This past weekend, something kinda weird happened.
The bar I used to work at in college followed me on Instagram.
I did a double-take and then immediately started laughing. I screenshotted the notification and posted it to Twitter with the caption “…you guys fired me in 2011.”
Cause, yep! I was fired from that bar my senior year of college. It was the one and only time I ever got fired from a job, and it ended up being one of the better things to ever happen to me.
Let’s start at the beginning. When I moved out of the dorms and into my first ever apartment, I was pretty stoked about my newfound freedom. That feeling lasted for about three days before I realized that I needed a way to pay my bills. I ended up scoring a waitress position at “The Lodge”* — a pizzeria and bar. It was right off campus and was really popular for both students and townies. It had karaoke nights, live music, $3 pitchers and a “large-two-topping-for-$5.99-dine-in-only” special. (I got used to saying that really fast.)
Anyway, I really loved my job. It was fantastic money, my manager was everything you could want in a boss, my coworkers were awesome, the food was amazing (key when you’re eating it basically all the time) and I really liked the regulars.
I worked at that bar for a little less than two years before my manager left and ended up getting replaced.
Cue the ominous music.
My amazing boss was replaced with a not-so-awesome guy named “Don.” “Don” was actually the worst. He played favorites, got drunk on the clock, harassed customers, routinely broke state liquor laws and had completely unrealistic expectations for everyone and anyone in the establishment.
If you were on his good side, you were golden. Unfortunately — because I had ethics and morals and yadda yadda — I was not.
On the night I was fired, I was told I had an 11 p.m. “you call it” at table 10. A “you call it” means that a party called ahead to state they were celebrating an occasion of some kind, and got access to shot specials. The party was booked from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. because a member of the party was turning 21 at midnight. I went over to take the table’s order, and was told they were going to wait until midnight so they could all drink together. I asked if I could get sodas, pizzas, etc. in the mean time, and the table declined.
About 20 minutes later, “Don” approached me and started yelling about how I had a table that hadn’t been served. I politely pointed out they all had waters, indicating that I’d served them, and said they were waiting until midnight to celebrate a birthday, and wouldn’t order until then. Of course I couldn’t really kick them out, so I told “Don” I didn’t know what to do. “Don” yelled at me and told me that they were wasting table space in the bar and that every single person had better have a drink in his or her hand within minutes, no matter what.
In case you didn’t get that, he strongly insinuated I needed to break the law and serve alcohol to minors. Nuh uh. Not cool.
At that point I told “Don” I wouldn’t be serving the minors at the table, and told him that — as the manager of the bar — he was more than welcome to kick the table out, but instead, he told me to cash out all of my tables and leave for the night.
Aaaand then I was removed from the bar shift schedule.
Permanently.
That was that. At first, I panicked and cried a ton. I was a very straight-laced kid in college, so for me, getting fired was the end of the world. I thought I was doomed and thought I was essentially unemployable for the rest of my life.
After the initial shock wore off, I sat down to talk about my finances with my parents. They told me not to worry too much about money and said I could look into filing for unemployment. Then, they asked how the college newspaper was going.
That was my lightbulb moment.
The entire time I was working at the bar, I was also going to school full time, working a seasonal retail job and working part time as a reporter at my student newspaper. Juggling all three/four of those responsibilities wasn’t easy, and so often times, the paper got the shaft. We were paid per-story, and it wasn’t a lot. It took me roughly 15-20 hours at the paper to match what I would make in one shift at the bar. Regardless, I looked at my pay stubs and figured out how much I would have to write in order to pay my bills.
And, surprisingly… it was do-able. My parents encouraged me to focus on the paper instead of finding a new customer service job. I would have to seriously cut back on my spending habits, but I would definitely be able to pay my bills and put gas in my car. Suddenly, getting fired didn’t seem like the worst possible thing in the whole entire world.
I sat down with my editor at the paper and told her my situation, and asked if I could have my workload upped. Soon, I started receiving more story assignments. Then, a nightly copyediting spot opened up and — desperate for extra cash — I took the position, which offered $30 a week for two three-hour shifts each week. (Yes, that’s $5 an hour. I told you the paper didn’t pay a lot.) So, my bank account wasn’t growing by much at all — but, my resume was.
Ironically, getting fired didn’t hurt my employability one bit. In fact, it made it better. I had a new (and improved) portfolio of work to use when applying for internships. I developed better relationships with the other journalism majors that frequented the newspaper’s office, many of which I relied on for letters of recommendation and still keep in touch with.
I used that student reporting job to land two internships and a freelance job before accepting my first post-grad reporting job a few days before graduation. I put my time in there before I moved to where I’m at now, at the Chicago freaking Tribune.
I don’t think I’d be here if I hadn’t gotten fired from “The Lodge.”
Aside from “Don,” I really did like (almost) everyone I worked with. If you’ve ever worked at a bar you know — it can consume you. It’s a culture entirely of its own. While a lot of staffers only worked in order to finance college, there were just as many employees that made “The Lodge” into a career. I want to make it clear that I have nothing against that. Waiting tables is honest and hard work that pays well. And it can be fun! After doing it for years, I completely respect servers everywhere — and tip accordingly. But, working at a bar wasn’t my life’s plan. It was starting to feel too safe. I remember thinking that, if I couldn’t land a job right out of college, I could always just move in with my parents and wait tables to make some money. The scary thing? That thought started becoming a plan. I was looking at nearby restaurants and trying to determine the feasibility of the idea. I was good at waitressing. It was decent money. It wouldn’t be too hard to land a job.
It took getting fired for me to realize I was seriously — albeit unintentionally — derailing all of my future plans because I wasn’t prioritizing the correct things in my life.
Don’t get me wrong — there’s nothing wrong with taking a detour. And there’s nothing wrong with relying on hard, honest work to pay your bills. But, I’m really grateful that — in my case, at least — getting fired opened my eyes and forced me to take a step back and focus on what was really important in my life, and what I needed to accomplish to make my personal dreams a reality.
Oh, and in case you were wondering, “Don” actually ended up getting fired himself shortly after. Hello karma. I have no sympathy. The bar’s owner (who I still deeply respect to this day) offered me my position back when he found out what had been going on, but I had already learned the aforementioned important lesson and was about to graduate college, so I politely declined. But I did start frequenting “The Lodge” again. That pizza is way too good to stay away from.
*Names changed to (kinda) protect the innocent and not-so-innocent. It’s easy to figure out the bar I’m talking about. And also fuck you, Dave.
