Fired for Now: Getting fired, laid off, and hired again

Andrea & Sophie

The old expression used to be “What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.” The 2009 version of that may be “What doesn’t kill you, makes you happier.”

If you’re just newly unemployed, you may look at that with skepticism. Please don’t misunderstand. I will never minimize the hardship of losing a job. It can be brutal. However, it can also be transforming. I know I have come through the last year with a renewed understanding of what’s truly important to me and what I would give up for the things that matter.

Andrea Fitzpatrick is someone who has also experienced this kind of transformation. And when I read her story in my local newspaper this past weekend, I was so moved I wanted to share it here. So I got in touch with Andrea and asked her permission to do so. And she said yes.

As she tells it, it took only 12 minutes to lose a job many would covet in the corporate world and bring everything about her MBA-fueled ladder-climbing career into question. What changed it all was a dog named Sophie.

Here is her story:

“How did I get here?

I remember thinking: How did I get to be sitting next to this human resources person while the Bell Canada vice-president on the other side of the desk politely informed me that my employment was being terminated?

I wanted to say: “Wait, I think you’ve made a mistake.” Instead I just kept smiling and nodding my head. Smiling so they wouldn’t see me breaking inside.

I shook the VP’s hand as she left with the HR employee, and a career counsellor took the chair across from me. I made my smile even bigger. I now wanted out of that room as quickly as possible.

That whole meeting last Aug. 12 took 12 minutes. Twelve minutes to end a seven-year climb.

I didn’t think, at the time, about the possibility of what 12 minutes could begin. It took my border collie, Sophie, to lead me back to myself and what I really wanted in life, which turns out not to be corporate success after all.

Seven years earlier, at the age of 28, I had clutched my still-wet MBA from York University’s Schulich School of Business in one hand and firmly grasped the bottom rung of the corporate ladder in the other.

I stared up that ladder and envisioned at the top a VP title, a six-figure income, a big office and an even bigger bonus.

I never paused to consider my definition of success versus society’s definition, or that maybe I should have expected something else, something more for myself.

Each job I took over the years was about achieving a better title, a better salary, a better bonus. Most of all, I wanted people I met to be impressed with my role in the corporate world.

On my third company switch, I landed at Bell Canada as the associate director of product communications and had the best compensation plan yet. At Bell, I thought, I could really put some rungs behind me on that corporate ladder, as it was a huge company with lots of internal mobility. My new role was totally different from anything I had ever done or expressed any interest in doing. But it was a foot in the door, another rung higher – and that’s what was important.

After six months, the rosy glow of Ma Bell was already beginning to wear off. I convinced myself that all I needed was to get into a better position in the company and then I would be back to loving my work life. However, I was unable to change roles immediately for a number of reasons, so I decided I would just grit my teeth and put in my time.

And just as I began to grit, Sophie came into my life.

She was then 8 weeks old. I had never owned a dog before, but had been dreaming about having one since I was 10 years old.Our bond grew as we embarked on training and a life together. I discovered a real sense of joy with her that I had never felt before. Something began to shift ever so slightly in me. Sophie was becoming more of a focus, rivalling my work in importance.

My life was full with a wonderful family, great friends I had known since my school days in Newmarket, and a man who meant the world to me, Ian. But my relationship with Sophie was beginning to have a profound effect on the way I viewed the world.

Sophie has an infectious spirit and energy for life, but she’s a gentle soul. She is incredibly smart and knows about 50 words and numerous tricks. She has spent time doing agility training and some sheep herding, and is an official fundraiser/participant in the Terry Fox Run. Her love of people knows no bounds, and she wins the heart of everyone she meets.

A friend who worked for a local free paper heard me talking about Sophie one day. They were putting together a pet section at his paper, and he thought I should try writing about her. The little story went over well with readers, and so “Tales of Two Pets” was born, a monthly column about life with Sophie and my cat, Elora. I continued to write that column, on a volunteer basis, for the next 18 months. On a whim, I submitted one of my favourite pieces to Animal Wellness magazine, and it was accepted.

