Fired from My First Job and I turned Out Okay—I Think? So Can You

While in High School, I was in a program where I had to have a job as well as complete my scholastic “stuff”. I got a part-time job at a large family owned chain drug store called, Fox Drugs. I had an easy enough job, stocking and straightening products on shelves. Easy enough, right? Not for me! I showed up on time every day, which for me, even to this day is saying a lot. I have a tendency to be late, always did and people who know me well, expect it from me and just laugh and roll their eyes. I’m not happy about it, just admitting to one of my long standing faults. Nevertheless, back at Fox, I always showed up on time. I had a job now, felt like an adult, and figured I had to show up on time— like grown-ups.

I hated what I had to do at Fox. I suppose hated is too strong a word but I thought that if this was what a life of work was to be all about, I certainly had a crappy life ahead of me.

So, I had to stand in front of shelves and straighten products to make sure everything was lined up and completely straight. Drove me nuts! Worse, I was bad at it. Yeah, bad at straightening products in a straight line—how lame is that?

After about a month at Fox Drugs the mother of the owner of the Chain, pulled me aside and using her best attempt at being nice, fired me. She was wearing several big diamond rings and her hair was perfect, not a hair out of place and she must have been a smoker because she had a deep voice, common to some female smokers. She looked at me and said, “Steve, you simply are not working out and we are going to have to let you go.” I asked, “What do you mean, let me go, you mean I’m fired, why?” She said that I was not straightening the products on the shelves good enough and said I was not working out for the company. She said some other things but I can't really remember what exactly—the main focus was the shelf straightening. I do remember wondering why they got such a big shot to fire me, a lowly employee and I remember being puzzled as to why they tossed me. I realized I hated the work but I wasn’t expecting getting fired! Surprisingly, being tossed didn’t hurt me and when I told my teacher, she didn’t make me feel bad about myself and conveyed in her usual calm, hopeful manner, that stuff like that happened and that I’d get another job, which I did.

Let me jump ahead about six years. At 22, I was hired as a full time cop and never really looked back since. I was a responsible employee at several different departments I worked at and after police work, I did well in other different types of work too. I won some awards and excelled in some of the jobs—never coming close to being fired. Every now and then I think back to that time I was fired and I always figured my mind was simply not geared for that kind of slow paced, piece work but nevertheless, I would shake my head and smile when I thought about it.

About two months ago, I told Ron, a grocery employee from my local grocery store that I had become friends with that as a kid I was fired for not being able to straighten shelves correctly. I was laughing at myself and fully ready for him to agree with me that I was a real ding-dong. However, he stopped me in my tracks and said, "No, there are people who cannot do a good job of shelf straightening." I exclaimed, “What, there are more of us out there!" He said, “Yeah, Steve, some people can’t do it well and we have to let them go.” Almost 40 years later, I found out that I was not alone!

Famous American soldier and former United States Secretary of State General Colin Powell recently said something profound during a television interview. After admitting that he was a mediocre college student and now was considered a distinguished, scholarly and accomplished person by college administrators, he said, “It is not where or how you start out, but where you end up.” Well said General.