Kicked to the Curb

I got canned from my temp job on Tuesday, although I didn’t find out until I got home. There was an email on my phone from my temp agency with a subject line saying my job had ended. This came as quite a surprise, since I’d been there 10 months, and a month before my boss had said she requested to extend my assignment through the end of the year.

Overnight, I went from Trusted Employee to persona non grata. The email told me not to go into work tomorrow. The next morning I got a call from the agency. The lady I spoke to said she’d be visiting my former employer to collect the personal effects I’d left behind in my erstwhile cubicle. I rattled off a list of belongings that I could remember having at work.

This morning I went to the agency and met with my “recruiter,” a zaftig, middle-aged, white lady. She said that my boss thought my productivity had fallen off in the past month, and I seemed “disengaged.” This was news to me, as I told her. I admitted that my pace had probably slowed down in the last few weeks. But I didn’t think my previous pace was sustainable. I’d even told my boss a few weeks ago that I was getting stressed out and wanted to delay one of my projects. She didn’t express any resistance to that at the time, so it was shocking now to hear my output was no longer up to snuff.

The agency lady said she’d talk to my boss and give her my perspective. She even asked if I’d be interested in returning to the job. I waffled on that, and she told me to think about it. I picked up the box of stuff that had been gathered from my old cubicle and went home.

It was upsetting to hear that I’d been let go for a perceived shortcoming, but of course I bottled that up until I got home, when it was safe to fully feel those feelings (or “feels,” if you prefer). Then my brain went into self-defense mode, making me dizzy from all the spinning, trying to pin the failure on my detractors.

There was plenty of fault to be found in their behavior. Cutting me loose without any warning was at the top of the list. Barring me from returning to collect my things was also up there and at least as insulting. And over it all was slathered a thick layer of avoidance, an unwillingness to deal with me directly and honestly.

I admit that, for a long time, my middle name was Avoidance, but that doesn’t justify others treating me the same, especially not institutions like large, transnational corporations, as represented by my boss and her bosses. In this case, I think I have a right to be upset. I feel I was treated unfairly.

But it’s not like I was crazy about the job. It was just another mindless 9-to-5 that I tolerated to pay the bills. My motivation had certainly slipped in the past few weeks. I didn’t see the social benefit in what I was doing, which made it hard to maintain a withering pace for several months. In other words, the job was just OK, not good enough to motivate me, but not bad enough to let go in the assumption that the next “opportunity” will be better.

In the course of writing this, I was about to bash myself for continuing to rely on avoidance as a coping strategy. Instead of finding work that’s meaningful to me, I’ve returned to the corporate world. If I were serious about getting out of this rut and helping people, I could get a job working in a group home for developmentally disabled adults, or something along those lines.

But I forgot to give myself credit for trying to escape CorpWorld the last few years. After quitting my previous corporate job, I volunteered with The Food Group and Land Stewardship Project several hours a week. I shoveled snow and mowed lawns for senior citizens, almost literally breaking my back in the cold and heat. Then there were those 2 months at Goodwill last summer taking in donations through the drive-thru. That job was far more stressful than I would’ve thought, thanks in part to the half-assed management.

So I have made significant efforts to chart a different course in life. I’ve hit some difficult barriers, but there’s no shame in failing. My last therapist said there’s no such thing as failure, just various levels of success. The only real failure is failing to try. I like that, because I often cop out and fail to try, out of a fear of failure. (I hope you recognize my courage in dropping these little nuggets: 1. that I’ve had multiple therapists and 2. that I took comfort in that corny aphorism. As Ronald Reagan might’ve said, I’m the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers.)

I guess the question is: Do I have the guts to keep trying to break out of the corporate rut? The aforementioned group home job (direct support professional or “DSP”) is one option, as is being a personal care assistant (PCA), someone who helps people in need at their homes. But I’m not sure if I have the emotional resilience or energy to cut it. As they say, there’s only one way to find out.

For now though, I’d rather keep applying for clerical non-profit jobs. Those seem like a much safer bet in terms of compatibility with my personality. That’s another sign of my growth: that I’ve been applying for jobs while working full-time. I rarely did that in the old days.

While I’m mulling over these different possibilities, I can get a little writing done. I was hoping this essay would be more profound, but I guess I have to sort through the mundane details before I can get to the meat of it. Stay tuned! (Yes, I know that’s a really hokey sign-off. I was being ironic!)