Never in my life before I was hired as a counselor did I ever expect to work as a counselor, so I can hardly say that I feel a sense of loss.
Free and Clear fired me despite their dire need for employees. I feel like everyone there loved me and certainly everyone followed my bad work with a lot of encouragement. When I go to any new group work place I always write down the names of everyone I meet and what they look like and what they tell me about themselves, then I study the list at night. By my second day working there I knew the names and details of at least three dozen people so that in one-on-one conversation I could give the impression that each person stood out enough that I would remember them. It is always a really impressive start to any new setting because it gets people to talk about their personal business without first building a relationship. I knew a lot of people’s business and that made me feel secure.
And I needed the personality boost among my coworkers because I knew from the start that I was not a counselor. Free and Clear has a grading system for their calls. They record the calls and then go over them with a checklist to ensure the counselor covers certain topics – for example, asking the client to set a specific date when they intend to quit smoking. Definitely I have problems with simple things with which a lot of non-scientists would not have problems. I had the checklist memorized and I feel like I covered the topics I was supposed to cover. My presence on the phone is superb and I am a fast talker with a Southern US accent. I also feel like I followed the instructions that Free and Clear gave me without trying to change any aspect of them.
The best way I personally can explain my problem is that science-minded people look at instructions and integrate into their mindset a broader range of possibilities than non-science minded people. The way that I followed the instructions led to my doing things which other people were not doing, and it would have taken more training for me to conform. Because Free and Clear is attempting to be scientific, they have to have objective testing methods for their counselors. Because I was doing things which were not within the grading system of their tests, I was not passing the tests.
I want to say that I do not try to be different, and that conscientiously I wanted to pass the tests. Also even now I do not have a good idea of what I did incorrectly, but in hindsight I can guess that even though no one told me this my problem probably related to my not going in order of the checklist. They specifically say that calls should be improvised and that there is no order for bringing up the various topics, but I doubt that many other people were covering multiple topics simultaneously or skipping around the checklist in the way that I was.
Most other people told me that their clients wanted to talk on the phone for a long time, sometimes a half hour or more. The company says that this is a bad thing, and that calls should be no more than 15 minutes. My calls were always short, I asked lots of questions, we would have a laugh, and then after 15 minutes the personal checklist I keep for every call would be full and I would wrap it up.
Anyway, testing was supposed to be two tests in a week for two weeks, and I needed to pass one a week. I failed my first test as many people do, and I met with multiple people for more than an hour asking them questions. I always have more questions than anyone else.
I failed my second test and still no pressure; they told me this happens often and by next week I would have more practice. I had lots more questions.
The next week I was seasoned at this and I failed my third test. All the problems I had with the first two tests I did not have on this one, but now I missed points which I had previously gotten correct. I met with a lot of supervisors at this point and they gave me the feeling that something was different about me. I got a lot of attention; I feel like more than they would give to other people. They told me that they could negate a test and give me an extra one against company policy, if I could just pass tests 4 and 5. At this point I had done very little actual work and they had already paid me about $3000 to put me through training; certainly they wanted to salvage me. I met with everyone for tips. My supervisor’s supervisor came to me and took me outside the building for a walk and talk in downtown Seattle.
I am confident even when I lack the skills to succeed. This is a problem for me because sometimes I need to improve something and am not aware of the fact. For example, if I do some work I always like my work. I know that I am an extremely talented organizer and presenter, so I know that when I show my work to others they will be inclined to accept what I say for the sake of how I show and say things. However, if my work is bad, sometimes I do not perceive this and still have complete confidence in what I do. This was the case here – I come across strongly and then I am the only person in my class who fails, and I fail miserably.
I failed the fourth test.
What can I say? I attribute this to the scientist mentality, but also I recognize that is the most face-saving possibility. I am fairly sure that no one was able to articulate my problems to me, and when my supervisor took me to fire me she did say that on my fourth test I corrected past mistakes and failed for making new ones. Another possibility is that my work actually is bad. I am disinclined to believe that, because too many clients on the phone told me that they especially preferred me to other counselors. Again, I think they liked me because of my doing a good presentation of bad work.
I really liked the job, and probably would have stayed with them for a while had I not been fired. It certainly changed the way I think and taught me some of the tricks that counselors use to tap into people’s private thoughts on a schedule. I cannot say I regret the experience, and getting fired probably was the best thing about my working there, because I really should be less confident more often.