fired 6 days before Christmas

I want to talk about something rather uncomfortable. Something most people wouldn’t want to share with their audience directly, because it kind of makes me look bad.

I’ve been fired a few too many times in my career. All of them were my fault. I blame myself for everything that happens to me, good or bad.

If you happen to be a lucky business owner who’s never had that “holy shit I just lost my job and rent is due” gut-wrenching pit at the bottom of your stomach, let me clue you in.

It. fucking. sucks.

No easier way to put it.

For men in particular, losing a close relative provides the same kind of pain and emotional imbalance as losing your job. It’s been scientifically proven. Most men have their self identity built on the status their career provides. I was not an exception.

Not that it doesn’t suck for the ladies as well…

It flatlines your mental health, regardless of how strong you think you are. Because sooner or later, your life starts to fall apart if you don’t do something to fix your income problem.

In the world of E-Commerce, tenure is laughably low. Even compared to modern corporate standards. We’re talking like 1-2 years if that for most new, entry level hires.

But sometimes, you know deep down a team member isn’t a good fit anymore.

That’s where being a good human being comes into play.

You know,

The kind of person who returns their shopping cart after they leave the grocery store!

I may or may not have a pet peeve with people who don’t return their shopping carts…

Back in 2021, I was working at a social media marketing agency based out of Los Angeles, California. It was a remote position, and I was making $90,000 USD annually. Decent money for a 21 year old who never went to college and graduated high school with a 2.3 GPA.

Things went well in my first few months. My clients loved me, performance was as good as it could be, given that iOS 14.5 had just dropped and the industry was scrambling for attribution solutions.

But I quickly realized something awful.

The CEO was not a good human being.

I knew this months before I got fired, when I was promised a reimbursement for ~$1,500 of travel expenses from a company retreat in California. I put those expenses on my personal credit card based on the promise that I would be paid back in a timely manner.

The CEO proceeded to ghost me on Slack and Email for several months.

This company had like 15-20 employees. Not so large that he wasn’t involved day to day. He was fully aware of what he was doing.

I finally built up the courage to send a [FORMAL EMAIL] 2 months after I was supposed to get paid. I put all my proof in there. It didn’t go over well.

I was torched on a Zoom call not 24 hours later by a buddy of his who he hired to do fractional Human Resources work for his agency. The CEO never sent me a direct response to my email. I was fired less than a month after sending it.

The day he fired me just so happened to be 6 days before Christmas, right before the entire company got two full weeks of PTO. And a few days after I found out I had my first child on the way.

Classic random meeting on a Friday night put on my calendar. I showed up and my boss and HR were on the call. The CEO didn’t bother joining.

But he knew everything.

He did not care one bit.

I took 0 days off for the 6 months I worked for him. (my mistake… always use your PTO ladies and gentleman)

I got $0 in severance pay.

So yeah, he’s a piece of shit.

It didn’t have to end the way it did. He could have leveled with me and said “Jhori, we’re going to end our working relationship at the start of the new year. But I’m going to pay what I owe you from travel expenses and the two weeks of severance just like the rest of the team. Merry Christmas to you and your family.”

Even 5 years later, this is exactly what I would have done. Regardless if I personally liked my team member or not.

Instead, I got a cold “there’s never a good time to do it Jhori.” after I asked “why did it have to be 6 days before Christmas man?” After he called me randomly the day after I was let go.

A lesson I learned the hard way. I will never put anyone in that position unless they’re doing something clearly illegal or sabotaging.

If you have someone in the back of your mind that you know you need to let go, but you don’t know how to do it properly, here’s some rough advice:

1. Apologize for the life disruption you’re about to give them.

2. Offer them 2 weeks of severance pay if they’ve been with you for 3 months or longer.

3. Offer yourself as a resource if they need any help with their next career move.

4. Don’t fire them right before the holidays, no exceptions.

Simple, but not easy.

Nuff said.

Return your shopping cart.

See you next week,

Jhori