Getting Fired

The night before our last day of work before our 2 week paid Eid Vacation, I got an email from the principal telling me she would like to see me tomorrow at 10:30 and that they would arrange for someone to take my class. It sounded kind of ominous, but my roommates and I joked about it.  The principal had a habit of sending ominous sounding emails. 

Ex:  “The Colleges of Excellence inspectors came by today and they were very impressed with us so far.  This is just the beginning…..”

So I wasn’t really worried, but in retrospect, I should have been.  The day was going by pretty quickly.  The girls were all tired and excited for the break, they were having a really hard time concentrating.  10:30 happened to be my project based learning class, and they were supposed to be working on recording conversations they had written, along with finishing the website about National Day we had been working on all week.  Since they were all doing group work, it was a pretty good time to have a substitute come in.  I left her with my winter coat since it was so cold in the room. 

I went to the main office, but since I had never been to the principal’s office, and in fact, had only really spoken to her once during the interview, and in passing a few times in the morning, I didn’t know where to go.  Someone told me upstairs in the room with the green carpet and purple couches. And sure enough, there really was a room with lime green carpet and deep purple couches.  I opened the door and saw a door to the left, which I went in and found completely empty.  There was no one around.  So I went down the hall and checked the next door, and then next, until I had made a complete circle of the upstairs hallway.  There was no one around.  I went back downstairs and asked someone else.  I told her that I was looking for the principal, and she told me she thought she was in a meeting, and I told her that I think I was supposed to be in that meeting, and she said, huh.  And she isn’t upstairs? And I told her I had looked but didn’t see her.  She went up with me and when we got to the room with the couches, she opened the door then looked to the right, sure enough, in the corner behind the door we just opened was a door that I had overlooked before.  She knocked and the principal said, “Come in.” and I thanked the lady and apologized that I couldn’t find her before, and tried to explain my adventure of exploring the entire second floor, but cut it short because she didn’t seem interested.

She asked me to sit down and told me she was sure I knew why I was there.  I told her that actually, I didn’t know.  She told me that she had complete faith in my teaching abilities and qualifications, and that she had heard nothing but good things about my teaching abilities, but that she just felt that it wasn’t the right fit, and that they would be letting me go.  I was shocked.  I asked her to explain what I had done that made her feel that I wasn’t the right fit, and she told me there wasn’t really any one thing, it just seemed like I wasn’t happy, and that the company needed a different kind of personality.  I told her that I was happy, that sure, there were things that frustrated me, but they were the same things that all the other teachers were also struggling with.  I told her I really didn’t understand what the problem was, and she told me that she didn’t want to discuss it further.  I told her I felt I deserved the chance to improve, that they should be clear about the things I was doing wrong and that they should give me a probationary period to give me chance to fix whatever it was they were unhappy about. She told me that I was in a probationary period already.  All contracts had a 90 day trial period, and they could let anyone go within those 90 days without needing to give any reasons.  She said she had been teaching in the Middle East for over 30 years, and she just didn’t think I was going to work out.  She wouldn’t say anymore. She told me I could take a minute, or as long as I needed, and called in someone from Human Relations who would walk me through the next steps, such as booking my flight home and settling the final salary.  I think I was still in shock, but I was also thinking about the last two classes of the day, and I told her I would appreciate it if I could finish teaching my last two classes and then meet with the human relations person at the end of the day.  She thanked me and said that pointed to what a professional I was, and how much I clearly cared about my students, which was confusing coming from someone who had just fired me.

I walked back to my classroom and realized that it was actually my lunch break, and I was a little relieved because I wasn’t sure I was ready to face my students just yet.  So I took my lunch and went outside where it wasn’t subzero temperatures and tried to eat my lunch but ended up crying instead.  Sometimes you just need a good cry. I wanted to call my mommy.  Isn’t it funny how no matter how old you get, when something bad happens to you, you want to call your mommy? I really didn’t get it.  I was still shocked.   I racked my brain for things I might have done, or people I might have pissed off.  I was pretty sure this had something to do with the bus incident.  But I also wondered why they hadn’t bothered to mention that they weren’t happy with me at the time of the bus incident?  I tried to think of other things, and I wondered if my trip to Riyadh to try to sort out the visa, or in fact, if the whole issue with the visa could be what this was really about.  Maybe they had discovered that they couldn’t get the visa problem sorted out and just decided to cut their ties.  But if that was it, why wouldn’t they have just said that?

Too soon it was time for my last two classes and I went back inside to teach.  I’m pretty proud of myself.  I managed to keep it together in class.  I had planned on giving them a test over the material we had covered in the last two weeks, but I didn’t want to anymore.  For one thing, I was definitely not going to spend my time grading it now.  Also, I didn’t want their last memory of me to be giving them a test, so we played games instead.  I debated whether or not to tell the students what had happened, but I decided against it. I knew if I did I would definitely cry.

