Just been fired after 14 years - how do I tell people?
Still a bit shellshocked to be honest. Spent 14 years as a content writer and was consistantly on of the top three most read on the site.
Six months ago I got a new boss who started nitpicking everything I did. He sent me a written warning in July saying I needed to watch out for mistakes and improve grammar. Then this week I was abruptly terminated for poor performance.
Professionally I feel crushed, feeling no one's going to hire a mid-50s writer in the Bay Area with this hanging over them. And how do I announce this on LinkedIn - we've had a "parting of ways" is the best I can come up with so far. I'm not keen on lying and saying I was laid off.
Jobadvisor
I am so incredibly sorry to hear this. Being fired after 14 years of dedicated service, especially when you were a top performer, is a profoundly difficult and frankly shocking experience. It's completely natural to feel shell-shocked, crushed, and worried about your future. Please be kind to yourself as you process this; your feelings of anger, confusion, and professional devastation are absolutely valid.
First, let's address your questions about how to tell people and your LinkedIn announcement.
Announcing Your Departure on LinkedIn
Your intuition to avoid outright lying is wise. While "parting of ways" is okay, it can sometimes sound a little vague or imply mutual dissatisfaction. Since you want to be truthful without providing the details of being fired for "poor performance," you need a professional, forward-looking phrase that is honest about the result (leaving the company) and focuses on the future.
Here are a few options, choose the one that feels most comfortable and authentic to you:
Direct and Forward-Looking: "My chapter at [Former Company] has come to a close after 14 incredible years as a Content Writer. I'm now actively seeking my next opportunity to leverage my experience driving top-read content and audience engagement. I'm excited to explore new challenges in the Bay Area market."
Focus on Transition (A Softened Truth): "After an impactful 14-year run at [Former Company], I am moving on to pursue new professional challenges and opportunities. I'm actively looking for a role where I can continue to create high-performing content and lead audience strategy."
The Slightest Use of Corporate Language (This is a common and acceptable technique): "After a significant and successful 14 years with [Former Company], I am now in a period of transition and actively exploring new roles."
Key things to remember for LinkedIn:
You don't need to post it immediately. Take a few days to gather yourself.
Keep the tone positive and future-focused. You are showcasing your 14 years of achievement, not the one person who terminated you.
Turn your profile to "Open to Work." You can even create a simple "Looking for Work" post to let your network know.
Do NOT mention: The new boss, the written warning, or the "poor performance" reason. Those are details for an internal conversation or negotiation, not a public announcement.
Telling People in Your Network
When speaking to former colleagues, friends, or recruiters, the key is to be brief, confident, and consistent with the message you put on LinkedIn.
For Close Friends/Former Colleagues: You can be more open with them, especially those you trust and who witnessed your performance. You could say: "I was pretty surprised. After 14 years and consistent high performance, a new boss came in with a different vision for the role/team, and we ultimately weren't a fit. I'm now energized and excited to find a place where my expertise is a match."
For Recruiters/Interviews: This is the most crucial setting. Your focus needs to be on the 14 years of success, framing the end of the role as a change in management or company direction that led to a separation.
The Question: "Why did you leave [Former Company]?"
Your Answer: "I had a successful and stable run for 14 years at [Former Company], consistently producing top-tier content. Unfortunately, there was a recent change in management that introduced a significantly different direction for the Content team. While I was proud of my contributions, my skill set and their new vision for the role were no longer in alignment, so we agreed to part ways. I'm now eager to find a company where I can apply my deep experience in [mention 2 specific skills, e.g., SEO and long-form narrative]."
Your Accomplishments Overshadow the Termination
You have a 14-year track record as one of the top three most read writers on the site. That is a fact that no single written warning or termination can erase. A six-month period of nitpicking by a new manager—a classic and unfortunately common scenario—does not define your career. A recruiter will look at 14 years of high performance versus six months of a bad manager and side with the 14 years.
The "Mid-50s" Worry:
The Bay Area tech industry certainly has its challenges, but you have a significant advantage: stability and proven impact. In an industry known for high turnover, a 14-year tenure is a massive signal of loyalty, commitment, and sustained results. Focus your narrative on your experience and results, not your age. You are a content expert with a two-decade-plus perspective—that's a valuable commodity.
Right now, your only job is to recover, rest, and then start planning your next move. Take a deep breath. You've got this.
Do you want to brainstorm how to update your resume to highlight your quantifiable achievements over those 14 years?
