Got fired - Angry and happy all at the same time - red flags and things I should've paid attention to

My main purpose of this post is to vent (and also to seek a bit of validation) - this is a long ass story so thank you for reading through the entire post.

I'm 25 yo. Just graduated from my master program in HCI design late last year and immediately scored a design role at a tech startup. Before that I had one year of part-time internship experience. 3 days ago - I got fired from my first full-time job after 1.5 month.

It all started when I was looking for jobs after I finished my study. Because of Covid, the company I was interning for told me outright that they couldn't offer me a full-time position and they didn't know whether they could extend my internship, so I was freaking out and trying to apply for as many jobs as I could. Just a few days before Christmas, I applied for a designer role this tech startup. The job description was also quite short and sweet - just a list of design and art direction related tasks - all of the things I have done before as a freelancer. I got called for a video interview a day after submitting my application, did the interview, was given a design assignment the same day, submitted the design assignment 3 days later and got an offer (with a huge fat pay check offer attached - especially for a junior designer role) on that same day. Red flag #1: too good to be true. And this has led to everything that happened afterwards. I was blind for the money.

They wanted me to start asap - right after New Year. I agreed and hastily quit my internship (I was supposed to give them 4 week notice but because I was so desperate for that pay check, I pissed off my former employer a little bit). Then the job started - I realised for that pay check, I had to be the ENTIRE marketing department because there was no one else who was doing marketing in that company. Nobody has any backgrounds in marketing or design either so I had ZERO support and on the job training ( team of 6 - they're all software engineers). That included copywriting, designing, art directing, content developing, campaign managing and social media coordinating. As a cherry on top of a shit sandwich (quote from BH), I was also supposed to do UX/UI design (even though I thought this would be a project later down the road). As you would have guessed at this point, as a junior designer, I was shit at being the marketing/design department. Red flag #2: no support or job training from people with the right experience.

Anyways, two days into this job, I already started looking for new jobs because of those two red flags. Another red flag that I should've also taken more seriously was work ethics and values. I kept telling myself that because this was a startup, maybe they were usually flexible - bad judgement. People usually came in when it was almost lunchtime and left when it was close to dinner time. I wanted to function like the rest of society so I asked if I could do 9-5. They said yes. It was a team of 6 but we never have any standup or team meetings. When it came to work, there wasn't any real deadlines - people just kept doing things until it was done. They didn't seem to work overly hard - they tried not to stay back too late (as in if they could push the deadline, they'd push it) and they played xbox almost every afternoon. I was, on the other hand, very anal about deadlines and schedules, so I always focused on getting shit done before deadline (skipped my lunch if I had to, ignored their gaming noise, music and singing in the background) so that I could leave at 5ish in the afternoon. Before I was fired, I also did a company-wide survey so I could learn more about the brand. The result showed that even though the team was so small, nobody actually understand, knew or could articulate what the brand mission and values were.

Red flag #4: this is a big one - I could not learn to love their product. This, I admit, is my fault. I faked loving it because I was actually loving the pay check, while I was actually passionately hating the product. It took me 2 weeks to understand what they actually did, who the users were and the problems they were trying to solve. And I was too scared to voice my opinion because the founders of the company are arrogant egotistical dickheads. Countless of times I've seen them trashing behind, or being curt to, or directly berating complaining users or people who wrote to them and asked about the product because they couldn't understand from the material they could get online.

Because of all of these reasons, I was so emotionally drained when I got home everyday. For that one month and a half, I didn't cook, go to the gym or do anything but go to work, go home, browse job postings, order ubereats, watch tv, sleep, and repeat. On the weekend, I was nervous and agitated because of the thought of going to work next week. I was so miserable and depressed, but the pay check got me up everyday.

Red flag #5 (this is more like a sign than a red flag) subconsciously knowing this would happen - a week before I got fired, I read up my contract again and focused specifically on the termination agreements. I considered quitting but thought enduring for the money wouldn't harm. On the day I got fired, in the morning of that day, I was reading about getting fired experience on reddit and contemplating what I could do if that happened. No particular reason - I didn't think I was that bad. I just wanted to quit.

I was pretty shit at hiding my hatred for this company, besides the shit designs I made for them (well to make myself feel better, I would say my direct manager liked them, 3 other people in the team hated my style but because I got my direct manager to push for them, I refused to change). And they beat me to it before I had the chance to quit. The reasons for my termination were:

- No passion for the company. - No argument there. Tried to hide, didn't work.

- Work was subpar. Not bad, but not great either. - ouch

- Not a culture fit - I see this as a punishment for being an introvert and unable to play xbox.

When I was told I was fired, it was still sudden enough that I was confused, angry but weirdly ecstatic. Right after I got fired, I got a call from one of my previous freelance client and got offer a design project. Ofc I took it straightaway and went home to apply for some more jobs. So I knew I was shit but I wasn't that shit.

So things aren't bad. They aren't great because I don't have any savings but at least I'm more optimistic about the future. I'm still angry and frustrated though. But with this experience, I now have a list of questions about work culture prepared when I get to go for my next interview that I would also like to share with you:

- What's the team culture like? - you have to be quite specific about this question because most of the time the employer will paint you a fun picture of teamwork with "straightforward feedback and no bureaucratic bullshit", make sure you ask about the team's personality, backgrounds, ethnics, or if there is any regular team activities that helps boost morale.

- Is there any on-the-job training programs (especially for a junior role)? And what's the expectation for the first 3/6/9 months on the job?

- What are the goals of the company for the next one to two years? - do not accept answers like "oh we don't have a specific goal because we're quite agile and learn from ongoing feedback so we pivot as we go" - no, a functional company will have somewhat of a plan for what they want to achieve, and where you will be fitting in that plan - because that's why they're hiring.

- How much do the employer think the team (that you'll potentially be a part of) will contribute to the success and growth of the company? (remember, not how - how much)

One of the things we don't realised when we apply for jobs is that you are also in power during the interview - the employer has the power to judge your answer, and you also have the power to judge their answer. I'm not saying it in a cocky way like "you should be selling me the job" - but because I was so desperate for this job, I got myself into it and now I had to live with the stigma of being fired which I feel that shouldn't have happened and it makes me feel like crap.

So you know - the standard advice: know your strength, know your weakness but also know your limits and values as well.

Thank you for reading my long ass post. Please offer any insights that you might have from my story. In the meantime, please let me know if you have any design jobs - I'll do a really good job lol. Dm for my portfolio :)

usa jobs
usa jobs resume
usa hotel jobs
usajobs
usa jobs federal government
usa job in ksa
usa jobs
usa jobs login
usa jobs gov
usajobs.gov
www.usajobs.gov
usajobs.com
usajobs
usajobs.gov official