Maybe Everyone Should Get Fired Once In Their Life

Maybe everyone should get fired at least once in their life.

Ok- I get that not everyone is going to agree with this.  And I also recognize that getting fired can be very traumatic.  Losing your source of income suddenly tends to create serious life problems.

But there can be benefits!

Getting fired worked out awesomely for me, and it might work out the same for you too.  Of course there is a way to gain the benefits of being fired without having to suffer through the actual firing, but let me tell my story first!

Here it is:

I got canned from my job as pit orchestra trumpet player way back in the early 2000’s.  I was working at the historic Fulton Theater in my hometown of Lancaster, PA, and had been playing all the shows there for at least a decade.  One season, we had a tough run of physically challenging shows that left my face muscles tired and unable to recover at their usual speed.  I later found out that I actually had a muscle tear in my embouchure, but I didn’t know that at the time.

Following that physically demanding run, came another show called Ragtime. The book was challenging to play but in a much different way than the previous month’s production.  Ragtime involved more finesse than power.  It also required trumpet, flugelhorn and piccolo trumpet to be played.  That meant the player had to be in good physical condition (embouchure-wise), play with a great tone on all three horns, and have the ability to switch back and forth easily between the different instruments and their varying mouthpieces, feels, etc.

The problem was that my injured face muscles weren’t up to the job.  But I didn’t know that.  All I knew is that those muscles were tired all the time, usually stiff, often swollen, and lacking their normal agility and flexibility.  But my thought was just to keep playing and eventually everything would loosen and return to normal after the “bad stretch” passed.

Well, that’s not the way it works in these cases.  Just like any other muscle overuse injury, continued overuse doesn’t help!

So I played on through the heavy theater schedule.  I even had a bunch of other brass quintet gigs that fit in and around the show times.  I was busy! And still injured.

Very unsurprisingly, my chop (aka embouchure) issues got worse.  By the middle of the Ragtime run I knew I was not playing my best.  But I wasn’t sure if it was as bad as I thought it was.  Musicians are often their own worst critic, so I thought, “Maybe everything is actually ok.”

It wasn’t.

When Ragtime closed, the theater’s summer break kicked in.  The music director called me to let me know that when things started up again in the fall, they were going to use another trumpet player.

So I guess my playing really was as bad as I thought it might be. Ouch!

Now I had two problems! First, my face muscle problem (which I eventually got examined) was still not completely healed.  Second, most of the money I made playing trumpet came from my gig at Fulton Theater. I was facing seriously reduced income! 

Bad chops and no money.  My small-time trumpet career was heading toward the toilet.

But all of this was good!

It was good because on most of the nights I sat in the darkened theater pit, I was thinking about how much I would like to play more jazz gigs, become a better jazz player, lead my own groups, and book gigs that paid more than the theater did.

It was good because on the nights I wasn’t thinking about playing more jazz, I was wondering what it would be like to play in funk, rock and event bands, how I could learn to play those styles with more power and range, and how to get involved in bands that did that sort of thing.  Those gigs also paid better than the theater.

(I know what you might be thinking: “Dude, you were sitting in the pit concentrating on other things- no wonder you didn’t play well!”

But that’s not how it was!  I was concentrating! And I still enjoyed the theater work.  But as any pit musician can attest, some shows involve lots of down time between songs; plenty of opportunity to think about all sorts of things while still being ready to go at the right time.  My problem wasn’t brain, it was face muscles. Now as I was saying…)

Getting fired was good because I really didn’t have any time to work on getting better at jazz, playing with more range and power, getting better gigs, joining wedding bands, etc.  All I had time for was teaching elementary music (my day job), family/kid responsibilities (my top priority), playing at Fulton Theater, and maybe a few other random gigs here and there.

Getting fired was good because it forced me to stop clogging my gig schedule with what I was doing, and start filling it with what I wanted to be doing.

It took time and it took work, but eventually I gained the versatility and new skills I desired as a player. I started booking more of my own groups.  Other players started calling me to join them on their gigs.  Through them I met more people and my “professional network” grew. I was learning and experiencing new things almost all the time- without my theater gig.

The gig life I had always wanted started taking shape. Eventually I was getting much more enjoyment and more money out of music than I ever had during my theater days. That path just kept developing and leading to more, none of which would have been possible had I continued spending most of my musical life at the theater.

Would I eventually have quit the theater to start down those new roads on my own?  It’s hard to tell.  At the very least it would have taken longer to get started.  Getting fired forced the issue that needed to be forced.

That’s why I say that getting fired from Fulton Theater was the best thing that ever happened to my small-time music career- and I mean it.

So do I really think that everyone should get fired at least once in their life?  Maybe.  It depends on what you’re filing your time with.  

If you’re doing what you want to be doing, then by all means don’t get fired!  But if doing what you are doing is keeping you from doing what you want to be doing, then I think you should get fired. 

Or better yet- quit. Quitting comes with the same time-reorganization benefits as getting fired, without the embarrassing downsides.

Of course, I’m exaggerating this whole thing. I know people have bills to pay and loads of other responsibilities that most likely prevent them from just quitting or baiting their boss into firing them.  But, if you only focus on where you are, you won’t get to where you want to go. We need to prioritize the life we want and take steps to make it happen.  Even if the steps are small.

I know a few people who don’t like their situation, but they won’t prioritize their time in a way that helps them get out of it.  A teacher who hates her school, yet “doesn’t have time” to apply for open jobs at better schools because she’s too busy in the job she hates. A person who would like to be married, but is always too busy to go on dates or meet people.

I had fallen into that mindset myself years ago at the theater. Fortunately I got fired, and it was one of the most beneficial things that ever happened to me. Maybe everyone should get fired once in their life?

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