I am truly so sorry for not being able to summarize this into a shorter story. Believe me, I have been trying now for almost a month! I was just terminated on 12/10/14. I had worked at this company for over six years and received previous good reviews. In 2013, a big educational text book company acquired the company I was working for and a little after that, they laid off our accounting, H/R, and marketing departments. But at least they were laid off vs. being totally ruined with the word "terminated".
About this same time, my boss started telling me they were asking why my salary was so much higher than my two co-workers who were doing the same job. I told him it was probably because I was hired at a higher salary to begin with, due to the fact that I had 20 more years of work experience than they did and also due to the fact that I'd been at the current company long enough to receive $8k worth of raises over all the years I'd been there. All he told me was all that didn't matter to them. I told him I'd take a lower salary if it meant I was going to lose my job. He told me they had discussed that but wouldn't do that to me.
About 6 months later, I got my 1st warning that my performance was not meeting their expectations. He had reports that showed the # of orders I completed was less than the # of orders my co-workers completed. This was the 1st time they had a reporting system in place that could track that. I asked him if I could sit with my two co-workers to see if I could find anything they were doing that I could pick up on to increase my efficiency. He agreed to let me do this. After I sat with them, I found out that they were not working on their extra projects daily and would get to them only when it slowed down, whereas, the project I had, had to be completed on a daily basis, every few minutes, which could very well be the reason why they were able to devote most of their time to work that showed up on the reports. I also did not notice anything they were doing differently than I was and it appeared that as for the processes we were following, we were all just as fast as each other. When I let my boss know my findings, all he told me was that they would take that into consideration.
However, a month later, he handed me an official written warning that said I had been told to increase my numbers and if I did not, I would be terminated but that in the meantime, he would meet with me weekly until 11/20 to help me find ways to improve my performance. After that, I got the impression that something shady was going on and that I needed to start looking for other work but then also just bust my ***** to get those #s up, in order to buy myself time until I could find something else.
I started working through my lunches and coming in early and then eventually, he told me my #s were higher than my two co-workers. I asked him if this meant I was off probation and if these meetings would continue, because it was now the 11/20 date. He only said that he wanted to continue to meet with me weekly until he didn't have anything to talk about and that even though my numbers were higher, I was expected to produce more work because I was an order processor #2 vs. a #1 like my co-workers. So, I just kept working as hard as I could, trying to buy myself time and keep my #s up.
After that, he had no more meetings with me to let me know anything needed improvement, until 12/10 when he handed me a termination letter that said I was being terminated due to my continued inability to meet and sustain performance standards. I was angry and shocked, so I said, "this doesn't make sense because my #s were the highest in our department and you're the one who showed me the reports that prove this, so what's the real reason?" He replied, "General performance." I said, "that's a lie though because I had improved my #s and you hadn't even met with me since, to tell me anything else was wrong." he looked confusingly at the mediator who then told him, "that's fine. you don't have to tell her anything else."
California is an at-will employment state, which means they can get rid of you for any reason they want other than illegal ones and that they don't have to tell you the reason. I think they found a way to fire me so that they could fill that position with someone who got paid less. Although I told them I'd take less, I was actually making about $13k more, so I could understand why they probably wouldn't want to offer me that drastic of a pay-cut, with the fear that I'd leave them before they were ready for me to leave. If they laid me off, they wouldn't have been able to fill the job again, is what I've read.
Now when I apply for jobs, everything is online and it requires you to answer:
1) have you ever been terminated or fired?
2) can we contact your previous supervisor
I have read plenty that says the application will be thrown out if you mark terminated (& it does not offer you the choice to sugar coat it into adding your own spin like "let go"). It does specifically ask terminated or fired. yes or no.
So, I keep exiting out of the applications and not applying to anything. I've tried googling the company names to email the h/r department directly, in order to skip the application so I will have a chance to explain before having to say that word, but 98% of company websites also require an online application.
I've looked into lying and saying "laid off" but that too is very risky and from all I've read, it seems h/r departments have ways to catch liars. It's also not illegal for an h/r dept or supervisor to answer no to the question "is she rehireable?" Neutral references also raise red flags, even if they don't divulge anything personal. I have four co-workers I could use as references, but again, this doesn't help me bypass the line that wants my supervisor's name and the question about can they contact him! If I say no - another red flag.
To top off all these problems, I don't even have an easy way to summarize this whole mess if by some miracle, an employer was to not look into lies or bypass the fired truth! As for the advice that says I should contact my boss to see if he'll give me a good reference, that also would not work because after I went to see an attorney who told me about the at-will employment thing, he started digging deeper and realized I did have a case for a lawsuit, related to harrassment and then, a letter was sent to h/r that gave them until today to respond with an offer, which they did not. So, I can either now follow through with a lawsuit, therefore ruining my chances of any future employment for sure, or just move on. But with moving on, I've pretty much burned my bridges now for any request for a good reference.
Can anyone offer any helpful thoughts or advice or how you got a job again after you were unfairly terminated? For example, did you lie on the online applications? If you suggest I tell the truth of fired and then just sit around for years waiting for one to reply who did not throw out my application, then how would you summarize what happened to me?
I've already put "laid off" on a bunch and received no calls back, so I can only imagine it is going to turn into impossible if I am truthful. It's as if I killed someone or have a felony on my record now, as I'm sure those people will be given just as many chances as I will now!!
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