I may be getting fired??

I guess I am just really floored by this quick change of events given that I had such a positive review only just a few weeks ago. And here's exactly what my boss's boss wrote to me JUST after my review:

"I can’t believe that a year has passed already, but you have made such a huge and POSITIVE impact on the Web Services team! I appreciate your hard work and talents and really look forward to you expanding your SEO/Web Services knowledge, client communication and interaction experience... "

It makes little sense to me, the quick change of sentiments. I guess I can't rely on a positive review for much in this company. They fire people easily. They fired our SEO Director when I first got there, they fired someone else only a couple weeks ago, and masses of people have left the company in droves. Something is very wrong here.

My roommate tells me never to take these events personally. But how can you not?! For whatever reason this has happened to you, golden_eve, all you can do at this point, is prepare yourself for the worse case scenario -- that they fire you.

I think the people who get fired, tend to be the people who contribute the most effort to their roles and to their departments.

Like I said earlier, the slackers NEVER get fired. Somehow, they obtain job security, weasel their way into promotions they have no business being given, and they sabotage their more successful coworkers' with divisive strategies worthy of Sherlock Holmes or the really catty Housewives of Orange County (those women are catty as hell).

When I was hired to teach community college 20 years ago, I only had my bachelors. I was over the moon. But not even one month after I was hired, the man who hired me, was FIRED and a CHEF took over his position as the community college's education director. Um, you're a chef, dude, you don't have any academic credentials like this guy who hired me did. But that's what happened. Soon after the crooked chef took over, he promoted the crappy instructors from part-time to full-time, and gave the dept. ONE SEMESTER to enroll in a masters program (which by the way, is not a terminal degree for teaching...a masters of arts is useless without a ph.d. behind it for teaching). Of course, none of us with bachelor degrees pulled that off, so we were all let go.

Now, community colleges here in my city require 2 masters degrees or a masters plus a ph.d. which is all about politics.

Thank you, Blanche. Yeah, how can I not take it personally, right? And especially after such a glowing review and glowing remarks by my boss's boss?

Thing is, I am learning that in my company, they place ppl in positions who are not prepared for them.... so they are less successful with it and create problems for those under them. And my boss promoted someone because they are best pals, not necessarily because he is fully qualfied.

Could you talk to your boss about it? Could it be that misunderstood or misinterpreted rather that flat out lied.

I clearly misunderstood all this too. I thought you wanted to work with social media and requested to be given that role but when you got it, you said you don’t know how to do it and then wanted it to be taken off your plate. That’s what your boss possibly reported to CEO? That you requested to take on a task that you weren’t familiar with? It’s nothing to be fired for but the whole thing is confusing. It’s possibly confusing for your boss too.

Could you go see him on Monday and discuss what happened? No arguing, just asking him how he understood this situation.

I never asked to be placed on charge of all social stratgey all of a sudden. That's the role he put me in, I didn't ask for that.

Yes, but if many of us misunderstood it, is it possible that your boss did too? Maybe this could be cleared up and smoothed out if you were able to clarify that you and your boss were on different pages about what you wanted. Just trying to think of ways to get you out of the hot seat until you move on.

I think I misunderstood then that you asked to be in charge of social media. So you only wanted to do some of it?

I remember your excited post when you were put in charge of social media. You were thrilled and we were thrilled for you. But quickly after you said you didn’t know how to do this job (it wasn’t just being overwhelmed with amount of work, it was not knowing how to do it).

But when you were assigned that task, you never told your boss that you don’t know how to do it and perhaps either need training or just can’t take on this task. It is entirely possible that you thought you could do it or misunderstood what the task meant. That happens.

You wouldn’t be the first time someone ended in this situation when they thought they could do something and turned out they can’t. It’s not the end of the world. I’d really focus just talking to your boss and your CEO about misunderstanding and maybe accept some responsibility for the confusion and not admitting or not knowing that you can’t do the job..

And I think I posted on one of your other threads what I would do. I’d go to my bosses and tell them that you really want to keep a job and you’d like to Improve as employee and want to know how they’d like you to improve so you can be a better asset for the company. Shift focus from defending yourself to improving yourself in order to benefit your team. If they do tell you how to improve then focus on that. In the meanwhile keep actively looking for a job.

I don’t want you to feel that this isn’t supportive. I could just say that there is nothing for you to improve and they are all a$$holes. Maybe it would sound more supportive but it wont help you to keep your job if that’s the goal.

Hopefully they are receptive to your questions re improvement and you can stick around until you find something else

Maybe I got confused. I thought I was asking to be involved. He never told me he was going to place me in charge of strategy. Several people had expressed an interest and we met as a group. But then he just announced it suddenly to tbe group after I presented something about how we can do it better. I thought when I expressed an interest that it meant I would be involved. I never thought that I would be running it. And yes, it was too much.Maybe I misunderstood.

It doesn't matter now. If I'm going to be fired, then I am and there's nothing I can do about it. The next meeting is with the CEO again. Nothing I say to my boss is going to matter now. I've already pleaded my case.

It has sounded to me that each place you have been involved with in that company you noticed how things were not being run right and found yourself expected to suddenly take over when you were not prepared to do that. My understanding of what you have shared is that you had been put in the position of having to own up to shody work with a client when you had nothing to do with whatever was done inadequately for that client. I got the impression that you were exited to move to the Social in that company but you were not expecting to begin working in that area to find out it was being badly run and you suddenly being expected to fix it and act like you had been part of whatever was not being run right. I think you had been expecting to experience a presence that was already running that area well and that you were going to be able to learn and work in that area that was being run right instead.

I think that you want to be respected and appreciated for what you produce and you tend to keep running into relationships where you don't get the respect, appreciation, and support that you desire. You tend to end up being expected to be the "caregiver" too where you are expected to take care of whatever while the other individual can slack off thinking you will just give into them.

What does "I like you" mean when someone says that to you?

Yes OE, some of that is correct. I was expected to take ownership of past strategies that weren’t working or pretend as though I had been involved when I wasn't. The Director whom I took over for didn’t even want to introduce me as new to the social team. She said let’s approach it as though you’ve been involved. Total bs. That’s lying to the client. I told the account services lead that that isn’t ethical and I refuse to participate in that.

Basically this company is unethical. Clearly if after a glowing review and accolades that I’m then going to be fired, something is awry.

I want no part of how they operate and want out.

When someone says “I like you” I take it for what it’s worth. The CEO comes up to my desk pretty frequently to chat. I’m the only one on my team he does that with. I can tell he really likes me. At least I have that, as a possible future work reference, even if they let me go.

You could have taken it as a compliment, that you didnt seem new, that ever since you got there youve had a finger in every pie and had contributed to many different process improvements. The worst that could be said is that you didnt know what you DID know.

Instead, its like you got afraid of something unseen and backed down, instead of embracing the opportunity. I thought maybe because it wasnt a technical position? I know i never wanted to move to a support type position, i always wanted to be on the front lines of development. I think it would be okay to say that. Nobody wants to make a technical person unhappy - we are not that easily replaceable!

This power struggle came at the same time as stuff in your personal life, and i wonder if you werent just saying no at work, because it was easier than saying no at home. Or your words at home were not being respected so you wanted them respected at work. Because all of it just doesnt make sense.

You were doing so well, getting your process improvements, both for the customer and internal ones, approved, and then you start finding "ethical" fault with them. The customer is not your boss. You need to present a professional face to the customer, you KNOW that. Why so nitpicky? It sounds like a general problem with authority, and IME - in my very sad experiences! - that will kill ya at work.

Try not to fall into assuming you will be fired golden. I have a feeling the CEO likes the fact that you point out things to him that are not right and he likes to think it over. Also, from what you have shared, you have never interacted with the CEO where you have made him feel faulted but instead you pointed out to him what you noticed was not being run right. Then he is also looking at your performance which is a positive for him. It's very possible that what he is seeing in you is a person who CARES about how things are run and can step up and identify things that are not being run right where it's affecting the quality of the company.

