My son was the best checkout clerk in the store. His checkout speed was consistently the best. Customers loved his happy personality. He often had the most “add on” sales at the cash register. Then one day he was put on probation. Shortly thereafter he was fired. It was because he had decided not to double check when the cash register said that a particular coupon had no corresponding product bought by the customer. Most of the cashiers ignored the warning at least part of the time. One of the baggers had noticed it and informed the managers. They checked, asked him, and found out he was guilty. Probation was a formality. They fired him as soon as they could get it approved.
I’m proud my son accepted responsibility and never told anyone who the bagger was. When asked, he admitted what he was doing immediately. He was fired as a warning to the other checkout clerks. He didn’t have a chance to eat crow and change his ways.
The real question is: What about the other clerks? The clerks had a chance to get upset at the baggers in general. They could moan and complain on breaks about how unfair it was. They could become paranoid and follow each rule to complete stupidity. Or they could eat crow and humbly accept the truth, like my son did. They knew they had been costing the store money by not checking coupons. They had been breaking the rule all the time, not just when the checkout lanes were jammed. They had talked about it. They weren’t listening to the managers about it anymore when the firing occurred. It was time to eat crow. And crow is best served warm, when the offense is fresh.
How about you? What do you do when someone is fired for doing something everyone does? What about when you are passed over for a job you apply for?
If you blame another person, you are human. If you blame society, you are human. You are not right.
If you got fired for poor performance, accept it. If you were the best at a particular job but got passed over for a promotion, there was a reason. Eat a little crow. Find out why. Don’t brag about how smart you are and how stupid the managers are. There was a reason.
Back to job hunting. If the job is evil and bad, drop out of the interviews or don’t apply. If you found out the manager, company or division is full of idiots because they didn’t hire you, thank God you didn’t get that job. No need to ceaselessly murmur about the idiots. However, you may want to eat crow and find out why you really were not hired. Getting the truth can be difficult. Still, the time to eat crow is when it is still warm. Ask what you did, said, or put on paper that disqualified you. Then decide if you want to fix it.
Something to do today
Ask why you didn’t get the job. Ask the recruiter. Ask the company. Ask the hiring manager. Don’t worry about offending someone. They already offended you by not hiring you, didn’t they? Ask politely, but ask..
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Later: Catechism
Your interview questions
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