| I wish that getting fired would not carry so much stigma as it does today.
I got fired 3 times in my early career. 2 of those times I believe were completely unfair, only 1 time made sense because I had burned out and lost motivation (also, the company wasn't doing well financially). In all of these cases, getting fired was a valuable life experience. The 2 times which were unfair, I learned that people can be unjust, spiteful and irrational; I learned to recognize and avoid working for such people later in my career. The time when I got fired after burning out, I learned to be more attuned to my own feelings and to never allow myself work on something that I don't enjoy. It made me more selective about opportunities. Tellingly, none of the places I got fired from ended up succeeding... On the other hand, one of the startups which I spent the most years working for is doing quite well. Every time you get fired, you can learn something important; maybe you were overly ambitious and your skills don't yet measure up to the role or you made a poor choice when it came to company selection. Getting fired can mean a lot of things, not only negative things. Aiming high can be seen as a positive attribute. Being willing to step outside of your comfort zone can also be seen as a positive (even if it didn't work out). I always learned a lot, even if sometimes I was learning by counter-example; by observing other people's mistakes as well as my own. Also, people need to feel pressure in their lives. We need to learn how to fall and how to get back up. It's OK to fall. It's good to assert yourself and take risks, even if it means putting yourself in the firing line. |
How your manager perceives you and his ability to perceive things and his personality influences everything.