Mental Wealth Podcast

Rob

We’d like to start today’s podcast with a brief announcement. We are delighted. To share with. You that the Mental Health Podcast has partnered with the American Red Cross. As part of our partnership, 50% of all proceeds from products purchased through our online store will now go to support the urgent needs of the American Red Cross. We want to thank everyone at the American Red Cross for their instrumental work. Please visit support.mentalwealthpod.com to learn more about our partnership. And thank you everybody for your support.

What if game fired wasn’t the end of something, but the start of finally figuring out who you are? We sat down with Pam and Amy from the canned podcast to unpack the emotional rollercoaster that comes with. Losing your job. We talk about identity, shame, resilience and how to navigate the mental fallout. If you’ve ever been let go and wondered what comes next, this conversation is for you. Hope you enjoy it.

For add free episodes of the mental health podcasts, head to mentalwealthpod.gumroad.com.

Pam and Amy, you would like to introduce the the canned podcast to our audience.

Pam

Sure. My name is Pam Mandel and I’m the host of canned conversations about getting fired, which is exactly like it sounds like from the title. It’s conversations. About getting fired.

Amy

And I’m Amy Guth, and I produce the podcast.

Rob

When I heard about the idea for the canned podcast, I was first of all very jealous because I was like, that’s such a great idea for a podcast I was like, that’s brilliant. I love it. It’s such a universal experience, and everyone who has that story of a bad boss or just that experience of going through the firing process, I’d love to find out what the origin story is that can podcast. If you could tell.

Pam

It is the most obvious thing, which is that I got fired. So I sat on my couch for about two days and I thought something is funny about this experience. Somethings doesn’t sit right with me and I got on Slack with Amy and said Amy, I want to do this thing.

Amy

And I was very enthusiastic about the idea right away. I loved it because immediately when you hear it, you go, Oh my gosh, that’s such a good idea. Why does this not exist? Already? Pam had shared with me the whole process leading up to her getting fired. And so I knew kind of the ends and outs of it and immediate. Really, when she put the call out for the original, like the initial group of people. It just resonated with people in that same way people understood it immediately of like, yeah, wait, why don’t we talk about this? I mean, immediately it just kind of clicked and every time I tell somebody about the podcast. They’re. Like, Oh my God, that’s such a good idea. Why doesn’t that exist?

Rob

Is there a particular guest you’ve had recently that you could talk about that resonated most with you right now?

Pam

The thing that I am struck with is not that there is one particular guest that stands out, but that every single person that we’ve spoken with has some kind of remarkable insight. They have some kind of remarkable gift when they’re given the opportunity to talk about the experience openly, they give us so much to sort of process. And different ways to think about what it. Means to get fired.

Amy

Yeah, I would agree with that. No matter what industry somebody is talking about that they were in prior to getting fired. There are just themes that go across it. There’s dynamics between boss and worker that just echo out throughout all of capitalism and affect everybody. There are themes that. Ripple out in how you never get the satisfaction or the dignity of the real truth. There’s always just some kind of like. Fabricated quick story there’s always some kind. Of. Coldness from the person doing the firing. There’s always this embarrassment and there’s this kind of shame attached to it. And then there’s always this epiphany of like. Well, wait a minute. I. No, no, this is all this is not true about me. And it’s almost like when your truth gets rattled that hard. It kind of forces your inner self to step forward in a more powerful way. And I really love the guests that have done something. Really. Powerful after getting fired that started a business or completely changed and are just so happy they don’t even know what to do with themselves now because that was so, so rattled within them that they came out of it at the end. They they it became a victory for them, you know, they were able to reclaim something about themselves on the other side of it.

Rob

That’s such a good point is that people don’t often eat, go through the process of being fired, and they go through the emotions of it, but then they don’t. They’re not maybe ready to think about the next step with that. What that process looks like and then afterwards on reflection, it almost becomes a foundation for growth in the future. Is there a surprising element, perhaps, that you’ve learned about the process of being? By by speaking to so many people about. That.

