Getting laid off is not easy. However, sometimes this event becomes the beginning of a new life. The journalist talks about how a failure at the beginning of her career helped her realize what she really wants to do and achieve success in a new business.
When my boss invited me into the conference room, I grabbed a pen and notepad and prepared for a boring discussion of press releases. It was a cold Gray Friday in mid-January and I wanted to get the day off work and head to the pub. Everything was as usual, until she said: «We’ve been talking here … and this is really not for you.»
I listened and did not understand what she was talking about. The boss, meanwhile, continued: “You have interesting ideas and you write well, but you don’t do what you were hired to do. We need a person who is strong in organizational matters, and you yourself know that this is not something you are good at.
She stared at my lower back. Today, as luck would have it, I forgot the belt, and the jumper did not reach the waist of the jeans by a few centimeters.
“We will pay you next month’s salary and give you recommendations. You can say that it was an internship, ”I heard and finally understood what it was about. She awkwardly patted my arm and said, “One day you will realize how important today is to you.”
Then I was a 22-year-old girl who was disillusioned, and these words sounded like a mockery
10 years have passed. And I have already published the third book in which I recall this episode. If I’d been a little better at PR, brewing coffee better and learning how to do a proper mailing so that every journalist doesn’t get a letter that starts with «Dear Simon», then I’d still have a chance to work there.
I would be unhappy and would not write a single book. Time passed and I realized that my bosses weren’t evil at all. They were absolutely right when they fired me. I was just the wrong person for the job.
I have a master’s degree in English literature. While I was studying, my condition was balancing between arrogance and panic: everything will be fine with me — but what if I won’t? After graduating from university, I naively believed that now everything would be magical for me. I was the first of my friends to find the “right job.” My idea of PR was based on the movie Beware the Doors Are Closing!
In fact, I did not want to work in this area. I wanted to make a living writing, but the dream seemed unrealistic. After my dismissal, I believed that I was not the person who deserved to be happy. I don’t deserve anything good. I shouldn’t have taken the job because I didn’t fit the role in the first place. But I had a choice — to try to get used to this role or not.
I was lucky that my parents let me stay with them, and I quickly found a shift job in a call center. It wasn’t long before I saw an ad for a dream job: a teen magazine needed an intern.
I did not believe that they would take me — there should be a whole line of applicants for such a vacancy
I doubted whether to send a resume. I had no plan B, and there was nowhere to retreat. Later, my editor said that he had decided in my favor when I stated that I would have chosen this job even if I had been called to Vogue. I actually thought so. I was deprived of the opportunity to pursue a normal career, and I had to find my place in life.
Now I am a freelancer. I write books and articles. This is what I really love. I believe that I deserve what I have, but it was not easy for me.
I got up early in the morning, wrote on weekends, but remained true to my choice. Losing my job showed me that no one in this world owes me anything. Failure prompted me to try my luck and do what I had long dreamed of.
About the Author: Daisy Buchanan is a journalist, novelist, and author.