Sometimes you just have to get fired – and fired up

 

A good friend recently quit his job at a well-known company with close ties with the government and which is regularly in the news. He hasn’t been in that job for very long.

He has a number of reasons for quitting. Some are the usual ones – gripes about bosses etc. It’s a big reason why some people become entrepreneurs – so they don’t have to deal with this stuff.

But his main reasons are driven by something else – the feeling things are not going the way his beliefs and principles feel they must.

My friend is very religious and highly principled, a very rare combination indeed. He feels that his faith, and the principles derived from it, must guide him, and nothing can be allowed to steer him away from the course they dictate.

What bothers him is how he sees the business being conducted in the highly-charged political environment, without any regard for lines and boundaries which are drawn and respected elsewhere in more professional and ethical settings.

It’s the kind of thing I always think about when I hear those working in similar organisations moan and whinge about how tough working life is, and how they can’t wait to retire.

Why would anybody put themselves through such misery, sometimes for decades? If challenged, they’d probably explain it as a sacrifice to put food on the table or to serve the nation, and may even admit they don’t have many other options.

The tragedy however is when some of these people reach the top, this is the only leadership model they know, where those who’ve paid their dues and played the game well win all, and those who haven’t and don’t, have to suck it in.

Possession is nine-tenths of the law: once you’re in that corner office, everything you say goes and you’re the judge, jury and executioner. Competence or results doesn’t matter – survival does, and along with it, corruption and mediocrity.

Personal principles only appear in official speeches, and religion is about getting to heaven by accumulating as many easy points as possible, often by turning a blind eye to the big, ugly sins because it’s convenient, safer and more profitable that way.

When it’s time to just walk away

Even though I had a pretty long working life, I’ve never felt I was ever in such a situation. I always had an option or at least felt as if I did, and I never coveted anything – titles, positions, money – enough to sacrifice my principles to them.

I read long ago we must always have enough money saved to tide us over at least for a while in case we’re made miserable by a bad boss or environment and have to leave. Such saving is called the Truck You money.

The purpose is to have some security such that when things get bad and lines have been crossed, you can just go to your boss and tell him Truck You, and leave.

My dear readers, of course, this is not advice only for those working in the transport sector. It applies to all sectors and the environment, and to most other things in life, too.

My friend clearly has reached his Truck You moment, and he does have some Truck You money saved away, so he feels he can afford to take this stand.

He sought guidance from God. Being principled, he knew what he had to do, and made no excuses. Excuses are easy when your heart pushes you one way down the hard, lonely road while your brain counsels caution and pushes you down another.

That’s the thing about principles: they don’t come free. Principles aren’t principles unless you’ve paid a heavy price for them. Otherwise, they’re just convenient feel-good blah blah blah you post on social media to get likes.

I had a similar moment in my career. I made a rather unwise career decision out of idealism and against my instincts, took a big pay cut and joined an organisation that I had warned others about.

The organisation chewed me up and spat me out. I was fired and found myself without a job right at a time when my kids’ education was about to become expensive. It was a scary moment, though that cloud turned out to be carrying a silver lining.

This was the second time I got fired. The first was when I had fisticuffs with a lazy English boy at a summer factory job in England. I got home, packed my stuff, hitchhiked and by evening was in Paris. I slept on the pavement outside the Gare du Nord train station and cried myself to sleep in anger and frustration.

The next summer, however, all was forgiven and I worked in the same factory again. Either that or we Asians all look the same to the locals and they couldn’t remember who had been fired and who hadn’t.

Being fired twice might be too much, but I heartily recommend that everybody gets fired at least once. Or at least fire yourself when everybody is thinking that you have got it made and are coasting along on the easy street. It’s good for the soul, even if a little difficult to explain to the interviewer at your next job application.

As karma had it, the boss who fired me in the second firing got himself into serious legal troubles and was himself fired. By then I had moved on and to me he’d ceased to exist: schadenfreude was never my strong suit anyway.

A price to pay for success in politics

Malaysia’s politics, and a lot of things associated with it, are some of the most unprincipled areas in our life. The people in it have made their pact with the devil and will pay any price to be up there as winners.

I’ve watched people go through all kinds of mental gymnastics to justify why they need to be there fighting the dirty fight when it had become clear long ago how rotten and filthy things are.

A common justification is that “you’d have done the same thing too”. Sorry mate, I wouldn’t have. But I’m happy to let them admit that they themselves had fallen and have no other way to rationalise things.

I can see how hard it is to let go of the good money, the respect, the glory and certainly the power that comes with some of the big wins, whether in business or politics.

For some, however, such as my friend, the money earned when you’re not putting your heart and soul into your duty is well-nigh close to being haram, and not something you want to take home to feed your family.

It’s a rather old fashioned thing, looked down upon by the “realists”, but for some people, being able to sleep easily at night and having no regrets on your death bed is priceless.

Get fired occasionally, or as in my friend’s case, get fired up, and fire yourself. Life’s too short to be hiding from your conscience all your life.- FMT

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.