Pam

That’s a really good question. I’m surprised every time somebody tells me a story, none of these stories were boring. Ever. A thing that’s surprising for me from a more philosophical point of view is that everybody seems to cross this transition where they think very deeply about the role that work plays in their life. The role that that work plays in their identity, right, and who they are. And I’ve spoken with a lot of people who have come out of it and been like, I’m just not going to put myself in. In work like that, the. Your day. And then there’s sort of a companion piece to that. And I did an interview just last week where the guy I was talking to said, you know, my biggest mistake was being loyal to my employer. And there, there’s that too. And so these two sort of foundational things, one is sort of the level of their commitment to their work and the other is the level of importance work plays in their identity. Both of those key things about who people are and the and the role work plays get rattled very deeply as a result of getting fired.

Amy

There was an episode pretty early on with a teacher that really captured that spirit and she talked about how we’re raised to be, quote, UN quote good workers and very obedient workers. And we comply with things and we, we’re A-Team player. If we happily, you know, sacrifice nights, nights and weekends to do more way out of the scope of work. And when you put that boundary there is this element of how dare you there’s this like heretic thing that gets put on you and a lot of people I think part of their grief. Was. How could they do this to me? I gave so much and and there’s this betrayal element in their grief from getting fired and and I think that you know what Pam was describes is very true and very present in all of them. There’s like, this sense of I I gave so much and it made me realize what the hell am I doing? There’s a lot of people that have said things like now I have way better. Boundaries. They hired me to do this job until 5:00 PM, and I am out the door. 501. I’m not trying to take on extra emotional labor and wear myself out because. You know the job doesn’t love you back. It can’t. It can compensate you. It can give you benefits, but it can’t love you back. And. And I think that comes through in almost every single episode. Truly.

Rob

And such a great point. I’m wondering whether there’s a difference between how younger people approach the process of being fired and how older people who are more experienced than perhaps have been through different kinds of jobs before us. Is there? Is there any sort of difference between the team? Canister.

Pam

I’m thinking about a young woman I spoke with. She had just turned 30 and she had also crossed this Rubicon around her relationship with her employers. And I was actually quite surprised that she had done so, so young, right. That seemed really young to me. You would think that the default would be that it’s more senior workers who are like, I’m not doing that. But I think that that’s not true. I think that it actually transcends age. Once you’ve had the carpet yanked out from under you like that, it doesn’t matter how old you are, you’re still lying on the ground.

Rob

100%.

Amy

If there’s anything, it’s that maybe some younger workers are bracing, maybe they’ve been through it, they’ve seen it already. They’ve seen so many rounds of lab they they kind of go in with maybe a little bit of an attitude, like less permanence in a job. But I I think it hits everybody. There’s so many themes across industry and age and. And all kind of demographics that, yeah, I mean, I love that that like when the rug gets pulled out from under you, you’re still laying on the ground. That’s exactly right.

Mukund

Is there a common reason that was given from your guests that you’ve had like? Is it performance? Is it cost cutting?

Pam

Almost no one. There are few people, but almost no one who has fired for performance reasons. Performance is the least common reason for getting fired. It’s really.

Amy

Just the one guy, right?

Pam

What are you thinking of me?

Amy

The pizza guy, the pizza dude.

Pam

Yeah. Yeah, the pizza guy. And he was like, yeah, it’s kind of a punk ***. Kid with an attitude.

Amy

Yeah, he’s like I had it come in. Yeah, but everybody else? No. And it’s never cause it’s never for performance, no.

Pam

It’s always something else. It’s always personality conflict. It’s always restructuring. Some people literally have no idea. They think they’re doing great. I’m thinking of this woman who was a senior VP of E comma.

Pam

And she was like, my team was great. They love me. We were meeting our metrics. You know, I streamlined all these processes. I came to work one day. They told me to clean out my desk. It’s always something else. The opacity of it to the worker is really quite striking. They don’t know.

Mukund

The reason they were given was cost cutting, not performance related, but in hindsight, individually, while talking to you, they’re like Oh yeah, you know what? I didn’t really put in my 100%. Maybe the cost cutting was the reason they gave me, but it was really this. I’m curious was that kind of a realization they had after?

Amy

Yeah.

Mukund

OK.

