"I was fired from my second job as an attorney. I had made an HR complaint about the lack of mask-wearing. Involved a partner and immediate supervisor. I had issues with the same partner and the way she treated me. I also have clients who are not paying and I had them making complaints. Also, I had accidentally sent email to the wrong client. Immediately reported the same to my supervisor, which was late at night on a Friday. The next Monday I was fired. The resume shows my second job was only two full months at the law firm. I take to heart much of what you said in this webinar, especially about sublimating and working as a team. I feel that my being fired was principally, if not entirely based on me having angered a few people in power who never worked with me in the office. I'm very concerned about getting hired on when my dates showing my last firm was only a few months. Any advice?"
The nice thing is that in this particular economy right now, lots of law firms are laying people off. There's really much fewer questions that people have compared to what they used to. But when people would lose their jobs during bad economies, and honestly, it's very common for people to do that. I do, I think it's very refreshing that you realize what your mistakes were about making HR complaints and so forth. And yeah, generally that's how it works. You have to be part of a team. And anytime you do anything to separate yourself from the people that you work with and become antagonistic towards them, they're going to be out to get you. And who knows why they fired you but yeah, if you're complaining to your supervisors, that's just not going to go over with people.
Where there's so many people trying to get jobs in different firms and there's a lot of competition, you just need to be very careful about any type of thing that shows any form of disloyalty towards the people you're working for. You just need you to put your head down. It's hard. In my job, I'm actually accountable to people as well. It's always hard being accountable to people, and it's hard when people get mad at you for doing things wrong. And you feel like you want to fire back and you can't, that's part of the problem. Now, there are exceptions to that. If somebody was harassing you sexually or making racist comments or something, and you reported them, they would probably lose their job. But something about mask wearing, that's a health and safety issue, but at the same time, you have to be very careful. And obviously that's a health and safety issue. I don't know really what the rules are about that.
But just in the future, do whatever you can to not antagonize supervisors, because these are the people that are in charge of advancing you. So you just need to be really careful about how you relate to your supervisors, because they have the power to help you rise or push you down. And you have to ask yourself if it's worth it.
