How Getting Fired Helped Me to Get Every Job I’ve Applied for Since
“Steve, can I see you in the Pendelton room for a quick chat? Oh, and Haley, Im going to need you to join us as well as a witness.” Uh, oh. This cannot be good.
I had been working at the pretentious country club for the past few months, serving Central Ohio’s elite and setting up banquets that carried price tags of multiple times my current (or future) annual income. In my brief time there I had learned all of the ins and outs of the job and ascended into the role of team lead. But this meeting was out of the blue. What could I have done wrong? I wondered.
Wandering awkwardly into the center of the gaudy banquet hall adorned in cream and gold floral moldings, Jennifer, my mid-forties boss with hair better suited for a Texas dive bar, turned to us, me really, and with a psuedo-sympathetic look said, “So Steve we have some concerns regarding your performance here and are thinking that this might not be the right place for you.”
“Wh-what do you mean?” I stammered. Clearly confused and feeling blindsided.
“Well there are just some performance concerns that we have.” She inadequately explained.
“Yes, you said that. But what exactly do you mean? I am a team lead, does my team not like me? Are we not getting good reviews? We work with less staff than any other team and still serve the biggest groups. Have I been doing something wrong?” My bewilderment fueling a peppering of questions.
“Well, um, for one thing you walk too slow.”
“Wait, What?” I blurt out indignantly. Waiting too briefly for her to respond, “What do you mean I walk to slow?”
“You walk too slow. Our members pay nearly 100 Grand a year to be here. They want to feel like we are working hard for them. When you are in the clubhouse you do not look like you are working very hard.”
“So I am not doing anything wrong and my team is doing just fine, but because I make the job look too easy in front of the members you are letting me go?”
“Well, now that I hear this all out loud I think letting you go might be taking things a bit far.” She was beginning to gain some perspective on the ridiculousness of the situation. “I think maybe we could work something out. We could pass the team lead position to Kevin and you could watch him for a while before you jump back in.” She was smiling now, clearly impressed with herself for coming up with such a plan on the fly.
Kevin had been there half the time I had. Kevin was a kiss-ass who was patronizing to our already patronizing members but sucked up to the managers and snagged all of the best shifts. Kevin wore a fake pasted on grin that everyone mocked behind his back and needed punching. I was not going to work under Kevin.
“You know what? You all can keep the job. I think this is ridiculous. Good luck to you.” I then turned and quickly took off my fake tuxedo vest, fake cuff links, and fake nearly see through tuxedo shirt and walked out the door.
Little did I know, this situation would teach me two immensely valuable lessons about business.
Lesson 1: Its NOT all about you
I, like most of you reading this, have been a rather high achiever my entire life. I take pride in being efficient and effective in every situation. I even derive a large chunk of my self esteem, for better or worse, on the results I produce.
Despite what we all would like to believe, rarely do employers exclusively care about clinical results. If this was the case every AAOMPT Fellow and Certified Clinical Specialist would be snatched up long before other PTs would be hired. However every day there are Specialists that are passed up for jobs and Fellowship trained clinicians skipped by.
What matters to an employer is how you can help them fix their specific need.
My productivity as a team lead at the country club was impressive, but it was not filling the precise need of the company, which was catering to members who wanted the premier level service that they were paying for.
As a clinic director myself I passed on some terrific clinicians because I was seeking out a very specific skillset to meet the needs of our company. Not everyone could manage a satellite clinic, often single-handedly, and in rural Alaska, while also running community engagement events back in town, on top of treating patients in both locations.
Interviewing for a job is about demonstrating how you are the answer to their problems. Coming in with a laundry list of credentials is nice. But if you can uncover what their specific problem is, and show how you are the perfect PT for the job, the position is yours for the taking.
Lesson 2: Perception is reality
What I had failed to realize in my youth was that, while seemingly petty, the perception of my work ethic was just as important as my work ethic it’s self. Country club members pay a premium for premium service. If they do not feel that they are receiving that level of service, they are likely to take their membership, and thousands of dollars, to a club elsewhere. Members do not care about my behind the scenes work, members care about what impacts them directly.
Whether interviewing for a job or working with patients, managing how you are perceived is an essential part of success. Professional personal appearance, a confident tone of voice, and self-assured body language are all to be stacked on top of great interview skills.
Empathetic tones, a calming and educating demeanor, and empowering and reassuring statements are equally important to patient success as the intervention performed. Just as a patient’s perception of relative danger ratchets pain values up or down, a patient’s (and employers) perception of you and your professionalism will have similar effect.
Taking time to step back and observe yourself from other people’s perspective will help you to learn to be more adaptive.
Quick Tip: Video tape yourself answering some tricky interview questions.If you cannot answer each one with a confident smile on your face you may need to put in some practice (guys, RBF isn’t just a female thing).
Written by: Stephen Stockhausen PT, DPT, OCS