Amy

Pam always asks them after they tell the story of what happened. She always says, OK, what do you think really happened? And it is almost always unclear to them. They always feel like I was kind of lied to. I was never really given the real reason. Even people that were like, yeah, I guess the company was going through a lot of changes. It almost always in that second question. Kind of comes out to be. Some form of not even necessarily personality conflict just as much as like that guy didn’t like. Like I wasn’t a good fit for his vision or he didn’t like me or there’s some kind of like, oh, this person needed to kind of cover their ****. And I was the scapegoat. We never hear. Yeah, in hindsight, I wasn’t doing the job. It was always. I really don’t know. But if I had to guess I. They just didn’t like me. I think they just didn’t want me, right? I feel bad for them because there’s there is no closure because it’s so, so vague. And what else strikes me about that moment in the conversation is that even then, even when they’ve got some distance and they’re able to talk about it, sometimes we still hear people kind of making not quite excuses for the employee. But like. Well, I guess it’s fair. It was cost like very few people are like to hell with them. They weren’t. They lied to me and they were not clear with very few people. Just draw a line and they can get mad, but they will still take some of it like well, I guess I wasn’t doing, you know, it’s fascinating to me just how deep that shame goes.

Pam

I think it really speaks to what I was talking about earlier, which is the depth that your day job.

Pam

Impacts your identity, and so when these people have their day jobs taken away from them, they’re being punched in the identity, right? And that’s where that’s where it hurts. It hurts and their identity. They are so identifying with their jobs that when they’re told that they’re not good enough to stay in that role, even if it’s not performance based like it’s not, we’re not getting the value we want out of you. As a profit driven entity, right, good enough can mean a bunch of different things, but the end result is that you get your job taken away from you and you’re have this piece of your identity stripped away and people end up really personalizing that.

Mukund

Why do you think that is? Why do people associate their self worth to their jobs?

Pam

We spend most of our time working most of our working hours are spent doing that, so there’s this default notion that this is how we spend our time. And so we are how we spend our time. There’s that just by default, it is what we do. I just had a conversation with a guy who said he hates it when people ask him what he does when they meet him. He’s like, this is the least interesting thing about me, but we default. As a society also, so I think both of those things really feed into whether or not we want to identify ourselves as work. We’re being pushed into these boxes by the world around us.

Amy

And I think so much of our economic framework frames it that way for us that we have to earn our rest, not just get to rest because we’re humans and we need it. We have to. We’re most valuable when we’re very productive. You know, I think that it’s it’s such a pervasive narrative that it’s hard not to internalize it. We can say, oh, yeah, sure. No, I know I’m a valuable human being just by virtue of being a human being. But you know, you might still make comments or speak to yourself. Like, man, I’ve been a bum today. I haven’t done enough. I haven’t done anything. I need to be productive. Like you know, I think it’s just it’s we have internalized that economic system very deeply. It’s one of the first things you ask people. So what do you do? Where do you work? Right. Because we want to categorize people with that in that way of how do you spend your time. And therefore I can believe a thing about you or understand the thing about you better.

Rob

In some ways, some. It’s like society is evolving more in that direction with hustle culture and the, you know, the 5:00 to 9:00 after the 9:00 to. It’s almost like we’re getting more in deeper into the idea of like, what are you doing? What are you doing after the thing that you already do 9 to 5? Like, what is your your side gate like? You’re defining yourself more and more by productivity rather than your identity as we’re discussing.

Amy

And isn’t it interesting that it used to be that? If. Had to get a second job. There was almost a little bit of not quite shame, but something adjacent to shame. Like, oh gosh, things are going bad in my household. I had to get a second job and now it’s like, what are your side hustles and what are your, you know, I I have hobbies that I make a point not to monetize and people are always going. Ohh. You should sell that on that seat. You should do this. And I’m like, I don’t want to. I just want to do this thing for joy. Let some things just be joy.

Rob

I’m wondering from the management side, is there something that management could do more effectively when they do have to make that horrible decision?

Pam

We talked with Becca Weaver and she’s an HR consultant. She talks in great detail about this and about how the organization that is designed to help the worker is also the organization that’s designed to protect management. She articulated that so well, like we need HR for workers, and we need whatever management needs. They should be two completely separate organizations. The fact that they’re not makes it really difficult for workers to come out ahead because the company is always going to come first. And, you know, people get twitchy about, like HR is not your friend. Don’t be. Don’t be mad about it. But HR is not your friend. HR is prioritizing the company. Over you every single time. It’s literally their job. And so that is like the overarching thing that I think companies could do is they could have internal advocates for their employees if they genuinely want their employees to feel protected, safe, valued, and to have a place to go when they’re having issues, that organization needs to be completely separate. From the one that protects managed.

