I Keep Getting Fired.

Why? Because I'm bad at my jobs.

First, I just launched my book, WILL THERE BE FREE FOOD?, (which covers a lot of what is discussed here—all the times I’ve been fired, laid off, or completely screwed up at work) on Substack with Chapter 1 totally free! The rest of the chapters will be paid, so subscribe now to access all of them and my entire archive of articles! Chapter 2 will be published on September 3 (Tuesday!)

So if you like this article, I encourage you to subscribe to access my book!

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Part 1 of this article will focus on my own personal experiences with constantly getting fired. Part 2 will be less personal and will focus on all the signs that you might get fired or laid off, so stay tuned!

Without giving away too much information, for the past thirteen years or so, I’ve worked full-time office jobs, in a variety of departments. But one thing seems to be consistent: I always get fired (or laid off, or position eliminated, or whatever.) The point is, it’s almost never my choice.

In fact, when a friend of mine was put on a flimsy PIP (Performance Improvement Plan- often a formality before firing someone under the guise of trying to help them improve) she called me and said, “I knew I could go to you for advice. You’ve been here so many times.”

I never get fired for anything truly awful. Occasionally, I’m fired for performance, but never for gross misconduct. I once worked at a company where a guy was fired after he whipped his dick out and peed on the company pool table while blackout drunk at happy hour (reason #4538 not to have a company pool table in the middle of the office.) Sadly, I’ve never done anything like that. I did, however, reportedly “make a coworker uncomfortable” because I packed up a personal package at my desk using “loud tape.”

I had always wanted to be a writer (this Substack is the closest I’ve come to doing it full time.) When I graduated in a recession, the Comedy Novel Factory wasn’t hiring, so my risk-averse ass prioritized getting a regular-person full time job instead. I prided myself in being more pragmatic than other creatives—an arrogance I now find deeply embarrassing—and I, boomerishly, looked down on other creative people who prioritized their own dreams above financial security. So when I had to find my first job, I picked the tech industry because they were hiring.

I parlayed my skills in writing and comedy into my career wherever I could. While I had many weaknesses, I excelled at public speaking, because I basically just did standup comedy loosely centered around the topic of the presentation. I firmly believe my public speaking abilities have earned me an extra six months to a year at companies that otherwise would have canned me. On the other hand, I was once reprimanded by a boss after he shadowed a client presentation I did, in which, according to him, “everyone was laughing at you.” I feel the need to point out that this same boss would bring a tiny scale to client lunches so he could weigh his food and log it in his fitness app.

Although I’m being a bit flippant about it now, being fired used to be a major source of anxiety and insecurity for me, and to some extent it still is. Almost every time I was fired or laid off, it was after I had worked frantically to prevent that from happening, both with my actual work and with my terrible attempts at work-rizz. My low point was probably when I drew an extremely handsome (and nearly unrecognizable) portrait of my food-weighing boss in an effort to flatter him. What was so frustrating was that it often didn’t matter how hard I tried to keep my job. Typically, it felt that my removal was more or less baked in shortly after I started at the company. One honest slip-up (for example, a client complaining that I had sounded too “scripted” during our introduction call on my first week at a company) was all they needed. I would never be fired for that specific thing, but it would solidify me as someone to get rid of eventually, no matter what I did.

I don’t know if this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Maybe I could have come back from these things, but I spiraled so badly about getting fired for them that eventually it happened. My mistakes were never that big of a deal, at least not to me—no selling trade secrets, harassment or anything unethical. In the moment, I never thought I was doing anything wrong at all. Some examples of other early employment slip-ups that ultimately baked in my firing: