welcome to my blog, a companion piece to my podcast Workplace Fairness and Dignity. My ultimate goal is to shed sunlight on an issue that people, understandably, don’t want to publicize. They have been fired, often for no justifiable reason. This happens much too often, and I want to crack open the black box that keeps the destruction caused by these firings secret, often shaming the fired who have no reason to feel ashamed. Let me share a brief version of my own story.

On August 29^th, 2019 I was thrilled to get an offer letter confirming the start of my employment set for September 29^th 2019 with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts working with the same agency I had worked for previously for four years before I left to attend graduate school full-time. On September 16^th, 2020, I received my bookend letter of my firing, during the videoconferencing call on which I got fired, after being given a 15-minute notice that I was meeting with one of my supervisors and the Human Resources representative.  I say I got a 15-minute notice as I had no inclination that I was to be fired, there had been no conversations with my supervisors suggesting I needed to be “concerned”. There had not even been a fake PIP (that Performance Improvement Plan my friend calls that one-month notice that someone should be looking for a new job). 

Because there were no performance issues, my supervisor needed to make up reasons for my firing. Actually, where we are “at-will” employees, particularly non-unionized management, there really needs to be no reason given other than maybe to document that the organizations’ representatives are not breaking any discrimination laws by firing you. These creative reasons for an otherwise arbitrary firing tends to become a “cover your tracks” exercise, especially where there is no cause for firing. For me this meant, although I had received a strong performance review one month prior, in August, within that one month, my letter outlined that my supervisor had lost confidence in my abilities, according to her, and now I was being fired two weeks before my one-year anniversary on the job.

The why is easy, I spoke up because my supervisor had become abusive and unprofessional. I was therefore fired for speaking up. They, my supervisor with the leadership's authority given, fired me because they could. I said something they didn't want to hear and that was that. It happens all the time, but it is wrong, legal, but wrong. With this blog, and my podcast I seek to shed light on the fact that employees who are doing the right thing are harmed economically because of the power placed in the hands of people, often supervisors and managers, who don’t always have an organization’s best interests at heart, but who, based on personal whims at best and personal animosity at worst, manage to rid the organization of people who do.

In an opinion piece, Be Heard bill protects civil rights in the workplace (The Boston Globe, October 23, 2019) Massachusetts U.S. Representative Katherine Clark said of the bill that she introduced, the message is the following: “No matter your race, income, or occupation, you have a right to be safe at your job. You deserve dignity. You deserve respect.” This is a message that bears repeating and one on which I will reinforce through this blog, and my podcast, titled Workplace Fairness and Dignity. 

Next: COVID-19 and its effect on work culture now. 

Do visit my podcast site, also titled, Workplace Fairness and Dignity, where you can listen to my first podcast at: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1603621/7281925. 

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