Amy

In addition to all of that, I think a theme that’s come up a lot is how cold the person doing the firing has been, even when it’s someone who you felt like you had a good rapport with, that they’re, you know, they’ve been coached by HR because HR is ultimately there to make sure the company does not get sued. A lot of people kind of talked about this like, oh, I thought I had this great relationship with my boss and suddenly they just repeated. Online over and over, over and over. And I just left often. Sometimes that person was stunned, too, and didn’t really know what to do. So I think if you do have to fire somebody, I think you should be trained a little bit. You know, I think some people just kind of thrown to do that, but. Also, I just think there can be a lot more human way to do it and even in as litigious as things get there, there’s gotta be a more human way to do it. The other thing is part of having that worker advocate would help people better understand the rights that they have in that moment. There’s a lot of people that have mentioned like, and I was handed these papers to sign and I didn’t what to do and I just signed them and. You know the HR professional and we had an attorney on all of them like do. Not sign anything. By law, you have time to think about it. And I think if it was more present in the room that we all agree the the rules of engagement here and we know your rights as a worker and we know, you know, we have to do this in a way that is legally sound, but also with the dignity of everybody intact. I think if that was named a little more transparently, that might just kind. To help that unpleasant situation go a little bit better when it has to be there.

Mukund

Can you go back for a minute, Amy, please. Mentioned of signing papers and they have time. What was it in in reference to?

Pam

Separation paper severance packages all of that. Depending on your work relationship, you don’t have to sign that thing in the moment you are legally entitled to a certain amount of time, and we have that any number of people who have said they brought me in the office, they told me. They told me to sign these papers. They told me I wouldn’t get severance if I didn’t sign the papers. I was completely stunned. I signed the papers and I went and cried in my car. Thematically, this has happened more than once. It is illegal in the United States. To Badger your employee into signing the papers like that, it’s. Not legal. I’m not a lawyer, but the the one piece of advice that the employment lawyer that we spoke with, he. Was like don’t sign. Them ask them how long you have to read these. You shouldn’t have to sign them in the moment you’re stunned. You’re shocked. You’re like reeling. Take them home and ethical employer will tell you we are giving you these papers. You have 7 days to get back to us. Here’s your contact if you have any questions. So that’s just straight up ethical behavior from your employee and we have also heard numerous stories of somebody who had this paper slid across the desk and told them to sign and then to get their things and leave the building. They were not informed that they had the right to review the content of those papers. I’m going to say this again, not a lawyer, so I would consult with an employment lawyer or consult with somebody who’s familiar with the laws for your state or your region. Wherever you’re listening from, this is going to vary, but pretty consistently people are like, no, don’t sign, no, do not sign the papers. In that moment, take them home so you’ll review them. That’s it.

Rob

And I assume a lot of employment lawyers offer a free consultation for that very purpose. That’s a great point about calling someone with legal expertise about your severance packages and all those kind of things that you’re owed after you get fired. I’m thinking more about the the long term for the person that’s been fired. Is there a trait that you noticed among people that have gone on to greater success after their original?

Pam

Yeah, I talked to a woman last week and she told me that she fought the universe for years before she embraced her new.

Pam

For years she was she was doing the job, but she was like, this is temporary. I’m going to get back to that thing I was doing before, so she really was like swimming upstream the whole way, she said. It took us four or five years before she accepted that. Actually, no, she was on the right course now. So I think it just varies from person to person.

Amy

I have noticed though the some of the conversations when people share in hindsight. Things that they accepted as normal at the time when they’re recounting them to us are so hysterically funny to them, and they’re like, I took a giant iMac computer on the bus, both directions every day because they would not give me equipment. And why did I agree to that? My wife said that was absolutely nuts, but at the time I just went with it because it was kind of this like. Boiling frog thing, you know, they just kind of kept saying yes. And there’s there was somebody who who was like, a personal assistant to a very wealthy person who had all these very outlandish requests and and some bad behavior. And and she kind of later was able to go, like, who speaks to someone that way, who acts like. Of that right. So I, I do think there’s the folks that have landed in a place where there’s enough distance, not necessarily time but distance where they can really laugh about some of just the things that were ridiculous. The guy that took the iMac on a bus. He also said at one point the boss was like throwing things in the office. His son was handing him things like staplers. And he was whipping him around the office, and he was like, even as I’m saying that, that sounds so, you know, and he was able to reflect on, like, why did I not just get up right there in that moment? It was so crazy.

