a small dose of the real world

Boy, have I ever got things to tell you. First, I no longer have a job. I was dismissed. You remember some of the stuff I've written about before in untoward happenstance and William Zinsser, eat your heart out? Well, it's caught up to me at last. My incompetence has finally devolved upon me instead of innocent people. Here's how it happened. The straw that broke the camel's back fell on Wednesday. I made an error, yet another one in a long string. I got the date wrong on an obituary again. I'm not sure how. The obit was submitted without a date, and I suppose I must've called and asked the mortuary for one, and then put it down wrong, somehow. (Sometimes I don't know where my mind goes. I thought I was past doing stupid mental fumbles like that.) More shameful still, the date was blatantly wrong: the date the obituary was submitted was September 23, and I put down the date of service as September 20. Temporally impossible, you see. Anyway, it got past the editors (I don't blame them at all; I was the one who wrote it wrong in the first place) and the customer who'd placed the obituary noticed it. They called me on Wednesday, and wanted to rerun it. Of course, my employer's policy is to rerun an ad for free if there's an error. But before we could rerun for free, I had to go tell Ron. He told me to rerun it, but he also said he was disappointed in how many mistakes I was making. He called me into his office later and gave it to me straight: because I was making so many mistakes, because I'd made it clear that I was not yet ready to be a reporter at that newspaper, I was now out of the running for the full-blown reporter's position which I'd originally applied for. (I'd had no idea that I was still in the running for it, but that didn't make what he said any easier to hear.) He said he liked me, but it was apparent to him that I wasn't yet ready. I thanked him for telling me, and asked where we'd go from here. He said I'd continue working in the capacity of editorial assistant, filing obituaries and letters to the editor, and then (after I'd said that I understood and thanked him for informing me) I left the office. This was a far cry from being fired, but it felt about as bad. I don't know about you, but when I get criticized, no matter how just or gentle the criticism, I feel horrible. Hearing Ron's voice as he told me how disappointed he was, seeing that disappointment in his face and frustration in his eyes, I suddenly felt as if a balloon filled with ice water had exploded in my chest. It was a struggle to keep up eye contact. I'd made this mistake before, and lots of different ones besides. Ron didn't want apologies, he wanted corrected behavior. And I was letting him down. He'd given me this position out of the goodness of his heart and I was letting him down. That's why my veins suddenly froze and my knees nearly failed me. It wasn't because I was being criticized. I was ashamed of myself for disappointing him. I was mortified, but also a wee bit grateful. He had told me why I was out of the running. Furthermore, he was very gentle. He had criticized me very gently. Not that I'm weak or insecure or anything, but I probably would have died of shame if he'd been nasty about it. So the obituary was rerun the next day, Thursday. Thursday was an ordinary day, although I was extra-judicious in making sure that the dates on that day's obituaries were correct. At about 5:00, Ron came by my desk and told me to drop by his office on my way out. I didn't think anything of it. I thought he might ask me to come in on Friday, or Monday. I came into his office at 5:30 and sat down unbidden on the soft leather couch in front of his desk. And Ron told me it was my last day working at that newspaper. I was half-stunned. I couldn't pretend that I hadn't seen (or sensed) it coming. I was actually surprised that I hadn't been fired the day before. But it had only been postponed for a day. As I sat there with my nerves slowly bleaching, Ron gave me the story. He reiterated that he was disappointed in the mistakes I'd made, even with something so simple and innocuous as obituary writing. There were some things I should know by now, he said. I still had much learning left to do and some things about news writing that I needed to work on, and until that time, my employment with the newspaper had, as he put it, "run its course." He was not speaking to me in the usual way he spoke to me (and the other reporters). He normally spoke quickly, quietly, almost harshly: disjointed, rapid-fire admonitions, recommendations, and suggestions, with a good scattering of colloquialisms and idioms sprinkled in. I had overheard him talking to Patrick (another reporter) earlier that day, exhorting him to