Thank You for Firing Me 4 Years Ago Today

Imagine this scenario: a man walking out of the office he worked at for two years after finally saying he’s had enough. Imagine him spending his time on his computer applying to numerous jobs on Indeed.com to escape, hands clenched on the mouse button as he submits each and every resume.

Now, to the company who fired me four years ago today, what I want you to do is imagine my face. Because in case you rich executives who don’t care about the diligent workers who help you get your money through the grunt work forgot, that man was me. I was one of the many employees at your company whose souls your supervisors and HR reps almost destroyed. After two years of feeling not good enough. After two years of not getting raises. After two years of putting in more than 8 hours a shift and not getting a damn penny of overtime. After months and months of you choosing other people over me to promote as supervisors. After two years of you taking me for granted just to make sure your failing company stays in business.

And guess what? I want to tell you that I don’t hate you. Instead, I want to say – thank you.

Because after two years of you emotionally abusing me, I realized that it is not that I wasn’t good enough for you – it was your company. Your company still are the toxic ones.

I am finally coming out of that dark place that you’ve put me in. I’m coming out of that hell where you made me feel like my life outside of work meant nothing. Soon, I’m coming out of that house I barely could afford and am slowly creating my own destiny. You no longer have power over me. You’ve got nothing on me. NOTHING!! I remind myself every single day of my worth and that I am enough.

I deserve better than your fake promises to let me feel good helping clients who don’t appreciate what I do. I deserve a life that’s worth living rather than living cheque to cheque under fortune five hundred organizations that completely distort my perception of what it means to serve and survive from what I’m paid. I deserve better than supervisors, human resource departments, and directors who take me for granted and ignore me as if I’m just a machine on duty. I deserve better than board members who decide that a huge turnover is not a problem for a business without a second thought.

I deserve to work for a company or a cause that is better than you.

I am not the same entitled man constantly trying to depend on a failing economy and system of where established or old money can support me. Now I know better than giving inept supervisors complete power over me and my emotions. I have regained the lost control over my life and I am not willing to give my time away anymore. I won’t ever feel worthless. I won’t allow anyone to hire me who will make me feel less as an employee.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that your company is terrible. You are trying to help your clients and do the best you can to keep them, but you were toxic to me and everyone that has left your company. And if sometimes you start thinking about the employees you wish were still working for you, please remember the image I just described at the top of this post and stop yourself from ruining people’s lives ever again.

Because you almost destroyed my soul and my body. I injured myself trying to chase something I should never have because of how you treated me. I was drowning in self-pity and then, suddenly I threw my hands up and said “To hell with this garbage.” I decided to give up trying to survive the way I was taught by going to school and getting good grades just to try to get a secure job that you took right out of my fingers.

I know you mean well as a company. I know you are just trying to provide service, but next time you feel like you need to hire me again, please remember what you did. Think of the man who used to go home after his shifts and cry himself to sleep because he’s so stressed with the endless data entry and the customers who swear at him when he just wants to do his job right and support his beautiful loving wife. Think about the man who once kept asking God at night in agony why he was placed in a company where everything there went wrong for many people who worked there. Think of the man who gained weight while he was there and even more weight when he became jobless after he left because of those who made his life a living hell.

Before you go, thank you for molding me into the man and husband I’ve always wanted to be.

Thank you for giving me the chance to rebuild my spirituality, my emotional stability, and even parts of my marriage that almost caused us to fall apart.

Thank you for making me stronger.

Thank you for an unrelenting tenacity.

Thank you for pushing me so far into the ground that I had no choice left but to get up and transform my life.

Thank you for helping me realize that I don’t need to depend on a company, the economy, the government, or even the church to help me survive.

Thank you for causing me to research every corner of the internet to find helpful resources and tasks to help me become one of the new rich that Tim Ferriss describes in his bestselling book.