In the final class, I was interrupted by Jude, who needed my help with the spreadsheets for sorting the students into classes. The Vice Pincipal had suddenly decided that they needed to be split by today, even though before she had told her they didn’t need it until after Eid.  I gave the girls a game to play, and then helped Jude.  Then we continued on with our class.  A little later, my team leader stopped in to say that we were having a team meeting after the last class.  I told her that the Principal had asked me to see an HR lady after class, so I wouldn’t be able to make it.  With so many interruption, before I know it the class was over.  The girls said goodbye, and several of them stayed behind to wish me a Happy Eid and tell me they would miss me during the two weeks.  I thanked them and gave them each a quick hug but pushed them out the door before the dam broke and the flood of tears started.

I gathered up my stuff, and collected myself and headed upstairs to the Vice Principal’s office to drop off my books.  I had never really liked the Vice Principal, mostly because I had the impression that she didn’t really like me, but we had never really spoken much and there hadn’t ever been any words between us or anything.  Thankfully there were other people in the room, so even though I knew she knew, neither of us had to acknowledge anything.  I handed in my books, and asked here where I should take my laptop.  She told me to bring it to the IT office, so I headed there next.

From the first day, I had really liked the IT girls.  The head IT woman was from Bahrain and she was very capable, competent and fast.  The other girl Sheima was from Saudi and traveled about an hour and a half to get to work each day.  I really liked her too.  She was calm and friendly and always very helpful, and I had needed her help a lot since my trip to Riyadh had put me behind the curve for connections to the network and printers.  When I brought her my laptop and told her I was fired, she looked stricken.  I couldn’t help it.  I started to cry again and she hugged me.  She didn’t say anything, just hugged me and let me cry in her arms for a minute.  She told me she was shocked and she didn’t understand why, and I told her neither did I, and we both just stood there.  She handed me a tissue, and I collected myself again, and went in search of the HR lady I was supposed to meet with.

She had already left for the day, but by now it was nearly time to leave.  I saw the car pull up and decided I really wanted to be on it.  I didn’t want to have to sit on the bus with everyone and risk losing it and having to tell the whole story.  As I was walking out the door, Gemma, the HR lady called.  She asked me how I was and I told her I was still pretty much in shock.  She asked me what I was going to do, and I thought it was kind of a weird question since I hadn’t even thought about it yet, I hadn’t had time.  I told her as much.  She said that they would arrange for a hotel for me until they could give me a flight out and could I have my stuff out of the accommodation by tonight?  I was flabbergasted.  I told her I couldn’t and that I would rather just stay in the accommodation until the flight since then I would only have to pack up once instead of two times. She told me that was ok and that she would give me some time to think about it.  During this entire conversation, I was getting in the car with 4 other teachers and they were listening to every word and I was trying not to say anything that would give it away.  I really just didn’t want anyone to know yet.  I couldn’t face it and knew I would end up crying again.  Luckily, when I got off the phone, it didn’t seem like anyone had heard and luckily the conversation centered on how bad it was that we were leaving early, and would we get in trouble, and should we wait to leave until the bus left.  I told them I didn’t care at all, but that if they were at all even a little worried about it we should wait.  Of the other four, only one was for staying, and so we left early.  When we got home, one of the girls didn’t have her key and would have to wait for her roommate who was on the bus to come home to let her in.  So she hung around in our apartment.

I did laundry.  I figured that was the first step to packing and wasn’t sure how long I would have access to the washing machine.   Also, it was a good way to stay busy and not have to tell anyone.  I waited until our guest left and my other roommate got home.  Then I called them both into the living room and told them what happened.  They were both shocked and Princess was mad.  She was really angry and scared.  If they can fire you, then they can fire anyone.  She called her team leader, who I really liked.  I had often talked with Princess about how I wished I had a team leader like hers.  She came up and told me she was surprised and angry and would write an email on my behalf.  She told me she was pretty sure it was politics.  She said it was so frustrating to watch the administration make one bad decision after another.  I thanked her but didn’t think there was any chance they would reconsider.  I told her I had already asked for the chance to stay on as probation and that she had refused.  She told me that was crazy since they had already apparently fired one woman, who had gone nuts and yelled and screamed when she found out she was fired and was really threatening, so they gave her a week probation instead (this was when I was in Riyadh, so I hadn’t heard about it).  I just shook my head.  There had to be something more to this firing.  She told me she figured, they were so upset about the bus incident where we all voted to leave at the normal time, that they wanted to make sure it never happened again, and that the best way to do that was to fire someone, and scare everyone else into keeping their mouths shut for fear of being fired.  This made sense.  She also told me that I should go to my lead teacher and talk to her about it.  Maybe she would also send an email on my behalf.  I told her that I doubted it.  I had mostly only spoken to my group leader by email, and only saw her occasionally in the hallway.  It wasn’t at all like her team which was very close.  She told me I should go up and see her anyway.  She said, try to ask her candidly what her opinion is on all of this.  I have a suspicion it is a political move… maybe she can give you more insight.

