I've worked my ass off for a high-level degree in my field for years, and after an insane amount of struggling due to my graduate university being extremely shady, I was so happy to finally get out into the field. I slogged through a coursework-mandated unpaid internship for eight months that was agonizing but unavoidable. At long last, I finally landed a spot at a practice I was hoping to work for in the exact job I was hoping to do until going for my PsyD (after I pay off student loans and whatnot). I was so excited to start work. Even if the pay wasn't spectacular and made me raise an eyebrow a bit relative to the level of work, I already processed that my priority was to get in, master the skills, take every new experience I needed to go further in the field and get out if something went wrong.
I should've known something was up. My boss made a racist remark to me the day I met her that I didn't realize was racist until weeks later. She insisted on the “we're a family” bit despite refusing to accommodate my disability, which I disclosed to her privately during a discussion of workplace responsibilities. Instead of providing what I believed were extremely reasonable and easy-to-put-in-place accommodations, the first words out of her mouth after finding out I was disabled were “I don't know if you'll be a good fit for this job”. I already knew she was an idiot, but I hoped it would blow over. My coworkers were wonderful and the job was what I wanted, so I figured I could put up with her.
After three weeks' worth of training in which I was quite literally busting my ass to learn the skills I needed (to the point of practicing work-related tasks at home on my own time), I was fired yesterday out of what felt like nowhere. I had been told I was making great progress in learning how to do the job as recently as four days prior, only to be told I wasn't up to par with what was expected of me in a complete 180. Every time I had tried to ask questions at this job, this woman had intentionally gone out of her way to shut me down and speak over me until I stopped talking, insisting I “ask way too many questions” and “need to focus on the here and now”. She promised in the interview that training would last six weeks, when in reality it lasted only half of that. I hate to use the word gaslight, but she quite literally gaslit me throughout the entire firing process by insisting she was concerned about how I was “frustrated and upset coming to work, and (she) could see it”–which I informed her multiple times that I was not, and was unsure where she was getting this impression. The icing on the cake was her highlighting my disability as a reason for letting me go, which I'm very well aware is highly illegal. I'm considering my options on that front.
I worked my ass off and was told to my face that I am not, nor will I likely ever be, a good fit for the job I applied for, regardless of what company I work for. I've been trying to remind myself that bad bosses are everywhere and businesses aren't shit, and I've been trying to maintain good self-esteem and be proud of my accomplishments. However, this experience has left me absolutely shattered. I've never been fired before and I've certainly never had anyone weaponize my disability this way. The entire firing session got significantly more messy in ways that I can't articulate right now, but I've never felt like less of a person and I'm back to imposter syndrome that I thought I beat previously. My mental health has backslid rapidly over the past 48 hours and I can't think of anything else besides how horribly people can treat others. I'm afraid to even try again with this particular position now, even at a different workplace. Is firing always like this?