I'm having deep (and maybe a little angry?) thoughts about the transactional nature of work. Mostly around getting fired. I spend a lot of time thinking about getting fired. Like, what do I do to not get fired? How likely is it that I will get fired for doing this? Or saying that? Or, how much effort do I need to put in before ... Well, you get the idea.
In the end, getting fired is kinda like getting dumped. You get that letter that more or less says (either graciously or very un), that your "ideals do not match" theirs. Well, there's probably very good reason for your ideals and theirs "not matching". Bullet dodged! Celebrate, right?! Mmm, probably not. You feel dejected, rejected, and generally like a crappy failure. Why, though?
Failure at work, of all places, where you provide a service, for money, is inherently a transaction. Yet, we are expected to smile, share, and generally be pleasing, generous, and friendly (if not friends with) our co-workers. This may be very binary of me to say, but why must it be this way? It puts such an emotional spin on what is already a fraught situation. We are being asked to produce for 8 hours straight minus any breaks we are not, in some states, guaranteed to get. To add the expectation of emoting happiness everywhere, and playing verbal chess in the manner of being truly careful of everyone else's sensitivities, is enough to drive everyone to therapy.
When a workplace "rejects" you for low productivity due to not having the same chess-playing, emotive ideals as theirs, you can take a couple of different paths:
Give yourself a strict time to mourn the loss, be really nice to yourself, wallow a bit, eat the ice-cream, watch the streaming, then get down to business again (whether it's finding a new path solo, or finding "the right one"). Besides, you did learn plenty of life lessons, if not more pithy skills. You know it!
Or, take it as a win, pick up your toys, and go start your own, entirely transactional business.
Just to be clear, I hate that what should be transactional is so emotional.
<3 wishing you the best things moving upward and onward.
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