Ariadne Sproch

 What I Learned at the Job That Put me Through the Fire.             

               Every bad experience we go through in life ends up refining us. Some fifteen years ago, I worked at an office in Mexico. I loved my job and I wanted to keep it.  I did my very best , I liked this job a lot because everyone was friendly, patient and nice.  I used to work in the logistics department of a refrigeration company. A bad experience at this job taught me the need to have resilience, to be assertive, and the need to have communication skills, long story short, I got fired after three years. 

               Resilience is necessary if we want to succeed in life because the bills won’t stop coming. There is no easy job. It hurts when after three years of daily strenuous work, all of a sudden you get laid off like it happened to me. But we must pick ourselves up and move on to survive. What I had to do was to quickly go back to work as a tour guide in my former job again. Then, if we do move on, we get better, gain experience. I appreciate having had the opportunity to learn from this mistake.

               Assertive techniques are critical for us in order to defend our cause. I should have let my nine bosses know that I was not capable of accomplishing all the tasks they all needed me to do at the same time. There is nothing wrong in letting others know when they are crossing the line. As long as we are polite, but firm, we can always establish boundaries. It allows us to have room to maneuver through difficult times.

               Communication skills are essential everywhere we go. So that job helped me enormously in that regard because I talked to the administrator about how this messed me up and she was nice, I told her that I still appreciated her friendship for life. I am proud that after all the fire that this job put me through, I’m still in one piece. Communication is great in our family circle, at school, our workplace and friends. So, we can feel ready to get on top of the next wave that hits us in life. 

               After all, what I can say is that now I have a story to tell my grandchildren one day. The CEO after laying me off, apologized to me and wished the best for me, sent me a small check and that’s how I was able to pay rent for the next six months. And also my sister helped me with money so that I could buy food for a couple of months. Therefore, resilience, assertiveness and good communication skills are great tools my grandchildren will one day be able to use if they want to improve. It will help them feel better about themselves. I  would be so proud of them if they ever told me how they built similar skills and became stronger.  Can’t wait to hear their great stories one day.