When you make it a point to talk to him and tell him what you had expected and how you discovered that something was just not being run right, that's information that he needs to know from his standpoint as the owner. You have worked in this kind of business for years and you had been auditing this kind of business all that time so your input is important to him because he needs to know what isn't being run right in his company. You spent time in Social only to discover how poorly run that area had been, you have important information about that that the CEO needs to know and probably did not hear from other individuals who worked in those areas.

You are right in that it doesn't make sense to fire someone who has a glowing review when it comes to their performance. Think about it golden, if you owned that company and need it to be productive would you fire an employee that has a glowing review? Of course not! I have a feeling golden that his "I like you" means that he can see you have been productive AND he also has noticed that you will say something when you see something is not being run right too. Your boss is threatened by you golden because YOU happen to notice what isn't working where HE doesn't really see it. After all, think about it, he was just a web designer and he probably doesn't really know how ALL the different areas need to function a certain way the way you have experienced.

A lot of times when it comes to a company often what does happen is "it's not what you know but who you know" that gets you ahead. However, when it comes to a company being productive, the WHAT YOU KNOW is crucial.

This is something the CEO needs to know, this is important in that it's a red flag as to why a person would just up an quit. You should have been introduced as "this is one of our new directors" so the unsatisfied client gets a chance to think "improved" rather than more of the same ole that was not working. The CEO probably has no idea how badly that area of the business was being run either. He needs someone who can step up and tell him and even hire someone who CAN run that department better. This manager web designer expecting YOU to suddenly run that department clearly was not experienced enough to know that while you wanted to move to and explore that area, you were not expecting to suddenly run it OR even say you were part of what had not been run right. Actually, from what you have shared golden you still had clients you were handling in the SEO area and you were not ready to have to also suddenly be expected to run Social on top of that especially when Social was not really being affectively run and you were expected to be responsible for that? That's just crazy and something the CEO most likely isn't even aware of but should be because it's a reason something is failing and most likely costing him.

You are willing to state your case, even when that means not going through the manager/boss you have. And I think that while at first he was nice, as time went on you began to "feel" his lacks before you got to see what was really lacking in him that you are noticing now. I think you can see more than your boss can see and that was stressing you. Actually, it's very likely that your not liking all that report work you had to deal with that was too much, too many pages that needed to be reduced would have been something your boss would not have been able to sit and talk about affectively to the CEO that tended to think that was a plus in that company. Actually, what did your boss actually KNOW about that and how it was just too much? He is a web designer, how would HE really know?

It's VERY possible that what you are seeing as unethical is something the CEO isn't really aware of golden. If the different areas in that company are not being run right where different employees can be confident, then that company will just continue to face a high turnover. You are right, "you don't fire an employee that has a glowing review and is doing a good job".

I think that you had expected this company to be run better than what you are seeing and you were not expecting it to be running so poorly that suddenly you are expected to take over things you are not ready to take over but wanted to instead expand into where it was already being run right.

Exit statements of employees that leave are important to pay attention to. One employee needed to talk about "low moral" and that is most likely due to that employee realizing things were not being run right and employees were unhappy.

Honestly unaluna, I think that golden was being disrespected in both scenarios and she was being stressed both at work and at home. I think in both areas she was expected to do more than she was capable of doing too. I honestly think she is trying to be more assertive and look for ways to get her boundaries respected.

What I have noticed about her is that she tends to be expected to provide more than she can instead of being appreciated for what she TRIES to accomplish. For example, I thought the wedding she planned was actually nice. golden planned something within her means and when she showed a picture of her dress, I honestly thought it was nice and yet I did not really hear others saying that to her respecting her and being excited for her. Instead, what I read was how others wanted her to somehow come up with a big wedding that she really could not afford and no one stepped up and said, "how can I help you afford a bigger wedding?". Truth is, the trend has actually been that of couples having a much smaller wedding because it's way too much to have a big wedding now, so what she did was right on key with the trend. She ended up pretty much covering the entire expense and faced pouts and "you need to do for me" statements when she really did not deserve to experience that. From what she has shared, she has not gotten the respect she deserved and it hurts her because she does really try and she tries very hard to do things nice too. She needs reassurance and support here because she doesn't get enough of that from the people around her. IMHO, she has dealt with too much narcissistic abuse where her efforts simply were not respected the way they should have been. That tends to create a certain amount of low self esteem when instead she needed to have people respect things she accomplished which from what she has shared have been mostly on her own in her life.

