Hello all,

First I guess I should preface that this may be a long post....I am not sure...

On March 20, 2013 I lost my job. I was fired, the reason, "insubordination" according to my employer.

I had worked at the company for almost four years. When I first started, there was one IT person responsible for day to day operations. A new "CIO/ITO/Network Admin/ISO...." slash whatever title you could insert for someone heading up an IT office was also hired a couple of weeks before me. The reason why is that the current IT person was retiring after 40+ years.

I was fresh out of college with an AAS in IT with programming as my major concentration. I took the first job I could find that would at least get my foot in the door. My first few days, I was straight up bored. The employer gave me an office next door to the newly hired boss, but I sat there by myself with pretty much no interaction by anyone. I then proceeded to pull up a chair with who would eventually become my "boss/supervisor" once the current retired. I spent about a week doing this, just watching him answer the phone and working on IT issues.

I then decided it was time to go see the outgoing IT supervisor and see if I could finally figure out what it was I was supposed to be doing for said company. He explained a lot of things to me in the two weeks before he finally retired. One thing he did warn me of though was my new boss. Apparently (which I did not know at the time), my new boss had worked for the company before. He had connections and history with a few of the senior management people.

Over the few years I was with this company, I learned how little my new boss knew. Questions of "How do I tell if someone is locked out?" (in an AD environment were asked of me. "How do I show hidden files?" once we upgraded to Windows 7 after two years....

Over those few years, I submitted many new ideas about how to improve our job within the IT department. As an example, my boss thought the only way we could update Adobe Reader and Java when new releases were released was to visit each machine and manually update......REALLY?????? Buying new machines meant we installed everything manually instead of using imaging technology (something I demonstrated in a feasibility study to save the company money, but my boss didn't understand it, so it was never implemented).

Eventually a third person was hired, and yes, the company had grown by about 50 employees, but my "opinion" was we didn't need another employee. Why, you may ask? Easy, if my boss would pull his weight, we didn't need an additional employee. Needless to say, at this point, I had figured out my boss, he was lazy. By this point I had already been to his boss on a number of occasions (which unfortunately was the CEO....).

In the meantime....ok, so story takes a twist here, bear with me. A new person was hired. Yes, it was a female. Yes, I almost instantly was attracted to her. Long story short, she was in an abusive relationship, I supported her throughout her whole ordeal. She eventually went back to her abusive relation. At one point I had shown her, and this is why I was fired, that I read my boss's chat log. Well, after the fact she wanted to go back to her abusive relation, we were both fired on the same day. I had read by boss's chat log over a year and a half ago at this point. I know where it came from, and I understand that it was hard for her to be around me at the same place of employment, it was for me too. Not the point.

Point is, that is how I came to be fired. Now, I am still unemployed, and deciding, or attempting to, whether or not I have a future or not in IT....of course, over the few years I was there, I wrote quite a few programs, and decided that programming is what I like more than doing mundane IT work.....

There is of course more to that story, just figured it was getting too long already.....what would you do dear reader of the forum, I could seriously use some advice. If you question my morals or ethics, that is fine, but I guarantee you that just about everyone at my former employer would say I am quite ethical and morally sound. Yes, I did read my boss's chats, for a reason.

Any help/advice?

Thanks!

Step 1: Dust yourself off and go find a job. Any job. No sense worrying about things if you're not able to pay rent etc.

Step 2: Begin training relevant skills to get the job you actually want.

Step 3: Get the job you actually want.

Thank you for your response Promit.

First, I agree dust myself off...and easy to say don't worry, but I do. Have I screwed myself in my chosen profession by being fired in this way?? I agree that I just need a job at this point, but I feel that I am....not sure how to say this, maybe that I am disappointing myself knowing that I went to college for this profession, but maybe screwed myself as a result of what has happened at my former employer (btw I have previous IT experience from the US Army....Ft. George G. Meade....unfortunately with todays headlines translates to NSA/Snowden)....but, you are correct, admit that, get a job.

Relevant skills.....that's pretty hard now. I keep abreast of technologies, as I admitted in my post I have done some programming (which maybe I did not make clear, I love doing it, love creating something from nothing that a user can use to complete their job), but the whole "insubordination" thing is killing me. How do I say to a future employer that I really did not do anything wrong.....I suppose you could say I did, I should not have read his logs...why did I you might ask....Easy, I wanted to know what was going on....communication in our department was the biggest issue. I had access, so I did. Amazing how he laughed about all the policies he annotated to employees but apparently he was exempt to...I guess that is the benefit of being a supervisor, but hypocrisy in my opinion is wrong....

I do thank you for responding though, I just question if getting just any job screws me in the long run, I am contemplating that at this point, money is running dry.....

Reading the chat log was an obviously bad idea, I probably wouldn't mention it at your next job interview without prompting... but definitely not most of this drama stuff. Girl thing seems irrelevant, get over it. You screwed up, but it's not impossible to recover from. There's tons of articles on how to deal with interview questions about past employment where the separation was not amicable. Talk about the poor state of management, and about how you would do things differently- show that you learned from your mistakes and are super sorry for prying into personal communications.

I agree with Promit, start over, ditch the moping, start looking for work (revise resumes, read articles on interviewing, etc) and move from there. If you work at McDonald's, just don't put that at the top of your resume and be sure to point out that you were just working there so you could study Super Relevant Subject in your free time when they ask.