Rob

I would imagine for the most part it’s a combination of. I need this paycheck, but also I don’t even know how to react to something like that. There’s no corollary in human life where you’re just sort of stuck in a place and you can’t leave because you’re paid to be there, and someone’s throwing stationary around. There’s just no other. Well, unless you have kids, in which case, maybe, but.

Amy

Right. Maybe right. You have an angry toddler otherwise, no. Yeah.

Pam

Yeah, the angry toddler analogy is actually a really good one. And the angry toddler is the person who signs your checks. And right. And so that’s a weird power dynamic to be stuck in, right. And if you if you, I don’t know, put the angry toddler in time out, you’re being insubordinate, you’re not respecting their authority. They’re gonna throw a tantrum. I mean, we could just run this metaphor to the ground, right. But it’s not a bad metaphor. And you think, like, why am I putting up with angry toddlers? Why is my boss an angry toddler? Like what is going on that this is acceptable behavior and how is it that I’m the one that’s getting fired and not the angry toddler?

Amy

And we had a a mental health professional on and and he really dug in on it is a trauma to get fired. And you should give yourself that space to treat it as such and give yourself time to recover from it. But part of that is when you hear these stories of being treated so poorly in ways that are humiliating. Or just degrading or what? Never. There’s that trauma, too, right? So there’s just the trauma of suddenly you have no agency and no choice in the matter. You no longer do this thing that you perhaps gave a lot to. So there’s that trauma. But also, there’s this other layer of. Embarrassment of why did I consent to bring a computer every day? That was very inconvenient and hard for me. Why did I sit there while someone threw staplers? Why did I let this person speak to me? And also being traumatized by that person speaking to you and screaming at you and doing all these things? So there is some, like layered trauma to it that I think. We tend to dismiss a little bit that’s just a job. You’ll find another one, but but no, especially when you’re that connected to it as an identity point. It is a trauma and I like that he named that I liked that conversation a lot and that he really let it be there and and let yourself grieve the process. Like, let it be there and let yourself settle through both mentally and emotionally. But also somatically like let your body adjust to the trauma of that.

Pam

And to to tie back to what you were asking about. The characteristic of people who recover more quickly from this, and maybe that’s the key, right? Maybe it’s the people who acknowledge that this was a traumatic situation and I need to invest in recovering from this personal injury, right? Like, like, if you break your arm, you’re going to get the cast and you’re going to give it however long it takes to heal. Whatever. And you’re not gonna be embarrassed about it. You’re gonna be like, no, I fell and broke my arm. It’s. But if you have this emotional injury or this mental injury or any of these, we have a whole other layer of, like, shame and embarrassment around that stuff. And maybe the recovery comes faster to people who allow themselves to heal that part of the process. I’m speculating, but I bet that if we went back and sort of listen through it, we’d be like, oh, this is a person who invested in, like, really thinking about what the hell? Happened and what I’m gonna do next time and really like figured out. Whereas like if I think about this woman who I talked to last week, it was just fought it the whole time. She really didn’t wanna give into it, right. She really didn’t wanna give into it. She’s very candid about it now. But she also like it took her year. And it might be because she wasn’t willing to accept the fact that these people really insulted me. And so being really candid with yourself about how you felt about what you went through, maybe that’s the maybe that’s the key.

Mukund

So from from what I understand, the majority of them were taken by surprise, right? Of the minority that did not. Is it safe to say that they were mentally prepared or were they resilient enough to not be affected by it? You either accept how it is or you try to fight something that you cannot that cannot be fought which adds to their anxiety and not.

Mukund

Ideal mental health and there’s some people who are like, well, it is what it is. What’s the next step for me kind of?

Pam

I’m thinking about the tech workers we’ve had that were sort of swept up in layoffs, right? And who were like, yeah, it happens all the time in this industry. I feel like those folks tend to be weirdly split, like they sort of knew that this was always possible, but they didn’t necessarily see it coming to them. They weren’t so surprised that it’s happening. They’re more surprised that it’s happening to them specifically. It’s the personalization of it that. They’re surprised by.

Mukund

The reason I was asking was to see you know how many people were not as affected by it as the others who didn’t see it coming. Does it have any relation to who or successful after this happened, like starting their business? Is it people who were motivated by the firing to start there and be like, let me show them that I can succeed? Kind of mentality or people like, hey, I knew it was going to happen. This was my Plan B anyway.