It was fun to write about Sophie, but I was just dabbling in the craft. There was no money in it – it was just a hobby, a nice little distraction from my day job, a day job that I had become more and more discontent with.

Then came the announcement that 2,500 management jobs would be cut at Bell. I knew mine would be among them when I received a message on my BlackBerry the evening of Monday, Aug. 11, while I was riding the train home to Mississauga, requesting that I attend a meeting at 9 a.m. the next day.

In the weeks that followed, I could not make myself say, “I was let go.” In conversations, I would use expressions like, “I was caught in the crossfire.” Or I hid behind the magnitude of 2,500 jobs – “2,500 of us were released due to restructuring.” But I knew the truth, and the truth was that 85 per cent of the people with Bell Canada when I was there still had jobs. And I was not one of them.

I kept my true feelings about my unemployment guarded. My stock answer when people asked how I was doing was: “Great! That job was never right for me anyway.” While it was true that I had not been happy in my role, I had always been in control of my career decisions. I struggled with being told that my services were no longer required. I didn’t know who I was if I wasn’t the Career Path Girl.

While family, friends and Ian offered wonderful support, I felt uncomfortable around people. I was embarrassed, terrified and lost. The only solace I found in those first few weeks was with Sophie. I felt like I could let my guard down with her.

There were many days when I just wanted to stay on the couch, to hide away from a world that didn’t seem to have a place for me. But dogs need to be walked, so Sophie forced me to get up and get outside – moving, breathing fresh air and feeling the warmth of the late summer sun on my face. It was on those walks that I started to really think and revisit those questions I had begun to ask myself near the end of my time with Bell. During those strolls I also found a different way to focus – through the lens of a camera.

I discovered a whole new way of viewing the world. It felt good to be creating, to work on capturing images, moments, pieces of the world around me that spoke to me, moved me.

And seven times out of 10, my camera was focused on Sophie. I was snapping photos of her on a walk in Orangeville, watching her gleefully jump off the trail to run through some leaves, when I became aware of something I had missed before. I noticed that her favourite parts of the walk were off the path that stretched ahead of her into the distance. And I started to wonder, what if I didn’t get back on mine, back on my career path?

There was not one moment in my entire career when I felt as much joy as I did when I was writing about Sophie. And my growing love of photography was stirring up an enthusiasm I haven’t felt in years.

But the reality was that it would not be possible to pursue writing/photography full time, with my minimal experience and exposure, and still pay the bills.

Initially, I would have to find a job that would allow me to take small steps towards the dream.

I went to a listing for a one-year contract position that I had seen a few weeks back but quickly passed over, as the role didn’t appear to be senior enough. But the position was in the world of pets.

I started my new job on Nov. 10, three months after I lost my job at Bell. I have learned to live on less money – almost 30 per cent less – but have found so much more of worth.

There are only 37 people in my office, so internal mobility and promotion is limited, but I know each person by their first name. I even know the names of their pets.

For the first time in my life I don’t have a five-year career plan. But I spend my days talking about dogs, working on products that benefit their health, communicating with pet owners – and I have never been happier at a job in my life.

That happiness is rooted in two very important concepts. One, my work is finally aligned with my values, with what is really important to me. And the second concept is the one that has perhaps made a bigger difference: I realize that I can define myself in terms of what I love, not just in terms of what work I do. So writing, photography and Sophie are part of that definition. Even if they are not part of my livelihood yet, they are a part of me.

I spend my evenings chasing sunsets with Sophie and writing about our journey in this life together on my blog, Finding Sirius. I have also started a photo essay initiative, The Charlie Project, which attempts to capture the spirit of some of the wonderful dogs that I come across in my travels.

I don’t know how those months after I was let go would have played out if I hadn’t had Sophie. She has led me off the path I’d planned for myself and toward something that’s given me true joy.”