From Job Loss to Personal Growth: My Journey of Self-Improvement
Getting fired showed me what I needed to change
I was fired from my job on December 7th, 2023, a day after my birthday.
Don’t feel sad. I deserved it.
It was my first office job at a halfway house, where I was a case manager responsible for the well-being of thirty inmates. It’s no surprise the workload was massive, and the inmates always wanted to see me about something.
Because of the amount of paperwork I had, my productivity suffered. There were reports I forgot to upload into the computer. These reports had deadlines, and I missed more than a few. In fact, nearly ninety percent of my paperwork had a deadline.
My assistant director spoke to me numerous times about submitting my work on time. I got so far behind, I was put on probation…twice.
By this time, my heart had become cold. I cared very little about the inmates’ needs and blamed the company for my work problems. They hadn’t trained me properly.
I believed the company was the problem, not me.
My work suffered to the point that I was suspended for two days.
When I came back, I continued working in the same way. I was frustrated and burnt out. On December 7th, 2023, while driving home, I got a call from my assistant director. She wanted me to come back to the office. I asked why, but she wouldn’t tell me.
I walked into her office. The director was there too.
“Andre, you are hereby terminated from your position as case manager effective immediately. You were placed on performance review twice to improve on uploading documents into the appropriate systems and completing inmates’ reviews on time. You failed to improve and are therefore terminated.”
She said more, but I tuned her out. I gave the director my I.D. and walked out without saying goodbye.
Days later, I spoke with a good friend and told him I got fired. He patiently listened as I described how horrible the job was.
He said to me, “You got fired because you lack work ethic, and if you don’t learn work ethics now, you’ll get fired from your next job too.”
I had never heard of work ethic.
He explained to me that there are five pillars of work ethic:
- Integrity
- Responsibility
- Quality
- Discipline
- Teamwork
At that point, I realized I had none of these attributes in any of my previous jobs.
He emailed me a PDF of the five pillars of work ethics, and I read them every morning as personal training to myself.
I don’t have a job yet, but I apply these five principles to my marriage, relationships, and my writing.
A better me starts now.
Copyright @ 2023 James Anthony Maxwell. All rights reserved.