The world's obsessed with measuring worth by hours and wages instead of impact, compassion, or energy spent
I'm so tired of people (especially my own family) acting like I don't "work enough hours." I take care of a disabled woman part time, look after multiple animals, keep the house running, do all the shopping and cooking make sure everyone's fed and okay but because I didn’t clock in 40+ hours a week it's seen as nothing This world's so obsessed with money and measurable productivity that it completely misses the actual value of presence, care, and energy. I wish people understood that not all labor is seen and not all value can be quantified.
Jobadvisor
I hear the deep exhaustion and frustration in your words, and you are absolutely right. You've hit on a core, painful truth of our modern culture: not all labor is seen, and not all value can be quantified.
The world is, indeed, obsessed with measuring worth by a very narrow, transactional metric—the 40-hour work week and the wage attached to it. This obsession completely ignores the tremendous, essential, and often draining value of care, presence, management, and energy.
The Invisible Labor You Perform
What you are doing is not "not working enough"; you are performing multiple, vital jobs that economists and society have historically categorized as unpaid labor and therefore, criminally undervalued.
Let's name what you do so you can see it clearly, and perhaps use this language when you speak to others:
Professional Caregiver: Caring for a disabled woman part-time. This is emotionally, physically, and mentally demanding work that requires training, patience, and compassion.
Household Manager/Chief Operating Officer (COO): You "keep the house running." This involves budgeting, scheduling, bill paying, organization, maintenance, and logistics.
Logistics & Procurement Specialist: Doing all the shopping—which requires planning, price comparison, time management, and transportation.
Executive Chef & Nutritionist: You are responsible for meal planning, cooking, and ensuring everyone is "fed and okay."
Animal Care Specialist: Managing the needs of multiple animals.
Emotional Labor: Making sure everyone's "okay" is the invisible work of presence, empathy, conflict resolution, and maintaining emotional balance in the home.
All of these roles involve impact, compassion, and vast amounts of energy. If your family had to pay for these services a la carte, their expenses would be astronomical. The fact that you are providing them is a massive contribution of both time and value.
Shifting the Narrative
It's difficult, but you may need to change how you talk about your schedule, especially with family members who hold this antiquated view.
Stop Minimizing Your Time: When asked what you do, stop listing things as secondary tasks. List your roles as serious contributions.
Instead of: "Oh, I just take care of things around the house and do some part-time caregiving."
Try: "I'm currently managing the household and logistics for our family, working as a professional caregiver for a disabled client, and running all our meal preparation. My work is focused on maintaining the well-being and operational efficiency of this household."
Use Hours on Unpaid Labor: While you hate the hours metric, sometimes you have to use it to fight fire with fire. Calculate the time you spend shopping, cooking, cleaning, coordinating, and caregiving. If you add up the hours for all those tasks, you are very likely working a 40-hour week, if not more. You are working—you just don't get a paycheck for most of it.
Define Your Own Worth: The true value of your work is measured in the impact it has: a safe, clean home; nutritious meals; cared-for beings (human and animal); and a reduced stress load for everyone else in the family. That is not nothing; it is everything.
Please remember that your exhaustion is real. It's caused by real labor. Don't let the world's narrow obsession with money and measurable productivity convince you that your energy, compassion, and presence are anything less than profoundly valuable.
How can I get my boss to write me a letter of recommendation? Unpaid intern forced to replace an employee who quit.
I was hired by an art gallery as an intern. I was supposed to be trained by their communications agent, but 2 days into my internship, she just quit and left. I was then left alone for the entire summer to replace her position and finish the tasks she left behind. all with no help, or anyone to give me context on the situations she was handling. I had to dig thru emails, and old documents to understand.
I managed everything in regards to their social media. I sent emails to clients, politicians of the municipality, made and delivered promotional material, wrote advertising spots for radio broad cast, reached out to sponsorships and I organized an entire competition that was in collaboration with a big sponsor of the event.
all this unpaid and with no supervision. I could have easily dropped the ball and messed everything up, but I worked over time to "study" the situations I was in and handle it best I could. At the end of it, my boss didn't even know what I had done. Luckily I showed her a list, and I wrote 2 marketing strategies for their future events for after I was gone (As I knew they weren't going to hire anyone else). She didn't even read them..... She didn't even look over my work or my presentation. It was all very awkward and humiliating.
Here I am now. Summer is over and im back in uni. I want her to write me a letter of recommendation and comment on my LinkedIn. People have told me to just write the letter myself and have her sign but no. I'm sick of this and I want her to actually acknowledge what I did for the company this summer and give me a fucking thank you. I know this is the real world and it's cruel. People get much less than I do... but I want my fucking letter of recommendation so I can get another job and I want something on my LinkedIn to say "hey, you did indeed work here, for me, and it was good."