Edit: Beginning didn't match my conclusion...

shawnre, it sounds like you made some mistakes, and you need to do some hard thinking about what lessons you need to learn from your experience. When you apply for your next job, you'll be asked why you lost your last job, and you need to tell it properly.

Thanks for the responses so far, and Tom, I agree that I made a mistake, but I did so for a right reason....yet I was let go for that....I suppose that is what I am hung up on, how do I explain that.....

I suppose (not convinced myself, maybe part of the problem), with what prinz said, reading the chat log was a bad idea....of course, we feel a need to defend at this point....

I did so for a reason. What reason you may ask...well, easy, my new supervisor put forth policies that they mocked themselves, thought it was funny that they could say whatever with no repercussions.....they were (not they really, just one person, just not trying to implicate anyone), were "sequestered" for two weeks to write new policies......they copied and pasted a policy from a 3rd-party, to which I pointed that out, maybe another wrong doing on my part????

My point at that point, you copied and pasted something you were paid to do for two weeks.....yet a simple compare in word showed what he did, anywhere <<insert name here>> was, they inserted our company name.....I called that out at one point....I called plagiarism, but I did so in our department, not bank wide....he cried foul....it was down hill from there...I don't think I did wrong calling that out, but as things continued to mount, somehow it was my fault......granted, I do admit to reading his chat logs, but, hopefully as you can see, it was for good reason....or am I just fooling myself....IDK.....it seems to me crazy how a title and position in a company somehow exempts you, yet I (as a dedicated employee) suffer

As unfortunate as it sounds, you're professionally back at square-one, except that hopefully you've gained some professional knowledge and learned a few of life's lessons. First, realize just how inappropriate it was to read your boss' chat logs -- not because he was your superior, but because what you did was a breach of trust with the company, even if implicitly. Second, its generally a poor idea to get involved with people that work under the same roof -- at a large company, in different, unrelated departments, ok-- but it sounds like the woman was a direct co-worker. Bad idea, and both of these incidents show poor personal judgement.

Do some hard thinking and be honest about these mistakes, with yourself and through the interview. I wouldn't volunteer any of the information, but above all don't lie about any of it. Its better to be honest and let the dice roll, than to lie and assure your doom. But prepare for hard questions to be asked, and have your narrative prepared -- this is not a cover story, but a factual accounting of what happened with details appropriate to the questions you are being asked (and no more). Don't launch into a huge diatribe with every possible detail and explanation -- it'll make you look guilty, and only be cause for greater suspicion. Be sure to concentrate on what aspects of the environment or your own behavior contributed, and how you would approach that now.

I would probably not expect to be able to go into a new job that's commensurate to your 4 years of experience because it seems obvious that you will not receive a good review, so you may have to reset your career and begin fresh from a rung or two down the ladder. But this is a set-back, its not irrecoverable.

Finally, it sounds like it was a bad place to be for your career even before -- so realize that staying at this place would not be good for your career either. Learn from your mistakes and move on. It won't be easy, its not easy for anyone in the current employment climate especially. But its what you have to do.

Well, now that I read back my own post, I suppose I am experiencing hostility myself, but I think I am justified, of course, there are always two sides to every story.....

I suppose I am just letting my frustration out, I suppose the advice I have had so far has a good foundation, let it go, better myself and continue life.....easier said than done though at this point. I thank you gamedev community for responding so far. Perhaps I am being harder on myself than I should be, but who is better to do that.....

Whatever personal justifications you may have, they don't translate to the professional realm. The correct way to handle the situation as you've described would have been to take your concern to the level above your boss, describe where the evidence was (presuming that you knew it to exist at the time), and then engage in evidence gathering if directed. Instead you breached trust, and probably policy, to access information that didn't belong to you, and then shared it with someone at your own level who you were having a relationship with, which itself was probably against policy and certainly against better judgment.

I don't really care to chastise you over it, its really no skin off my back, I'm just trying to point out that you either need to stop trying to justify your actions, or at the very least divorce them from any interpretation you're likely to find in the professional realm -- Given the details you've shared, and lets not pretend you're withholding any fundamentally-transformative details here, you aren't going to come off to potential employers as someone who was just trying to do the right thing; what they're going to see is risk and liability. Therefore, you need to show that you understand where and how you failed to live up to professional standards, and that you have the capability and resolve to do better in the future.

The lessons:

Never take it upon yourself to go after a slacker unless you directly supervise him.

Never complain to bosses about bosses. (this may be why you got nailed)

NEVER (EVER!) get involved with a woman in an abusive relationship.

Someone looking at your work history will know you weren't fired for incompetence since you lasted 4 years.

If asked about why you were fired, mention the woman. If you must explain the chat log, mention the woman. Got crazy for the woman -- totally understandable.

The correct way to handle the situation as you've described would have been to take your concern to the level above your boss

Reads well, but I've only seen it backfire in the real world. I say ignore the situation to the best of your ability.

...or am I just fooling myself...

Yeah, pretty much, you are. You keep categorizing your actions in terms of right/wrong instead of smart/stupid. Employers don't want you to do the right thing, they want you to do what you are told to do.