About 20 minutes ago I got off the phone with my department manager and was told my services are no longer needed. My department head said he wasn’t at liberty to discuss the reason why. I’m an at-will part-time employee for a university and do it as part of my classes. I’ve been working here for about 5 months and my relationships with everyone has been mostly positive, not super outspoken either.
This week I did some brief work in the PD office and must’ve been recognized by someone there. That person likely told the department manager what my past was and a few days later they decided to fire me. This comes only *three days after that, after many months without problems. So: I was suspended from school a few years ago due to legal charges against me, but it was ultimately stripped from my academic record and since I was a youthful offender it was also stripped from the legal record. My parents made sure of it. In court the charges were dropped to an offense (jaywalking) due to plea deal. I was never convicted. However, NONE of this should have been brought up since it is under a sealed record.
I genuinely doubt this is due to my performance at work. We’re somewhat overstaffed and a lot of my tickets are completed in a timely manner. Most of my coworkers like me and it’s not like I’ve stolen anything at work or crashed any company vehicles.
I fucking regret thinking a few years would separate me from my past actions. I thought I was able to move on and grow as a person but it finally caught up. I also wish this was because of funding or whatnot but I kept getting the “I’m not at liberty to say.” So I have to assume it’s because of my past.
Sorry for the paragraphs but I just needed to vent. This is the second time this has happened to me (first being the suspension) and I was actually relying on this job for the summer —i have no summer job lined up.
That’s a bummer dude, and I can understand if you feel down about it, but these things happen. You simply have to accept it, act like a pro and an adult and move on. There are other jobs out there, and you’ll land one of them.
It certainly would have been nice if they would have told you why they were letting you go, even as a basic courtesy, but it doesn’t really do you any good to assume what the reason is, because you’ll just end up assuming the worst. It could have been your criminal record, sure, but it could have been any number of things.
As long as it wasn’t due to your performance, your attitude, or your ethics on the job, then it’s out of your control. Brush yourself off and start the process over again.
Thanks for your words. This isn’t my first time getting reprimanded so I’m trying to be a bit stronger when it comes to getting back on my feet. I’m certainly going to ask for a reference from my supervisor (he liked me). At the end of the day, I still got something out of these last 5 months. I just wish it could’ve been in better graces.
As for my speculation, I don’t think anyone has ever actually been “fired” at my job, most are told they can take a rec credit over the summer to keep working. So—that is why I am assuming the reason to be so. It is also just really hard to not land on that assumption when I’ve heard those same heavy words been said before in the same mellow and frail tone.
Or maybe not. You’re right that I shouldn’t think about it too much, but thats kinda why I wrote this whole post.