Pam

Yeah, you know, I’m thinking about the video editor Quincy, who went off and started that new business with his partner when he was done and he was, he sort of took it as a message. Like I always wanted to do this. And so now I’m taking the opportunity and I think we had a handful of people are like, I always wanted to do this anyway. I was a little bit off track, but I I think it again sort of ties back to whether or not they gave themselves. The time to be introspective about what happened and what they really wanted to. Next, as opposed to people who were pressured, there’s also, surprise, surprise at economic level to this too, right? So say you’re some senior tech person and you’re pulling in a six figure salary. I talked to a guy who was a company founder, very senior. He was fired from the board of his own company. He was very emotionally traumatized by the process. Financially, he was, you know, like he’s. Fine. So there’s that aspect of it, too. I’m thinking of another person I talked to, this young woman who was 30, you know, was like I’m 30. Well, I just bought a house. What am I supposed to do? Right, so there’s there are a bunch of factors, and I think that the economic factor is also very, very important to consider. Do you have a partner at home who has a job start with that? Are your health benefits coming from somewhere else? Do you have kids that are on the insurance policy you’ve got from your employer? Like there’s a million factors that can determine? Can I take the risk of going to do some big new thing, or is my family my household reliant on that paycheck and I’m just gonna have to do what’s next? Just to like. Keep food in the fridge because I got kids that their feet keep growing. Whatever.

Rob

I’m just wondering also now about the next day after they’ve been fired. Now is there self help toolkit? Is there tools that you’ve learned about during this process that other people can use as they’re going through websites, apps, things that you would recommend people that have just been fired?

Pam

I haven’t found anything that really stands in, but I I will say that we have received excellent advice and I want to just point people to canned, you know, and say like, OK, you’ve you’re done crying, you should go listen to some episodes of can’t because you’re gonna find out that you’re not alone. That’s the that’s almost the first thing I want to tell people. And I also want to tell them to talk to me. For two reasons, partly because I want their story, I selfishly want their story, but partly because. I have found that running this sort of confessional for these stories, people are so unburdened, they’re carrying around this heavy story and they should if they don’t wanna tell it to me, they should find someone to talk to get your best friend, get your therapist, call your mom people. Are seriously burdened by these stories because they are so ashamed of losing their job because their identity has been hit so hard. Heard that? I want to tell them to, like, listen to these other people telling their stories and to find somebody to tell them to tell their own story to because it’s a lot to carry around. And 9899% of the time, it’s not your fault, right? And so you’re carrying around this heavy thing. It’s not your fault. And by talking through it, you sort of come to this realization. And just that alone, in Day 2, we’ll lift the bird.

Amy

I’m really struck by how many people say in the course of the interview. Wow, I’ve I’ve never really told anyone that story in particular, I’m thinking of a member of the military, and it went very badly for him. That is a heartbreaking story. You hear emotion in his voice and he’s like, well, I’ve never really shared that whole story, that it was a lot, and it was very liberating for him. I think there is. Absolutely. Like a lifting. And you can hear it through the course of the conversation. It there’s a lot of detail. I’m struck by the. Visible imprint that the moment makes on people, there’s a guy that is talking about something that happened decades ago. He still remembers the woman’s haircut and the stuff in her office, and he mentions that. So there is this more serious part of it. And then on the other side, the back half of the interview, there’s always this, you hear the relief in. Their voice so often you hear it by the end of the conversation, Pam usually closes by saying what advice would you have for someone who just got fired and you hear them step into this? I mean, I almost want to say higher mind, like, higher. Self way to. These. And talk about what they would say, and you can tell with some of them. They’re speaking to their previous self. They’re talking to the version of themselves who got fired. And it’s really touching a lot. And and and the themes are there. It’s always like, give yourself a minute, even if you gotta go back to work for economic reasons, like give yourself a second. Just take a breath, call a person. Sit quietly. Be in it. Don’t avoid it. Be in it and and look for support because people you know, it’s always I sat in the car and cried and called my partner. I actually I got someone to come get me because I didn’t think I could drive or I didn’t want to be on the bus or whatever. It’s always like, give yourself that minute, no matter how small. And I think that it’s so powerful. But to Pan’s point that unburdening is powerful. You can hear people talk about it. And to me, I can tell how emotionally charged it is because the way their voice modulates through the course of the conversation and because of the amount of recall that they have over. The tiniest little details that like I don’t remember what I had for breakfast yesterday, but here’s somebody thinking decades ago this woman had these stupid fake flowers on her desk and I was so mad and just staring at them and trying not to cry. Like people focus on the funniest details. And that speaks to how emotionally charged that moment is.