So, I made my way upstairs to talk with her.  As a pretext, I brought the two books I had left at home that I needed to turn in.  I apologized for not being at the meeting but explained that I had been fired and that’s why I couldn’t make it.  She was also surprised and told me she didn’t know.   I also told her they wouldn’t tell me why and asked her what she thought the reason was.  She shrugged and said that I was never in the staff room.  I told her that I hadn’t really had any time to be there.  Our staff room was on the 3^rd floor, and my classroom was on the ground floor.  Since we only had 5 minutes between classes, one 15 minute break, a 30 minute lunch, and then 40 minutes at the end of the day, I had been spending my break time in my classroom, or outside where it was above freezing.  I had thought about going up a few times at the end of the day, but by the time all the girls had left the classroom, I straightened the chairs, erased the board, and packed up all my stuff to go, there was only 20 minutes left, and since everyone usually headed out to the bus 10 minutes early, that left only 10 minutes.  By the time I climbed 4 flights of stairs and unpacked my stuff to have anything to work on, it would have been time pack up and leave.  So I just figured I would maximize the little time I had and just stay put.  She listened to my explanation but then told me that everyone else had made time to come to the staff room.  I told her that I didn’t know that.  Whenever I walked past other classrooms, I usually saw the teachers working away at their desks, so I had assumed that everyone stayed in their classroom.  I asked her why she had never told me that she wanted me to spend my free time in the staff room.  She told me that we were adults and she shouldn’t have to tell me.  I told her being an adult didn’t have anything to do with reading minds.  I told her that if I had ever thought that anyone cared one way or another if I was in the staff room, I would have been there.  She told me cavalierly that she didn’t care, but that the Principal and the Vice Principal come around to the staff rooms and they take note of who is there and who isn’t.  I apologized again, but pointed out that where you did your work didn’t matter as much as doing your work and doing it well.  I asked if I had ever not turned in a lesson plan or turned in a bad lesson plan, or done anything to offend her or anyone else.  She told me no, you always do your work.  As for the second part, I don’t know you well enough to say.  She told me that in the future I should make more of an effort to be part of the team.  I thanked her for the advice, and told her that in the future, she should make more of an effort to tell her team what she wants from them instead of assuming that they already know.  She told me that this was a good example of how I needed to learn how to say things more tactfully, and I conceded the point.  I never have been good with tact.  I thanked her again, and left.

I felt worse than ever.  I had no idea my team leader didn’t like me until just now.  I thought about it and realized that I really only talked to two of my team members, and that was because they were in the classrooms next to and adjacent to me.  We got along really well, but I hadn’t really even spoken to the other two.  I think their classrooms were on a different floor.  I wondered if it was possible that I was being fired for not being social enough.  Still, on the bus, I always spoke to whoever was next to me, and even though there wasn’t time during the school day, I felt I was friendly enough whenever I saw anyone in the compound, or when we were waiting for the bus in the mornings, and my roommates and I were certainly getting along really well.  I couldn’t believe that simply not spending enough time socializing would be a reason for getting fired.

I went back to my roommates and told them what she had said.  They told me they had never once seen the vice principal or the principal in any of the staff rooms, and so clearly my team leader had been lying.  The only way they would have known I wasn’t spending time in the staff rooms was if she had told them.  Clearly, she hadn’t liked me, and I was becoming more and more convinced that this firing was politically motivated.  Or a combination of things,  I remember having happened to see one of the other girl’s contracts and noticing that she was being paid significantly less than me. Perhaps they realized they could hire someone else for a lot less, and given my visa problems, and the bus incident, they figured they would make an example of me in the process.  My roommates agreed.  If there was a top ten list of teachers who would/should be fired, I wouldn’t make the list.  We couldn’t think of any reason why they would fire me, of all the teachers, unless it was this perfect storm of reasons.  It made me feel just a little better to know that they felt this way, but at the same time, it made it harder to leave.  Twice now, I had been lucky in making good friends with the people I worked with.

It had been a long day, and I started the process of packing up, but I had a pretty bad headache, so after a while, I just decided to go to bed early.  I would figure out what I was going to do about all of this tomorrow.