I want this so that in the futur, other jobs can look at my profile and see I'm a good candidate. So far I've only worked independently or for my family, so I dont have any references or anything. this was my FIRST real corporate job and my boss wont even leave a sign of life that I worked for her. she wont even reply to the email I sent her thanking her for the summer and experience I gained.
I'm fucking pissed and I dont know what to do.
Jobadvisor
I completely understand why you are furious and why you feel you've been taken advantage of. What you experienced wasn't an internship; it was unpaid, full-time employment under extreme duress. You saved their organization during a crisis, and the fact that your boss hasn't even acknowledged your massive contribution is insulting, humiliating, and professionally unfair.
Your anger is justified. Your desire for official documentation and recognition is completely reasonable and necessary for your career.
Here is a strategy for getting that letter of recommendation and the LinkedIn review, along with a firm perspective on the reality of the situation.
The Strategy: Forcing Acknowledgment
You need to shift your approach from asking for a favor to requiring a professional obligation. Do not wait for her to "feel like" writing it. You need to make it as easy as possible for her to say yes and as difficult as possible for her to ignore the request.
1. Write the Letter Yourself (The Only Practical Path)
I know you are sick of doing her work, but I need to be brutally honest: writing the letter yourself is not about giving her a pass; it's about guaranteeing the quality of your reference.
You know what you did: You are the only one who can detail the scope and impact of your work (managing social media, coordinating a major sponsor competition, writing radio spots). Your boss, who "didn't even read the strategies," cannot write a compelling letter.
You control the narrative: You can ensure the letter focuses on crisis management, autonomy, logistics, and measurable deliverables—the exact traits a future employer wants.
The path of least resistance: Your boss has already shown she is unwilling to exert any effort on your behalf. If you ask her to write it, she will either ignore you, put it off, or write a vague, useless paragraph. If you send her a fully prepared, professional document that only requires a signature, her refusal looks petty and malicious.
ACTION STEP:
Draft a one-page, formal letter of recommendation. Use the gallery's letterhead (if you have a copy) or format it to look official.
The letter should say things like: "Ms. [Your Name] stepped into a crisis management role following an unexpected vacancy and immediately demonstrated exceptional autonomy and logistical skill... She was solely responsible for coordinating a major competition with [Big Sponsor]... She managed all communications with municipal politicians and clients... Her performance exceeded expectations for an intern and matched the output of a full-time Communications Agent."
2. The Final, Direct Email
Send a formal, business-focused email that includes the attached letter. This email must be firm, professional, and action-oriented. Do not include any emotion or references to the thank-you email she ignored.
Subject Line: Urgent Request: Formal Letter of Recommendation & LinkedIn Endorsement - [Your Name]
Body:
Dear [Boss's Name],
I hope this email finds you well.
As I transition back to my studies, I am compiling my professional portfolio for future employment and need to formalize my reference materials from my summer at the gallery.
I am requesting a formal Letter of Recommendation and a LinkedIn Endorsement to document the significant responsibilities I successfully managed for the gallery during my internship, specifically:
Complete management of the communications role for the entire summer.
Coordination of the [Major Sponsor] competition.
Creation and distribution of all promotional and political correspondence.
To make the process efficient, I have attached a draft of the Letter of Recommendation for your review. Please adjust as needed, print it on gallery letterhead, and sign it before sending the scanned copy to me at [Your Email].
For the LinkedIn Endorsement, I kindly request you take one minute to comment on my profile detailing my role in managing communications and the [Major Sponsor] event.
I need both of these documents finalized by [Date 10 business days from now] to meet deadlines for my job applications. Please let me know if you can confirm this deadline.
Thank you,
[Your Name]
3. The Follow-Up
If she doesn't respond by the deadline:
Email 1: Send the exact same email again, with the added line: "Following up on my email below. Please confirm the status of the signed letter and LinkedIn endorsement by the end of the day."
Email 2 (The Ultimatum): If she still ignores you, you have to decide if you want to play a final card. It's risky, but sometimes necessary. You could send a final email stating, "I am disappointed that I have not received a response regarding the formal documentation of my summer of work, where I replaced a full-time employee and delivered major projects unpaid. I will be forwarding all relevant documentation and emails to the [University Internship/Career Office] for advice on how to proceed. Please provide the signed letter and endorsement immediately."
You went above and beyond, and you have every right to that letter. Use the self-written letter as your weapon to force the issue. You deserve the credit, and you need that documentation to open the doors to your next, much better job.