Rob

You talked about the the opacity of being fired, but you’re giving people back control over the own narrative of how they were fired. You’re almost giving them back this sort of this internal voice that they they’ve had in their head. You they’re. You’re allowing them that time to sort of speak about the process itself. And that has got to be such a as you said, non burdening and a sort of a. A controlling fact. That’s it.

Pam

I’m endlessly moved by these conversations and endlessly touched that a lot of these people are complete strangers. They’re randos from the Internet, right? Like I don’t know who they are. And they’re they’re sharing these deeply personal stories with me. It’s it’s really very touching. You know, I hate it when people say they’re honored because, like, what is that? But it’s it definitely feels I’m honored by the fact that they’ve. They’ve decided they’re going to trust me enough to tell me this story, and they are dying to put it down and they’re they just don’t have a place. They don’t have a place, you know, I talked to all these people and I just think, like, why did you hold on to this for so long? Right. Like, it’s not that big of a deal. And, you know, if I think in a sort of long term like what I would like to get out of doing this project is I would like it to not be such a big deal. Like, I would not like to be the only person people are talking to you about. Getting fired, right? Like I shouldn’t be the first person to. Start a podcast about this. There should be dozens of them, but it definitely feels like we’re the only ones who are zeroed in on this very specific human experience.

Rob

So now we’ve sort of articulated the journey that people go through, what can the individual listener take from these?

Pam

You want to start with 9 times out of 10. It’s not your fault folks really need to embrace that. There is something else going on. It is not you. You did a great job. I I would lead with that. And I think the second activity right behind that is to assess the wins that you did get at that job and the the strengths that you brought to it that just because it ended.

Amy

Doesn’t mean it was. Failure that you you for whatever time you were in that role, you were probably thriving and getting fired was not your fault. But also you did some cool things while you were there and you learned things and you’re taking that. Nobody can take that from you. You’re taking that with you to whatever you do next. And I think the people that have said well. Maybe now is a moment to make a shift. Doing a reassessment is an important thing in that moment, but almost every person we talked to says. Give yourself a minute and really process it for what it is and not try to move through it because of shame or grief or whatever. Like be in the shame and grief and experience them and sit in them and experience them. It sucks to sit in your feelings and experience them and just be in them because you want them to go away. But the only way out is through really. With something like that.

Pam

I want to add that a lot of this stuff isn’t my advice. This is not so much Amy’s advice. This is things that people have told us. This is stuff that we’ve gathered over the course of talking to people, and we’re just passing on their. Nice. It’s to talk to your people, hit your network and hit it hard and shamelessly and and I mean that in the true definition of that without shame, you should not be ashamed that you were fired and tell all your people that you are looking for work. They want to help you. They’re dying to help you get back on your feet. They are dying to help you find a new gig, and they think you’re awesome. So take advantage of that and and let them let them help you.

Amy

And set boundaries in your next job and be really clear about where your boundary is so that if that one goes belly up that you don’t have that same grief that you’ve gone in a little more protected and not quite as vulnerable to that kind of feeling learn. What what is and is not OK with you to do for a job if there is an extra you’re willing to give, know what that is and and cut it off and just be there for what you’re hired to do, but also invest in your life outside of work.

Mukund

It’s like this chapter of your life ended, not your life, right? Just one chapter and new chapter always opens up.

Amy

Right.

Pam

Exactly. There are. There are 32 episodes up and in almost every one of them there is an excellent piece of advice. I think those are two. Those are that’s four really good.

Mukund

So where can we find you, Pam and Amy?

Pam

So the best place to find us is on our home URL, which is canned podcast.com and that’s where you can find how to get in touch with us. If you want to tell your story, that’s how you can access all of the archives. There’s some additional information about my work there. There’s additional information about Amy’s work there, but the podcast is available. Pretty much wherever you get your podcasts.

Rob

Fantastic. Thank you so much, Pam, Amy, for your time, we really appreciate you spending this time with us. And thank you again for letting people tell their story. I think you’re doing such an important thing. Thank you.