This is an archived article (originally paid) made free for all subscribers, free or paid. Expect more of these every Wednesday.
If you haven’t read my firing lore, let me fill you in: I was fired a lot during my previous life in tech, a tenure that lasted about thirteen years. I was not a disastrous employee, just a below-average one (although to be more specific, I was probably average in product and below-average in sales, where my incompetence really shone through.) I’ve only been fired for actual performance reasons twice, but been abruptly let go for no cited reason several other times, and laid off several other times too. I think, all in all, my employment was involuntarily terminated six times.
Part of the reason was that I hated quitting, so I always stuck around as long as I possibly could, even when nobody else would have, even when my employer was clearly about to go out of business. The other part is that…well, I’m a bit weird and always have been, so even at “normal” companies, I was bound to piss everyone off without trying. It’s one reason my most successful stints have been remote jobs that didn’t involve client interactions, where it’s much easier for me to cloak my weirdness in the shadows.
One question I got a lot after publishing my history of getting fired was, “How do I know if I’m about to get fired?” Or, “What do I do if I know I’m probably getting fired soon?” Well, you’re in luck because the expert in Getting Fired is here to give you all the deets!
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