I (f,20) started a new job 3 months ago at an opticians officially as a ‘optical-hearing care assistant.’ – basically receptionist pay for doing extra. I really didn’t mind the extra workload because it was the best job I’ve ever had, a nice hours lunch break, relaxed working conditions, lovely staff and seemingly caring company. The customers could be a bit much sometimes but I’ve always been quite good with not taking things personally when I’m at work so that wasn’t too stressful.
I’m about to cash-up today and the manager asks me to come upstairs to do my monthly meeting with her and the area manager. It’s just a meeting you do every month for 6 months before your probations over, and the area manager was sitting in on this one because the managers leaving at the end of the week so it was meant to be a bit of a hand-over one. So I get into the room, make a little bit of pleasant small talk, and then the manager arrives and we all sit down and then I’m asked ‘how do you think it’s going?” To which I reply ‘quite good! I’m sorry I can be a bit of a slow learner sometimes but I’m really enjoying it here.” The area manager then goes “right. Would you be shocked if I told you you’re doing not as good as you think you’re doing?’
I felt a bit humiliated to be honest at this point, but I just answered that I would be but that I’d be happy to address any issues he’d like to bring up, I reiterate that I really like the job to which he says ‘thank you for that, but we’ve come to the hard decision that we’re going to have to make this your last day.”
I’m just in shock. My last review I had a ‘ There’s a few improvements to be made but you’re doing great so far.” Outcome. Then suddenly this, which personally to me seemed completely out of nowhere. I get told it’s because of three mistakes I made (all of which I apologised profusely for and fixed to the best of my ability.) and because my attention to detail seems to be lacking – aka: they’ve hardly trained me and expect me to be able to use initiative I haven’t developed yet because I’m completely new to the sector – a fact that they were completely aware of when they chose to employ me. I also got told that when I went to in person training recently that I seemed disinterested. It was during a heatwave here in England, I’d had to wake up at 6am to get to the place, and then most of it was ice breaking activities where we had to put ear plugs in our ears and have a conversation with someone in the room and equally uncomfortable things like that. I did my best to engage with everything and, ironically, did actually find it quite interesting despite being quite uncomfortable during all the activities.
I asked if there was anything I could do to change their minds and got told that it was a very hard decision but once it’s made it can’t be gone back on. I’m a bit embarrassed now but I did cry then. I really really enjoyed the job and was hoping to stay on for a very long while, I even looked at the promotion opportunities and decided that maybe this was where I wanted to start my career.
I am just really hurt to be honest. We had a work lunch today to say goodbye to the manager and I had a really nice time. I then found out that the manager has known all week and was happy to sit there and talk about how much I like the job all whilst knowing she was about to fire me from it 3 hours later. She also knew I just quit my other back up job for this one because I decided I liked it so much. And she’s happy to fire me with 5 minutes warning. Literally, got told and then asked to hand my keys in and leave. I had to ask to say goodbye to the other ladies on shift, the area manager thought I would want to just slip out the back. I just think they really must not realise how much the job meant to me and how much it’s broken me to be fired from it, probably because I meant nothing to them so they must have thought it went both ways. It also would have been nice to have known this morning so I could have said goodbye to everyone at lunch, it’s just been a horrible afternoon.
There’s other reasons I feel so upset I Won’t bore you all with those, the jist of it is that just feel very betrayed, knocked down, under appreciated and hurt and also like I’ve had my financial, future and social plans upturned all for some very assumptive, silly and even slightly untrue reasons. I really thought they liked me, and I at-least liked them and really put my all into the job and went above and beyond occasionally.
Moral of the story is every job, no matter how much you think they value you, really doesn’t deserve your blood sweat and tears.
Sorry for the formatting, I’m on my mobile and it’s low on battery so it’s being a bit glitchy! Thanks for letting me rant to you all, I feel a bit better already<3