I typically dedicate this column to active job seekers, providing strategies, techniques, and best practices to enable them to reach the kind of outcomes that will be personally and professionally satisfying.
I got a call last week from Alex (not even close to his real name) who asked that I tell you his story. It’s not about how he’s looking for a job. It’s about why. Alex was fired four weeks ago. He wants to share his cautionary tale with you.
Alex is a mid level manager who describes himself as intelligent, hard working, and dedicated. He says he’s not the kind of person to whom people are naturally attracted. “I guess you’d call me colorless. I like to stay under the radar. I don’t argue. I don’t push back. I keep my head down and stay out of trouble.” He’s the first one at work and the last one to leave. The janitorial staff has gotten used to cleaning around him.
Alex doesn’t aspire to much more than what he’s doing but admits to being discouraged when promotions and increases don’t come his way. His average performance reviews describe him as “steady,” “reliable,” and “not apt to take risks.”
Alex admits he’s frustrated; he’s working harder and longer and getting less satisfaction from it. He supervises two people who do the minimum, leave at five, and appear to enjoy a very full and happy life.
Alex knows he’s out of balance. His wife told him so, in clear, unambiguous, and highly audible language. She’s said she’s tired of carrying all the responsibility for raising kids and keeping house. She’s tired of living like a single parent. She wants him home, not just to pick up the slack but to reawaken their relationship. They have three children. His kids call him Phantom and seem genuinely surprised and sometimes startled when they glimpse him during daylight hours.
“Why’s Dad home?” they say. “Did he get fired?” Kids can be prophetic.
When Alex is home (a few hours on a Sunday afternoon) he’s zonked out on the sofa in front of the giant TV he bought the family as a peace offering. They like the TV and plan their lives without him. Alex knows that things can’t stay as they are, that he works too many hours; but he’s afraid not to, afraid to fall behind.
“Is Dad divorcing us?” That’s what Alex’s youngest son asks his mother. When she relays the question to Alex she’s playing more than the messenger. “We all want to know,” she said. “because if you are and nothing’s going to change, we need to make the arrangement permanent.”
Alex swears that he never saw it coming. “I know I sound insensitive, uninvolved, uncaring, everything you associate with absentee dads. I know I should have been more attentive. But everything I did, everything, was for them, for my wife and my kids. I thought they understood that.”
He doesn’t know what to do or say, so he responds the way he always has, he goes back to the office and works harder.
You can imagine his surprise when his boss greets him late one Friday afternoon to tell him, “Alex, this in your last day here.”
“Alex, you spend more time here than anyone else. I don’t know if you’re the hardest working employee we have. You’re definitely the most inefficient. You’re not managing your time and you’re not managing your subordinates. In twelve years you haven’t grown beyond where you were when you first came. You don’t lead, challenge, motivate, or empower anyone, yourself included. And at your level, that’s what we pay you to do. We’re doing you a favor, Alex. We’re letting you go.”
