Work Lessons - Overcoming Fear

The underlying theme of this journal has been about work. I used to dignify my opinions as a "Search for the meaning of work in our lives." During my actual working days, the topics were almost always generated by examples of universal work experiences and attitudes which I encountered in-person or through reading.
Since my "escape" from the working world, and the hellholes that some people call The Office, I have occasionally strayed into social and political commentary - much to the chagrin of some fans who have politely assured me that the Internet is chock full of opinions - by writers/thinkers who are better suited to the role of pundit than I. Well, that may be so.

A couple of years ago, I stopped looking for full-time work because I simply do not have time to devote 40 or more hours to a workaday job, nor the patience to suffer the indignities of commuting, status reports, staff meetings and periodic performance reviews by nitpicking micromanagers. But I have not given up thinking about the importance of work.

Many of the young people I know are obsessed with insecurity about their jobs. This is nothing new. During my career, I knew many workers who were working under the stressful assumption that someone would fire them if they did not get this status report done by two PM on Friday, or if they made a mistake they would be terminated.

In all that time I cannot recall even one person being terminated for making a mistake, or even for being incompetent. Most people who got fired (including me) were sacked because the boss didn't like them. Fortunately for me, I had the experience of being fired early in my career - by a Napoleonic tyrant who literally screamed at his subordinates - complete with red face and veins popping out of his forehead - when something did not go his way.

One day after I had had enough of his ultra Nazis managerial techniques I privately informed him that I was planning to seek a transfer to another department. The next day he called me in and fired me. He told me that my loyalty was a question mark and besides he needed someone who was better at statistics.

Fired. My worst fears were realized, and strangely enough, it didn't feel so bad. The previous day I was in a hopeless situation, feeling trapped with virtually no way out. Now, suddenly, I was free. I suddenly realized that I had been in a box of my own making. Now it seemed that there was a whole world of better possibilities in front of me - a chance to get out from under a nutcase and to move-on.

When I look back I realize that I owe a debt of gratitude to that insane boss who fired me, because he actually freed me from the paralyzing fear of being fired, (i.e., failure) by forcing me to deal with it.

It took that wrongful act of getting sacked that made me see that a hellhole is not a prison. I had always had the power to escape that miserable situation. No one was forcing me and the others to take the abuse of an unreasonable boss. It was our own mindset that kept us shackled. The point here is that fear can be paralyzing and blind us to simple solutions, and escapes.

Later on in my career, I became virtually fearless about getting fired. But, some of my evil bosses would devise a much more fiendish torture for me: Micromanagement - making the working conditions of the job so agonizing that I would fire myself and quit.

This happened more than once. I never worried about getting another job in those days. I always figured that there were millions of places to work and I would always find one that would see me as an asset.

(Nowadays, even with the recession starting to ease, there are still many millions unemployed I would probably put up with more BS than I would at full employment. So much for overcoming fear, eh? The key to being brave is the perception that you have options.)