AIBU - people who have sacked you

[lizzieoak]

A few years ago, pretty much out of the blue, I was sacked from a job I'd been in for 4 years. When I started, I thought I'd be there for years, maybe till retirement. The pay was crap & I was bored, but the people were nice & the hours were good. The director who was there when I started was great and told me that when x retired she would like me to do x's job. Great! I could do that!

Then the director decided to retire before x. The new director was a real type A, & other people started leaving. The new director got in other type A's and they began to bully me. Nevertheless, I didn't realize they intended to fire me. By the time I left the staff (who had all been women 40+, bar two in their 30's, had been replaced by all recent graduates, all female bar one. New director is in her 40's, but seems to sort of feed off the energy of younger women).

When I was sacked the director did it with a board member & yesterday the board member made a point of coming up to me in a shop and saying "Hi!! How are you?!! It's been so long since I've seen you!"

Being sociliased to be polite (& not recognizing her for a minute, but she'd called me by name so must know me), I said "oh hello, how are you?" Then I guess my face darkended as I recognized her and she said "oh good" & scuttled off.

I'm making loads more now & have met lovely people at a subsequent job, so it turned out okay in the end in many ways. But it hit my confidence hard & I have not really gotten that back. I sort of resent being approached like that, as if we were old mates. I feel like a respectful distance is better, if possible, after you sack someone who's had no performance problems (but who does not fit the profile the new director wants).

AIBU?

[HelloCanYouHearMe]

No.

This happened to me. Bumped into old boss in a nightclub a few months later, who gave me a hug and a kiss and told me how bad she felt about the whole thing

I told her to fuck off

[7SunshineSeven7]

By Type A do you mean they worked hard and had everything ordered and worked faster than the old employees? If that's the case then YABU - what was the reason they said you were fired for?

They were just being polite - it would have been worse if they'd ignored you. It would have been: My old boss and I just spotted eachother in the shop - she fired me a while ago and completely blanked me! AIBU to think this is really rude and she could have at least said hi?

I think your boss did the right thing in coming and being polite to you.

[oldlaundbooth]

Hahaha, yes, I've had this OP. But in my case, it wasn't after the fact: it was whilst I was still there. The MD was so nice to my face, how are you (I had just come back from mat leave too) etc, then the day after she had one of her henchmen sack me. I really think she was a sociopath.

I honestly hope I never bump into her, I really do.

[paddypants13]

I've not had it from someone who's sacked me. However, my last boyfriend was sexting women behind my back. One of the women used to work with my mum. She lives locally and tried to start a conversation with us one day in the local supermarket. The words fuck off have never come out of my mouth with such speed and venom.

[lizzieoak]

7sunshine, er, no, by type A I meant puffed up piece of nonsense who valued image over product and was very aggressive and encouraged bullying in the workplace.

They told me they were reorganizing the workplace & phasing my job out - except they didn't and a month later had a 23 year old in my place.

Thing is, I didn't see her. I had my back to her as I was paying at the till & she could have easily not have made a point of approaching me. That's what I found odd.

[7SunshineSeven7]

I didn't mean it as an insult, I was just asking. Type A people are described as being competitive, organised and more hard working. This is what I thought you meant; if someone said they left because the company was more ''Type A'' I would assume it was because the workplace wasn't very relaxed, not because people were aggressive and bullying - that's not Type A, its just being an arsehole.

Are you sure the new person doesn't have more skills than you or more work in a different area along side the job? You sound more upset about the people being younger than you than anything else is all.

Maybe she thought you had seen her, or had seen her earlier in the shop and did it just incase, I've done this with people I would have to awkwardly greet, just incase they had seen me when I wasn't looking and thought I was being ignorant.

[DailyMailSucksAss]

Many workplaces do this under the guise of 'professionalizing' the workplace. However it doesn't last long because recent graduates (who are often paid far less) don't stay and the cost of retraining gets so prohibitive that employers have no choice but to return an experience element to the job or offshore. Also change of directorship effectively means a change of senior management - far better to jump ship/take redundancy in these types of situations.

[DailyMailSucksAss]

Directors tend to be Type A though. Uncompromising, ruthless, visionary and with a need to be pleased. They never want to be questioned openly - they want you to do something based on their instructions, get results from staff, then present your complete findings. Graduates find this easier to do as they have no-experience. However it eventually comes to bite them in the butt.

[lizzieoak]

Exactly dm!

7, I think of Type A as dm suggests. Not consultative, brash, aggressive, conpetitive. Being quiet does not equate to not being organised or not working hard, not to me.

I found it odd that all the staff were replaced recent graduates who fawned over the new director in her presence but laughed about her behind her back. The older staff had been treated as social equals by the original director, so the sycophantic behaviour (& how much the boss got off in it) was a bit hard to take.

No the new hire did not have more skills - how could she, she'd just graduated!? I knew all the clients, had very good rapport with them, knew the software well, etc. The new hire was also a friend of the boss' brother (another young newbie was mentored by the boss' sister before she got hired).

Basically the director was a bit of a power freak, imo. The board member who spoke to me in the shop had always been nice to me so I felt she'd been a Judas. I had kids to feed, a mortgage to pay. It was nerve-wracking & bad for my confidence.