Thoughts on Being Terminated (You're Fired!)
The times I’ve been fired can be counted on one hand with all fingers extended. The last termination was in 2017, when my printing company was sold to a larger entity whose leadership thought having our capabilities and customers would enhance what they were currently doing: printing business cards, brochures, and booklets. I thought the company president who led the purchase effort was a business genius, albeit cranky. The CEO, who I’d rarely met, was a Christian fundamentalist (think Mike Lindell), and in the second month of our merger, brought in a business consultant to educate us on Servant Leadership, a thinly veiled inquisition to weed out those with opposing views. My wife and I were swiftly fired. I didn’t feel comfortable with the Servant Leadership hogwash, so the firing felt, in a way, honorable (and we were well compensated).
My first termination in 1973, though, wasn’t so honorable.
I worked at a Clark Gas Station on Minnehaha Boulevard, a main thoroughfare between downtown Minneapolis and the airport. The gas station was small, with a glassed-in structure used only to sell gum, candy bars, soda pop, cigarettes, and engine oil in bulk refillable glass jars.
Out back was a large gravel yard with two above-ground tanks of leaded gas, regular and premium. Unleaded wouldn’t be sold until the following year. I was responsible for topping off the underground tanks each day from the above-ground tanks, a process that involved turning a large faucet on a four-inch pipe. As the gas filled the underground tanks, I’d check the level with a twenty-foot wooden dipstick. Once filled, I’d turn the faucet off.
It was before the days of pay-at-the-pump, and I mostly pumped gas. I wore orange prison-like overalls with the Clark logo on the breast pocket. A car would pull up to the pumps, and I’d say, “Yes Sir,” or “Yes Mam.” They’d ask for regular or premium, fill’er up, or a dollar amount. I’d pump the gas and wash all the windows. Then I’d offer, “Check your oil?” If yes, they’d pop the hood, and I’d pull the dipstick. Owners of older leaky cars would come in for the cheap bulk oil in the refillable jars.
It was an easy job. I was left alone each shift and had time to do homework or nothing. My cash drawer and inventory had to be balanced after each shift, and a boss who managed multiple stations would check my work.
Then came the oil crisis in the fall of that year. The Arab countries were bitter about America’s involvement with Israel in the Yom Kippur War. As a retaliation, the Arab countries declared an oil embargo. Within weeks, the price of oil and gas increased dramatically, causing a panic. Customers, afraid that the price would rise higher each day, would top off their tanks. I went from filling one or two cars at a time to lines of cars down the block waiting on one of the four pumps. I was swamped and still alone on my shift. Handling all that cash and crazy with pumping all that gas, my register and inventory counts started coming up wrong.
Then something idiotic and tragic happened. It was an uncharacteristically quiet Sunday afternoon. The oil crisis was winding down, and fewer cars pulled to the pumps, so I spent time catching up on homework. Near the end of my shift, I went to fill one of the underground tanks. I checked the level with the wood dipstick and judged it to be fifteen or twenty minutes before the tank was full. I opened the faucet and then went back to my homework. And forgot.
Forty-five minutes went by before I remembered. I ran back to the tanks. The open pipe used for measuring the level of the underground tank was now spewing a ten-foot geyser. The low spot in the gravel parking lot was a pond of gas, probably over one hundred gallons. I quickly shut off the faucet.
You can imagine the hubbub the spill would’ve caused in this day and age. Fire trucks from multiple stations would arrive with their screaming sirens and lights. The area would be cordoned off, and the firemen would spray down the parking lot with chemical foam to keep oxygen from the gas. Nearby buildings would be evacuated. Journalists would print, post, or Tweet. The EPA would run months of tests. The Clark station would be closed and shuttered. Prosecution would ensue.
Of course, my fifteen-year-old instinct was to hide the evidence. I grabbed a push broom and started pushing gas from the pond to drier areas, trying to increase the rate of absorption and evaporation. While doing that, I stood ankle-deep in gas. After an hour, most of the gas had soaked into the gravel yard, with just a few stray puddles remaining. Though the sky was cloud-free, it looked like a rainstorm had passed through. At home that evening, my feet were red and itchy from the corrosive gas. But I’d gotten away with it.
I was fired the following week. Over 200 gallons of leaded gas were unaccounted for. I was the newest employee, and there was already a strike against me with the unbalanced register and errant inventory counts. So my boss simply picked me. It was likely more than a coincidence that he chose the right guy.
In retrospect, I can honestly say that terminations made me a better person. After the first one, I became better with inventory counts and no longer cavalier with gas. Others, like a restaurant no-show, forced me to move along with my life. It was then I moved to Las Vegas and worked as a nightclub manager. Another firing forced me to move away from Vegas with its twenty-four-hour temptations and quit using drugs. The next termination taught me to be more careful with my words (no comment). I was quick to learn from being fired, but more importantly, most forced me to move along, experience new things, and explore other opportunities. That last time, with the Servant Leadership consultant, pushed me out of the printing business and toward writing.
Here I am now.