either finish the story he was working on or, failing that, find something else to do. "We've got to get on this thing. We've got to pull our fat out of the fire. When you fumble the football, you've got to pick it back up fast." On Thursday, as he had Wednesday when he told me I was out of the running for a reporter's position, he adopted a new tone: slow, cohesive, gentle. He was very nice about the whole thing. He could've lambasted my incompetence and told me to get the hell out of his sight. He had every right to. But he didn't. He made it clear that he was letting me go, and he told me the reason civilly, reasonably and straightforwardly. He didn't yell, he didn't kvetch, and he didn't say "You're fired." Despite my shame, despite the acute deadness that was spreading everywhere throughout my body as I heard this, despite how angry I was at myself, it didn't feel like I was being fired. What's more, everything he told me about my performance was true; I could see that immediately. A child should be able to do obituaries correctly, and call for verification when needed, and make sure that all dates and addresses are true and correct before publishing them. But I couldn't. Or wouldn't. So I was being dismissed. Ron signed what was now my final time sheet. I thanked him again for informing me and giving me this opportunity, then turned around and walked out of the office. I felt like I was moving through the cloying, dense air of a dream as I walked back to my desk. I strode mechanically through the newsroom, past reporters whom I'd come to know by name and personality. It was strange to me suddenly. I was an outsider again. Though I hadn't liked the job, it was still a sudden and saddening thing to be leaving. Not to mention shameful. Didn't even make it a whole month, I thought. That phrase kept pounding through my head as I cleaned out my desk and collected my lunchbox, AP style guide, and a few papers that I wanted to keep. (Ron's hand-typed list of journalism basics was one of them.) My guts were curdling. My heart felt like it was shriveling up. My hands and feet and head felt like they were miles away from my body. I couldn't believe it. I'd screwed the pooch. I'd been dismissed from a job. And it was entirely my fault. And then, desk was bare. The wall next to it was clean of notes and reminders. Old press releases and business cards were stacked neatly on the old desk behind. My possessions were in my hands. It was time to leave. Unable to walk out without saying a sort of goodbye, I wrote Thanks again on a scrap of notepaper and left it lying on top of the stacked documents. I stopped by Ron's office once more to shake his hand, say thanks, and apologize. He told me if I ever needed help or a recommendation then he'd supply it. That was too much for me. I left the office with one last over-the-shoulder "Sorry." I walked out without saying a word to anyone. I couldn't bring myself to speak to them. I was just too ashamed. For the rest of that day I really sympathized with whoever invented hara-kiri. I had to call up the staffing service that had placed me with the newspaper and let them know I'd been dismissed. I didn't sugarcoat it, but I didn't beg for sympathy by saying I'd been fired, either. They let me know that they'd process my final paycheck and send it along...and then they said "Good luck." Yeah. Right. I knew I had to keep myself busy or I'd start thinking. Thinking about how big a failure I was. Thinking about how many people I'd inconvenienced. Thinking about what a piss-poor a writer I'd always been. Thinking about how much of a loser I must be for not holding down a job (a temp position, for Pete's sake). Thinking of a lot of other condemning, gut-churning, excoriating, reproachful things. I did pretty well. I kept reading The World Turned Upside Down, watched a couple of movies, and planned out all the errands and cleaning I needed to do on Friday to prepare for my birthday party (more about that later). My mood improved as the evening wore on. Yeah, okay, so I'd been fired...dismissed, anyway. It was my own fault, yes. But it wasn't the end of the universe. I could get another job, somewhere. I was now free to go to Australia, what's more. I'd been given a warning, that was all. This was a small dose of the real world. I'd been given an opportunity, blown it, and had reaped the consequences. At the very least, I should take a lesson from this and do better next time. I wasn't an idiot, just a very, very slow learner. By the end of the evening I was getting excited about the party (which I shall inform you about later), and had largely shaken off the shame, depression, malaise and self-loathing that had been gnawing at me. Then I went to bed, and shut off the light. And thought.