I told the CEO I was flattered that my boss thought I could take on social strategy. I also told the CEO that I was in over my head, flying by the seat of my pants and that I wasn’t comfortable with that. That I can’t work like that.

The job I was hired to do has nothing to do with social. The responsibility was brought over to our department because the person in charge of it wasn’t handling it good enough. I volunteered to help. Many of us did and several of us showed interest. Now my boss may have misunderstood my experience level with social. He made a lot of assumptions in assuming I could actually RUN the whole thing.

I don’t have a problem with authority. I do as I am asked and always with a positive attitude.

I backed out of social because I saw how big the responsibility is, and how I started making things up just to have an answer. That’s not right. I’m not equipped or knowledgeable enough to run it.

Basically I see it as being my boss was concerned I had lost passion for my field and also concerned about my ability to take on more SEO clients. Or at least those are the concerns the CEO now has because of how my boss presented things to the CEO about me. I never said I couldn’t handle more SEO clients. That’s where I feel my boss misconstrued things to the CEO. I had only been overly stressed once when they gave me a very difficult client, my plate was suddenly overfull with a demanding client who demanded more hours and time than they were paying us for. So my boss took that client off my plate. So he now claims I can’t handle more clients than what I have, which is simply not true. See what he’s doing? He’s setting me up to look bad to the CEO. I told the CEO I can certainly handle more clients. I told HR the same thing. I also made it clear that I have not lost passion for my work, which was a concern. This was made a concern because I had told my boss I wasn’t sure about SEO being for me and maybe I should try something new. This company claims if you’re not enjoying your role, they will move you into something else. So my boss conveyed to the CEO that I lost my passion for SEO, using what I said against me which is very two-faced kind if company policy. The CEO wants to see me take on more clients and to be passionate about my work. I told him I can certainly do both. I told him I get excited about aspects of my work.

Oh whatever. I feel it’s moot now at this point. His mind will probably already be made up by the time I meet with him again.

Try not to assume this is the case, give yourself a chance (((golden))).

Well I just feel there’s nothing more I can say to try and save my job. The CEO said he would think about it and that I should think about it and that we would talk again.

My husband doesn’t think I’ll be fired because they let me work on Friday and attend an off-site client meeting. My boss and colleague could have easily covered that meeting for me, had they let me go. The day to have done it would have been Friday.

I am really downhearted right now. This is the worst feeling to have my fate in others' hands and out of my hands... not knowing what that fate will be. I had a final round of interviews with a large brand last week. Wouldn't it be pretty incredible if I got a job offer right now and could say goodbye to this toxic work environment?

I also decided that IF I do get fired, that I will sue for wrongful termination. I researched it and you can sue IF you suspect that it was done out of retaliation OR an act of defamation, which is what my boss is doing here. He claimed to my CEO that I cannot handle any more SEO clients. That's a false accusation and can be submitted in court.

Years and years ago my husband lost his job. He was union backed. We were pretty sure back then that he was fired for defamation. The union agreed. Even though we had the union on our side-we couldn’t find an attorney that would touch the case. At will employees do t have luck on their side when it comes to trying to sue for wrongful termination. We were told cases have been won, but they were few and far between. Employers are very very good at covering their tracks. Now, unfortunately for H he was also not able to collect unemployment. They brought 2 attorneys, the top guy and 2 other people to
Fight the unemployment-and they won. It was pretty harsh. Considering the CEO likes you, you probably won’t have to fight for unemployment. I hope you get the job you interviewed for. I’m sorry this is happening to you. When it happened to my husband we were sick with dread. I’m sorry they left you hanging. It’s a horrible feeling. Hugs to you.

Yikes! So sorry that happened. How awful for you both! If I get fired I will at least try the legal route. And thank you so much. I pray I get this job offer!!!

Did you disclose to anyone that you had that job interview? I wonder if this is all part of that-like if they found out somehow. Like even through references if the new place called to verify employment?