Gurwitch Annabelle - Fired!: Tales of the Canned, Canceled, Downsized, and Dismissed

I didnt want to write this book. If you had told me that one day I was going to be hired and then fired by my idol Woody Allen, I would have jumped from a six-story building to avoid the pain and disappointment. Then if you had told me that because of this experience, I would learn invaluable lessons and grow as a person, I would have jumped from a twelve-story building. Who wants more character-defining experiences! Havent I grown enough? Apparently not.

In 2003 I was fired from a much-anticipated off-Broadway production. I was completely crushed. I felt humiliated and ashamed. I felt I had two choices: permanently assume the fetal position or go in the other direction and share my experience. I chose the latter and soon greeted everyone from my gynecologist to the lady at the dry cleaners with Hi, I was just fired by Woody Allen. Well, as it turned out, nothing bored my five-year-old son more than an account of being fired by a cultural icon; however, the response from others was quite different. Friends in the industry assured me that they too had been fired and proceeded to relate their stories. Their humor and insight and generosity consoled me. So I began collecting these tales of jobs gone bad.

I discovered that there are many kinds of stories. Theres the job-so-terrible-you-can-only-hope-to

get-fired story. The time-you-got-fired-but-you

didnt-see-it-coming story. The time-you-really-deserved-to-be-fired story, and the time-that-getting-fired-opened-the-door-to-something-much-better-than-you-had-ever-hoped-or-expected-for

yourself story.

If youre reading this book, youve probably been fired, canned, canceled, downsized, dismissed, ormy personal favoritedecruited. It sucks, doesnt it? But after you read some of these tales of jobs gone bad, your story may not seem so terrible. Besides making me laugh, these accounts have truly inspired me. Ive known some of the people whose stories appear in this book for years, and yet I had no idea about the crappy character-building experiences that contributed to making them into the people I admire. This book also contains a few of the many stories that people from across the country have sent to me.

You may want to write your story down too. Im not a therapist, but I am an actress and have been in a lot of therapy. Writing your story down can help you bring closure to your experience. In fact, if you want to share your story, visit my Web site, firedbyannabellegurwitch.com.

Someone more clever than I said, Its not the bounce that counts, its the bounce back. I agree.

So you were fired. Welcome to the club. Weve been waiting for you.

It wasnt The Donald. There are a number of legends about how the word fire came to mean to dismiss from employment. Some stories take the fire very literally and attempt to trace the phrase to burning a person at the stake or to burning down someones house in order to force him or her to leave an area.

Another explanation that seems quite popular on the Internet traces the phrase to a punishment supposedly inflicted on miscreants in the Royal Navy back in the days of sail. The offender, it is said, would be tied over the mouth of a cannon, which would then be fired. While life in the Royal Navy was certainly tough and punishments were severe, including hanging, flogging, and keelhauling (dragging an offender under the ships keel), there is no truth to this story.

But while the cannon theory may not be literally true, it does touch on what is probably the real source of to fire. The verb to fire in the clean out your desk sense first appeared in the late nineteenth century in the now-obsolete form to fire out, as in to fire out of a gun. So the phrase youre fired almost certainly harks back to the sudden ejection of a bullet from the barrel of a gun to convey the sudden, startling termination of employment.

Websters Dictionary defines the verb fire as 1. to ignite 2. to maintain a fire in 3. to bake in a kiln 4. to arouse, stimulate 5. to detonate or shoot 6. to hurl suddenly and forcefully 7. to discharge from a position.

Synonyms for fired include axed, canned, cashiered, downsized, given the boot, decruited, dismissed, discharged of your duties, made redundant, made at liberty, outplaced, outsourced, pink-slipped, remaindered, replaced, recalled, sacked, terminated, out on your ass, its just not working out, were going to have to let you go.

In Hollywoodspeak, Weve decided to go a different way.

Translation: We found someone more famous than you.

The director hopes to work with you on something else.

Translation: The director thought you were terrible.

Artistic differences.

Translation: Youre fired.

Were rethinking the part.

Translation: Youre fired.

Its not you.

Translation: Oh, its you.

They love you.

Translation: They never want to see your face again.

Your script is in turnaround.

Translation: They never want to see your script again.

The director changed his mind.

Translation: The director is sleeping with a production assistant who will now be playing your part.

Work is the province of cattle.

Dorothy Parker

I do not like work, even when someone else does it.

Mark Twain

I have only been fired once. I was let go from an office job where the boss told me that he was firing me because he wanted someone to work for him who, when he said, Jump! would say, How high? Ironically, the job was in the offices of the multiple sclerosis society, where the majority of our clients scooted around in motorized wheelchairs.

Rainn Wilson, actor

Andy Borowitz

I did a number of things in the 80s Im not proud of. On more than one occasion I shouted out the phrase, Everybody Wang Chung tonight. But theres one thing I did that was so heinous, Ive never told anyone about it. In 1984 I wrote for the TV show The Facts of Life.

Im sure everyone remembers the cultural phenomenon that was The Facts of Life. But for those of you who somehow missed it, The Facts of Life was a coming-of-age saga about four teenage girls at an exclusive boarding school in Peekskill, New York. There was Blair, the sarcastic beautiful one; Natalie, the sarcastic chubby one; Jo, the sarcastic tomboy; and Tootie, the sarcastic sistah. Watching over all of them was their mentor, Edna Garrett, also known as Mrs. Garrett or, when the girls were in full Fonzie mode, Mrs. G.