Charging Through Life

They say you should be "careful for what you ask for." Guess I didn't listen to that advice this week.

Let the record show that I was, today, terminated from my employment at Beachbody.

The reason they gave me for this forced departure was due to, "repeated insubordination towards my superiors." Well now there's a first for me. Have you ever known me not to be helpful or not try and prove that I can do something, or solve a problem placed before me? I mean, really?

Indulge me for a moment and allow me to recount, from my perspective, the incident that "broke the camel's back" if you will:

Earlier today I was asked to change the layout of one of the video players I manage. I was asked to re-position a headline, to which I said, "that level of customization is not possible with this particular player."

I was asked, "are you sure."

"I'm 83% sure, yea." (OK, I may be a wise-ass, but can little jokes like that really get a person fired?)

I was then told, in an equally wise-ass manor, to go check the other 17% that I wasn't sure of and come back with a definitive answer one way or the other. And, oh by the way, "we need your answer in the next 20 minutes." Everyone, no matter who you are, always has a boss who has unreasonable expectations.

I then simply said that, "I can't research this and provide a 100% definitive answer in the next 20 minutes. If you need an answer that quickly, the answer is going to half to be 'no'."

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you ---- insubordination.

Now they claim that this is but one of many examples which lead to today's exit interview. They claim that there is a file an inch thick with reports of me being uncooperative and having a negative attitude. A few examples were trotted out as evidence, but I easily rebuffed them beyond a reasonable argument. The thing is, though, when you find yourself in a situation like I was today, you're no longer fighting for your job anymore. The decision to let me go had been made - the only option I had at that point was to depart gracefully.
And boy did I ever! (pat on the back, thank you very much)

So what is to be learned from this experience? Where did I go wrong with my Beachbody employment?

Well, for starters, I didn't ask for enough money at the beginning of my employment 3 years ago. I thought I could earn salary increases by doing a fantastic job at something that was going to easily be a cake walk for me. Now I see the error of that thought process, though it's not something to be dwelled upon today.

I actually gave up on this job a while ago. Really, I just stopped caring about it. I was doing a job for which I am vastly overqualified and unbelievably under compensated for. I'm nearly 34, for God sake, and was posting videos to the web like a damn YouTube account. Come on - I should be doing way more at this point in my career. It was clear to me, by this point, that I had no real chance of advancement at this company; despite my V.P.'s claims she was trying ever so hard to advance my career and that she was my "biggest advocate." As they say, actions speak louder than words. But that doesn't matter - people will say the things that paint themselves in the best light (hello, blog).

But where I could have really improved my career at Beachbody, and possibly have advanced successfully through these years, was by saying, "Yes" more often.

You see, the people above me, apparently, got frustrated when I pointed out limitations instead of simply agreeing with their ideas and spending valuable time investigating the things which I already knew not be possible. My superiors weren't looking for an 'expert' on the subject, they were looking for a 'Yes Man.'

That's the problem when you put people in charge of areas where they have no expertise - they don't know what to ask for. The problem is then compounded further when you have people who are experts, but are forced to work beneath people who aren't. This phenomenon also makes mentoring and advancement very difficult.

KC said it best the other day when he suggested that I should try lying at work more often. Sure, I may know the answer to the question being asked, and I may know what the outcome of any sort of investigation to the problem would yield. But it's only through the due diligence of trying to solve a problem and appearing interested in solving the unsolvable that people in power will be satisfied in your expertise. Really, it's just a way for them to maintain respectability after having asked such a stupid question in the first place. I would have been thought of as "a team player" had I gone out and 'pretended' to look for an answer that I already knew. My superiors would then feel good in themselves and their stupid request because, "well Sam (who's really smart and agreeable) couldn't find a solution after spending all that time looking."

Where I thought I was saving the company time and money by being an expert on the subject, turns out instead I was being uncooperative. Well fuck me!

Another way to look the situation: it's like when you had to show your work in 6th grade algebra. Sure, you can just glance at the problem and know the answer; but the answer isn't what the teacher is grading you on. He wants to see your work. He wants to see that you know how to come to the answer by going through the process. Again - it's about due diligence, no matter how mundane and pointless it may be.

Corporate America is really just one big game. It's played with people: some are smart and some are stupid. The stupid one's don't want to look stupid (though they're usually the one's with all the power and decision-making responsibility). If you (as a smart person) want to have power too, you've got to always work to make sure the stupid people above you appear smarter than they really are. Just not nearly as smart as you are, though.

It's all just a big game. And I've now been penalized for unsportsmanlike conduct and sent to the penalty box.