Have you been fired before?

If you look at all of the discussions so far, they were all laid off or let go.
The second job was pretty close to a firing. I was on a contract that ended and they were going to put me back on a previous contract. I had issues with the management of that contract. We were always running on little information and no time and no guidance and a lot of favoritism. I was a bit vocal about how poorly the contract was being run. People were being treated poorly and I wanted change. Oops. Guess they didn't want me back and much as I didn't want to go back.
The point is that I, like the others found myself unemployed. For someone who grew up with mantra of you always had to have a job and you can only rely on yourself, that was hard.

It was a surprise, but worked out well.

The company was consolidating a number of smaller companies, trimming resources each time it absorbed another company. For a year straight, I had been traveling, away from home a week at a time, every other week. After a year, they had what they needed from me...

Within 3 weeks I started another job with a much easier commute, almost no travel, wider variety of projects, more of a leader role, a more positive work environment, and a 12% pay increase. So it was a blessing in the end.

At the time I was surprised, but in a way -- not surprised. I was calm and calculating. They offered a small severance, and pay for vacation for the coming year. I pointed out I had additional vacation days I had been unable to take due to the heavy travel, so they compensated me for those days too.

I knew my next immediate job was to find a job, so I treated it simply as a new assignment and dug right in to that assignment the same day. It took a couple of days for the initial shock to wear off though.

It is never easy at the moment. I don't think getting emotional is helping.

It is a good moment for some introspection and evaluate direction and seek new challenge more interesting challenge.

Sante -

I've had a PM contract end early a long time back due to "irreconcilable differences" between myself and my program director.

Didn't impact me significantly as I had a better option lined up already, and as a contractor you tend to be pretty resilient to such things. It did cause me to do a bit of self-reflection to identify what behaviors I might want to modify in future similar situations.

Kiron

I was never fired before - I normally prefer working with companies where they appreciate and support long term employment. I worked for an international company for around 10 Years then had to leave because I was permanently relocating to Canada and I know for a fact that they would welcome me back anytime.

I worked in Ontario for a while but left due to some differences between me and the owner in the way projects are handled and since then been working with my current employer in Vancouver.

Off the topic, I learned two things from my career path:

1- Always try to make a balance between Salary & Working Environment because sometimes if your work environment is bad, you will be miserable even though you salary is high.

2- Avoid jumping from one company to another. Recruiters do not like to see people with short term employment history if they are looking for long term employees.

Rami, balance is good. I was in that situation 15 years ago when I decided to get paid a lot less and work on projects overseas.

It was a surprise, but worked out well.

The company was consolidating a number of smaller companies, trimming resources each time it absorbed another company. For a year straight, I had been traveling, away from home a week at a time, every other week. After a year, they had what they needed from me...

Within 3 weeks I started another job with a much easier commute, almost no travel, wider variety of projects, more of a leader role, a more positive work environment, and a 12% pay increase. So it was a blessing in the end.

At the time I was surprised, but in a way -- not surprised. I was calm and calculating. They offered a small severance, and pay for vacation for the coming year. I pointed out I had additional vacation days I had been unable to take due to the heavy travel, so they compensated me for those days too.

I knew my next immediate job was to find a job, so I treated it simply as a new assignment and dug right in to that assignment the same day. It took a couple of days for the initial shock to wear off though.

I was fired once because of a discrimination. My recruitment agent convinced me not to file any case against that person in particular because oil and gas industry is a small community in Perth and no one will employee me if I file that case.
I felt so bad for many months and I should have filed a case against him.
I had enough evidences to kick him out of Australia ( He was on working visa), but I did nothing and moved on.
Few months ago, I had series of interviews in the same company and although he retired already but still they seeked his personal feedback. They could not find clear reason why I was fired in their records. Suprise surprise I did not get the job and decided to leave these three months out of my resume totally.
Every morning I greeted him I heard him mumbling F words about my heritage.