Getting fired from a job you actually like is a uniquely upsetting experience. Yesterday afternoon, after working the previous evening, the owner of the bar I worked at texted me the following while I was in class.
“Hi Grace, it’s ________ from _____________. Can you give me a call when you have a few moments please.”
So I step out of class for a second and call her. Keep in mind, its 3pm, I am scheduled to work at 6 that same night. I am supposed to be in class until 530. I am under the impression that she is either calling to ask if I can come in early, or calling to tell me to wait to come in for a bit because it’s slow. She says hi, how are you, etc. And then she just says “I don’t think we’re going in the same direction, we’re going to have to let you go.”
I’m in shock at this point, so all I have to say is “oh?” I ask what she means by we’re going in different directions and she doesn’t have much to say. The entire conversation is very vague. She says something about there is a certain way we have to interact with customers. This strikes me, because I have never had an interaction with a customer that was less than pleasant. I am on a first name basis with most of the regulars that come in on the days that I work, I have lots of their orders memorized, and they are happy to see me when they come in. Regular customers I have been nothing but nice to, I receive the compliments and tips to prove that. She says I mean, you’re a good dishwasher, which feels like a slap in the face, because on nights that I have been the cook rather than the bartender (everyone does both at this bar), more times than I can count on my fingers people have come up and told me “that was the best burger I’ve ever had!” and the like. She repeats a few times I just don’t have any more work for you, and I am unsure of what to say to this, especially due to the fact that I am scheduled 4 more times this week. Surely, you had the work when you made the schedule a few days ago, where did it go? I ask multiple times if I have done anything wrong and receive no answer. In its entirety this was literally a one minute phone call.
That night at 715, I go in to collect my tips from the previous night, hoping that the owner would be there, as she was on the schedule for 7pm. She is not there. The assistant manager, who I regularly worked with and had done so the night before, was there by herself, having to do the jobs of 2 people because I have been fired 3 hours before my shift. I ask her if she has any idea why, and she says I would have to ask the owner. She says she’s a very busy woman as if I had never met her before. It seemed very dismissive. Maybe she just wasn’t in a great mood because she was having to do more work than expected, but it didn’t seem right. I felt like she talked to me as if she didn’t know me, like we didn’t work together all the time up until a few hours prior. I find it hard to believe she didn’t know anything. This bar is very much like a little family. There aren’t that many employees, and lots of them hang out at the bar in their off time as it is a pool hall and most of the employees play regularly.
Since Idaho is a right-to-work state, as well as a state of at-will employment, that means that they can fire me at any time for any reason or no reason at all, and they are under no obligation to tell me why or give me notice. I feel like I should be able to pay my rent at-will.
One of the most aggravating parts about this is that I feel like I lost my third place. I’ve been shooting pool for around a decade. Since I moved to Boise, I haven’t played much because my partner doesn’t like to leave the house much and I didn’t want to show up alone to places. Since working there, I started to make friends not only with my coworkers, but with some of the regulars that would invite me to play. I was so happy to have finally found a little community again. It’s been really hard to make friends since I moved here and I had been having a hard time mentally with it before I got this job. It was nice to feel like I fit in somewhere. Now I don’t feel welcome in there. This has put a bad taste in my mouth. And unfortunately, it’s the nicest pool hall in town. All of the others pale in comparison.
This is also the first time in my life that I have ever been fired from a job. I have been working since I was 16. So that’s over 11 years. I have had this job for just over a month, and I have never been a bartender before, so I am learning. It’s one thing if I’ve done something wrong. It’s one thing if I’ve done things wrong more than once, been told that, given a chance to fix it, and didn’t. But here, I have not been told I did something wrong, nor have I been given a chance to fix it, if I did even do something wrong. I feel like I have had the rug ripped from under me. Everyone I’ve talked to about it has said they likely just are losing money and couldn’t afford to keep me. I would understand that, I was the last person hired, so if we are overstaffed and someone has to go, it probably has to be me. But if that is the case, just say that? I own a small business. I get it. Just fucking say that. We are adults. I am so tired of people’s egos getting in the way of being truthful about things. People are generally understanding. Even if something affects me poorly, I can understand if there is a good reason why it happened.
This, I do not understand. And there is nothing I hate more than being misunderstood.
九生 