Getting the news that I was not going to lose my job after
all was truly a gift to me. To be told
almost a year earlier that my services were no longer needed was an experience
I would not wish on my worst enemy. You
go through all the emotions of what you might have done wrong, blaming yourself
for not doing a better job, then the anger and frustration, and the “why me”
hits you as well. Despite all of that, I
still was determined to do the best job I could with the time I had left. I know I should have begun a job search
during that time, especially since I assumed the job would be ending even
though I had gotten a few extensions, but I held on to the hope that things
would turn around, and they would reverse their decision. When that did happen, obviously I was
thrilled. I am fully aware that this is
something that does not happen very often.
In fact, usually when one is let go, that happens immediately. I’m sure you have heard of many stories of
people being escorted out of the building 5 minutes after being told they no
longer are an employee of the company. I
could not begin to imagine what that would feel like.
Even though our enrollments were still down, I went into the
fall of 2012 feeling very optimistic, as we were working on projects that would
help the working MTs of the company, further enhance our curriculum, and with a
little luck, even see signs of growing enrollment again. In March of that year, I was asked to take
over grading of the preemployment tests for the company’s MT applicants, and in
September, I began work on creating a new preemployment test, so I was very
involved on the MT side of things, but I also still had a few students, so it
was the best of both worlds with working on both sides of the table. I have to admit I was surprised by the types
of errors I was seeing on these preemployment tests by what I thought were
experienced MTs. As these MTs were
hired, I felt our instructor staff was going to be instrumental in helping
these MTs improve their skill set. That
along with having the best of our grads possibly move into working for the parent
company led me to think that bigger and better were just around the
corner.
Unfortunately, that was not to be the case when the decision
came down that enrollments were to be discontinued after November. To say I was stunned is putting it
mildly. To this day I can’t understand
why a corporation would not see the benefit of owning one of the top schools in
the country whereby you could not only continue to bring new people into the MT
profession, but also have the opportunity to hire the best of the best of our
grads. Is that not a win-win
scenario?
I have never understood the mindset of the people who run
huge corporations. Not just the company
I worked for, but in general. It has
been shown time and time again that if you treat your employees well,
production goes up, turn-over goes down, and more than likely you have people
banging down your door to get hired. Of course, I am simplifying that a bit, as I
don’t know all of the ins and outs of running corporations, but it does not
seem to be that difficult a concept to follow. In any event, the focus was now going to be
working with the MT staff, and while I would miss working with students, I was
looking forward to this new direction and challenges I would be facing in the
near future.
I continued my work as always, going into 2013 with high
hopes for what we would be offering in the way of helping our working MTs. I felt this was actually very unique, since
most MT services tell you what you are doing wrong but never offer any help to
correct bad habits or help to improve the MT’s skills. You get a few chances to figure things out on
your own, or you are fired. We would be
offering the chance for our MTs to work on any particular issues, from punctuation
and grammar to researching, and creating a top-notch educational and
professional working environment. I was
feeling very optimistic, despite my complete disagreement with closing the
school.
In April, I took a week off to visit my brother and his
family in Florida. It was such a
wonderful time for me, because I had not seen my brother for 3 years, and it
had been even longer than that since seeing his 2 daughters, since they were
not able to attend our last family outing.
We were still getting used to living in Las Vegas, so this break came at
a good time after moving ourselves from Idaho, figuring out what to unpack and
keep packed up for the next move, and my husband still getting acclimated to
his new job. It was a great week and one
that went way too quickly. Heading back
home at the end of the week, I was looking forward to getting back to my
projects and wondering how things would play out as our student roster grew
shorter and new developments would come up as we prepared for working on the MT
side of things.
About a week or so after getting back to work, on a Tuesday
right before quitting work for the day, I got an email from my boss with the
title of “updates” and a scheduled
conference call for the next morning. We
already had a scheduled meeting an hour after this call was to take place, so I
was at first confused why I would not just give any updates at our normally
scheduled meeting. I asked if I was to
prepare any reports for this meeting and was told that was not necessary. It took zero time for me to know what this
call was about. I had to go out to
dinner that night with my husband’s co-workers, meeting most of them for the
first time, and it was the hardest thing to do to spend the evening with a
smile on my face and acting like all was well.
I wondered how much time I would be given before my last
day. I had a feeling I would not be
fortunate this time to have an additional 5 months to prepare. Remember when I said I could not imagine how
people must feel when they are escorted out the door within 5 minutes of being
told they are no longer an employee of the company? Well, now I did not have to imagine it. The words “we are eliminating your position effective immediately” sound like a bad
dream in which you know you will wake up and realize it’s not real. But it was real, and I had literally minutes
to clean out my email and no longer be a member of the team. I was at least permitted to say good-bye to
the people I had worked with for many years, most of whom I also considered my
friends.
I truly believed this was going to be my last job before
retiring. Being a part of educating MTs
was a wonderful way for me to end my very long career. I don’t have any particular age in mind for retirement,
but since almost my entire working life has been in this profession, I just
took it for granted it would be my one and only career. I still miss the job and the people I worked
with—I miss it terribly. I went through
the grieving process just as if I had lost a loved one or a dear pet. I still get angry; I still get sad.
I have been through a lot of difficulties in my life, not
just in my career, but in other areas of my life as well. When that happens, I
try to at least find a way to learn something from the experience, grow from
it, take something away from it that will help me or maybe help someone else
through me. Part of what I have learned
these past months is that you should never take any job for granted. Being the best you can be, staying loyal,
working hard—none of those things guarantee you will keep your job. It will guarantee you will feel good about
yourself, though, so you can walk away realizing it is their loss, not
yours.
It can also mean it is never too late to make a change, a
big change. I’m still looking for a new teaching job, as it is still a thrill for
me to see someone go from barely being able to spell appendectomy to
understanding the medical language and transcribing and/or editing an accurate,
high-quality report.
But I’m also in the middle of trying something completely
new. Well, maybe not completely new. In
case you have not noticed it, I love to write. I have loved writing for
years. I thought it began when I became
newsletter editor for the Greater Akron Chapter of AAMT (now AHDI, of course)
back in early 1990s. An old grade school
friend whom I have connected with again after many years reminded me that in
the 7th or 8th grade, when we had to write an English paper, I was one of a few
who was asked to read their paper out loud because Sister Holy Scary felt it
was one of the best papers. So I think I
had this hidden talent that came out for a while with my newsletter days,
moving on to articles in MT journals and articles written as part of the school
curriculum, to this blog, and now I’m working on writing a novel. I’m also writing an MT book based on 13 years
of questions from my students. No, I’m
not a working author just yet, since so far I have made zero money, but it’s
what I’m working towards now. I did
submit a short story to a magazine, so if they do publish it, they will pay me
a dollar a word! If they reject it, that’s
okay too. That’s just part of the learning
and growing process that comes with any career.
So this may be my last post for a while, since I’m not quite
sure where this new road is going to take me.
I’m excited about the journey, I can tell you that. I will be back to share the journey with you,
but I have to find my way first.
