
POINT TO PONDER
"If you aren't fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm."
- Vince Lombardi
STORY LINE by Samuel George
I arrived in the Bay Area during the summer of 2000 and witnessed one of the most exciting times for high tech companies. As a recent college grad, opportunities were abundant and I felt quite confident of continuing my success from school to work. However, things did not go smoothly (does it ever?).
After the 2001 dot com crash, a number of companies struggled financially. Exactly 1 year after I joined my first company, I lost that job. After that I joined a startup company where I wore a lot of different hats and put in a lot of hours. But as this company’s product was an optical switch (and telecom bandwidth was aplenty) the startup had to retrench a lot of employees, including me. Having lost 2 jobs in 2 plus years was humbling to say the least. I started wondering why I couldn't deliver in a business environment.
A couple of months later, I got a job in a mid size company and I felt I may have turned a corner. However, a year later my manager took me to his office and said the dreaded words again, “your position will be eliminated.” At that time there was a state rule that if a company laid off a certain % of employees, they would need to give a 60 day notice to the employees.
So, now I had to face the uncertainty again and look for a job to keep my immigration status intact. It would have been perfectly normal for me to start missing work in order to start searching. In fact, if I asked anybody they would recommend just that. However for some unknown reason, I felt that I should respond differently. I made a choice to do the best work possible in the 60 days that I had left. I wanted to prove to myself that I could do a good job and let the powers that be feel stupid about letting me go.
So with this new resolve, I started working “fearlessly." Previously, I was quite timid during my interactions with colleagues and never challenged them when I thought that something was not right. Since I only had a limited time in the company, I was aggressive in meeting my deliverables. At the same time, I started approaching other managers in the company for opportunities. As it goes, one of the Sr. managers I met was the original hiring manager for my current boss. He asked me a few questions and I gave my answers upfront. The “fearless” behavior was very helpful.
Now, I was in the last week at this company. I achieved a lot of what I had in mind with my current deliverables and felt quite happy with that. I had a couple of job opportunities in the works, but the probability of success was low. As I was having lunch on a Tuesday afternoon, my manager stopped by and asked me to come to his office. I felt that there might be some routine company procedures which needed to be completed before I left. So, I walked into his office.
He stood up, closed the door behind me and said he had some, "news to share." He had heard from his previous manager after my interview and had given positive feedback about me. Armed with this, my manager spoke with a number of my stakeholders about my recent performance. He was impressed with my results and got enough confidence from the feedback that he met with the VP and was able to get my job back. As soon as I heard the news, I could not believe my ears. I was able to finally break my jinx. Ten years later, I still cannot believe this actually happened.
REFLECTION
Looking back, there were a couple of lessons I learned from that experience. Since I lost jobs previously, I was constantly working under the “fear of failure." This was actually a self fulfilling prophecy. I felt quite weak due to this thinking. However, when I had nothing left to lose, the real “me” emerged and I actually prospered in my job. Another key lesson was in approaching others when in need. If I had not tried to knock on other doors, I would never have met the gentleman who put in a good word to my manager!