If you ever get fired, keep your wits about you and avoid getting overly emotional. Stay in control and you'll come out way ahead.
You have more cards to play than you might at first think. You can rest assured that your soon to be ex-employer desperately wants to get the whole thing over with as soon as possible. They want any company property you may have (including a credit card and/or laptop computer) returned. They want you off the premises and above all they don’t want any problems.
First you’ve got to
suppress your emotions and let your rational mind take over. Calmly tell
them you will go willingly and won’t cause them any headaches.
You’ll also immediately return any and all their property. But only if they’ll give you a fair reference and a positive rehire status.
Don't let them fool you - a firing can quickly backfire and leave an employer wide open to a legal charge of unlawful termination.
Such a legal battle can turn into a fabulously expensive legal struggle that can stretch out for many, many years. Employers are scared to death of lawyers.
If the firm damages your career by providing any kind of negative reference in the future, they deeply fear that you might hire a lawyer and force them into a long round of expensive court appearances that could drag on for several years. If you belong to any minority including Native American or even Lithuanian - you might sue them for a civil rights violation and losing such a suit could destroy the entire firm and they know it.
In an effort to avoid any future legal entanglements companies will often accept a canned reference statement written by the outgoing employee themselves. The firm will agree to keep the reference in their files and recite it verbatim, without any additional comment of any kind, in response to any and all future reference requests.
If the firm agrees to this arrangement, you’ll want to check their veracity. Wait a month or two and perform a test to be sure they’re not going back on the agreement. (Be sure to contact a lawyer familiar with laws in your local area before attempting to record any phone conversations.)
Have someone call and ask for a job reference on you. After they read off the canned statement have the caller press them firmly for more information. If they violate the agreement by providing or inferring any negative information, you might want to consider having your lawyer fire off a warning letter. That should snap them back in line.
If they won’t give in on a canned reference statement, start thinking about any co-workers you can use as references instead. If you’re fired along with another or even an entire department, while you are still together chat with the others in an attempt to find those who will provide co-worker or supervisory references.
A group standing around a parking lot can be a real reference goldmine as everyone has a need for a future reference and will be only too glad to enter into reciprocal arrangements.
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