I was, um, 'removed' from my job today.

It was not a real job. It was a contract position at a silly internet marketing firm. I was somewhere on the spectrum between temp and tetherball. I had been there for five months. Two days ago, I was informed that they "decided not to renew the contract."

As a cordiality, they invited me to the company's fall party last night. I spent forty-five minutes drinking free whisky and charming the girls in sales and marketing. Then, I disappeared.

Today, my "supervisor" did not even come in to work. I could not confront her on the assholesque lack of forewarning or the unconscionable caprice of their decision to "discontinue my contract." I was escorted out of the building at 4:00pm by an uncomfortable coworker.

I think they were unhappy with my unwillingness to join "the team." Sure, I remained aloof--but dammit, I always completed my work in a timely and satisfactory fashion. Granted, I did spend the last few months writing enough to fill a short novel, all on their dime, but dammit, it was my right-- they weren't giving me any work!

I believe they may have been monitoring my internet activity. Perhaps it was the "Vagina Dentata" Wikipedia query that triggered my release. Or maybe it was the story I was writing about the guy who turns into a walking vagina.

Anyway, please share your best job termination stories here. I look forward to feeling better about myself by reading accounts of the misfortunes of fellow mavericks who have butt heads with corporate America.

cheers,
g

A boss once called me and 2 other lads into a meeting room and pulled out a list of websites we'd been visiting. However he only named 3 and it was me who'd been to all 3 so I think he was just too scared to ask me directly.

One was a message board, on which you can bang out 30 page views in 5 minutes, so I imagine there were hundreds upon hundreds for a month. The other 2 I didnt visit but assume they come from linked pictures in avatars. Church of satan dot com and anus dot com.

Anus.com is a metal website run by a Jewish nazi. I shit you not. But to just hear the name of it, it probably sounds like a gay porn site or something.


I wasnt fired then but a few weeks later I got up the courage to use the net again and was promptly fired. Only it was agency work so I just got a phone call saying not to go in the next day.

Hey gio, your post reminds me of this interview with William T. Vollmann:


http://www.altx.com/int2/william.t.vollmann.html

After I was a canvasser, I became a computer programmer. They sort of took me. I don't know why. I kind of fooled them because I didn't really know anything about computers. I lasted about a year or so before they fired me. When I was doing that I would go down there to the office. I don't drive. Sometimes I would stay all week. After everyone else had left, I would still be sitting at my desk, and I wrote Angels on their computer real late at night. I would eat candy bars from the vending machine for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Then, when it was time to sleep, I would just get underneath my desk. I'd put a big waste basket in front of my head, so the janitors couldn't see me when they were vacuuming.

I got "let go" once from my after-school job in a record store.

I've also been "asked not to return" to University after having been caught cheating on an exam.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaa.......

bdp

LAD wrote:Hey gio, your post reminds me of this interview with William T. Vollmann:

A little, except I'm a Puritan compared to him. oh well--i guess have some years left in me to smoke crack and fuck prostitutes.

gio wrote:I think they were unhappy with my unwillingness to join "the team."

Therein lies the rub. The only time I have been asked to leave a job was under these circumstances rather than through lack hard work on my behalf. I ended up actually refusing to leave knowing that supervisor was soon to be transferred and had no actual concrete grounds for sacking. I can imagine it is hard when you have no opportunity to argue your case.

When the tech company I used to work for went into chapter 11, there was much reorganizing of staff and gnashing of teeth. Many of my coworkers were "made redundant" as they euphemize it, and this left the rest of us wondering when the next hammer would fall and who it would fall on. Typical company-going-under scenario, really.

At some point, the group I was in was reorganized under a new director that had come from a very pointedly military background. He had been in charge of the company's security department and now had control of us. He was also a downright hateful prick, and many of us detested him and his policies.

Ffwd to a friday in Sept, 2002 - our director calls me into his office where I am asked to sit down in front of his desk and listen to the HR representative on speakerphone from NY telling me that the company downsizing has to continue, and regrettably I am the next name in line to be laid off. There is some babble about health benefits continuing, no severence since we're already bankrupt and all, etc etc. The HR rep then asks me if I have any questions regarding my termination, to which I look my director dead in the eyes and ask the disembodied voice: "yeah, this wouldn't happen to be because I'm gay or anything, would it?"

There was silence from the phone for about three seconds, just enough to be uncomfortable but not start us wondering if the call's been terminated, before the HR rep stuttered a painful "er... no." "Okay," I respond, "just curious."

Apparently after I left, the truth (which was already hilarious enough to those of us in the group, particularly since I am not, in fact, gay) got twisted to the point where I had supposedly thrown a giant fit in the office, screaming and throwing furniture and such, and had to be escorted out of the building. In truth, my entire group went out to lunch and the two of us who received the axe that day had our chinese food free.

Good times.

I too was recently let go from a "temp" - ("at intern wages") - "job" at an internet company....I was way over-qualified, hired anyway, and promised a review after 30 days, which resulted in a $1.00 raise; to $8.00 an hour. (There was a stocked kitchen, so I tried to eat my way up to $15 an hour..which back-fired.) Anyway, fighting my pride was the hardest task at that shitty job, and while purchasing thousands of computer generated domain names a day, some of which were beyond justification (ie;www.kidfucker.com...yes, i swear) this one almost made me walk out of the office, but I have a family to help support, so I tried to ignore my work...after two months of employment, I demanded to know whether I was going to recieve a full-time job, and was let go.

I believe they had access to everything people typed into the address bar in their browser and anything searched for on google; and a program made a list of these and then I would purchase these domains...

So I guess it's not really the computer's fault, it's the sick fucks on the net looking for preteeniesex and shit like that...but, the fact that technology is where it's at, means something could have been done by the company to edit these types of purchases is what pisses me off..

Not like I had much respect for net companies before this, but this was the icing. I have never felt so detached from the human race as I have while working at dotcom companies... and i have done a lot to distance myself over the years.

thanks for letting me vent...I'm going back to school. I will soon be certified, working to help others in the recovery field.

I got fired from my first machinist job because I got blamed for someone elses little prank. See I was on 2nd shift 3pm to 12 am so we were pretty much by ourselves and no management types. Well there was 3 of us there, and one of the three went into the offices and jerked a load right onto the dayshift foremans monitor. Yes, that kind of load. IT WAS NOT ME I ASSURE YOU. I got the boot, because i was the one who circulated the GG Allin video around the shop, I guess i looked guilty. I tried to point out that is was jizz not shit, I would have shit on the desk. They did not find that funny at all. I was canned and escorted out.

Well, I was hired back after about 2 years when word got out it was one of the other guys. I worked for this place for about a year again, then found a way better paying job and decided to give notice to quit. They would not give me the remainder of my vacation time or bonus pay I had earned so on the last day of my employment I did crap on the desk and wiped with the next days routing paperwork. I have yet to be asked to return.

I have heard from friends that stll work there that now they have cameras installed in the offices and in the shop. I guess the janitor was a bit put off by this. I hear that one of the questions they ask potential employess is if theyve ever heard of or like GG Allin.

My first job when I moved to London was serving refreshments on the East Coast mainline trains which run from London to Scotland. During my probation period, the managing director of Great North Eastern Railways boarded the train I was working on and swiftly declared that I was "The scruffiest person I have ever seen on a train in my entire life" and pretty much sacked me on the spot. I had the last laugh, however, as they had to continue paying me up to the end of the probation (another SIX weeks).

Hahahahahaha