And the rubber band played on

simplyfiredstories submitted 606 days ago

I was between "real" jobs and was working as a P.A. at a sales training conference in Chicago. Not the most exciting work but the money was actually pretty good.

At one point, I was asked to just hang out in the hallway where a bunch of meetings were taking place just in case anybody came out of a meeting and needed anything.

At some point I began to absent-mindingly play with a rubber band (basically stretching it between my thumb and ringer finger) I had in my pocket. My boss walked by and gasped, "Stop that!" I said, "Stop what?" She said, "Playing with that rubber band." Up to this point, I don't think I had been aware of the rubber band, but I said, "OK" and put the rubber band back in my pocket. At the end of the night, my boss called me over and told me I was no longer needed. I asked why and she said, "I find you to be very contentious." I asked for an example and she said, "When I asked you to stop playing with the rubber band, you rolled your eyes."

Fired over a rubber band. Go figure.