Fired!

There are a lot of books containing experiences of famous and successful people. There are also a lot of books specifically written to provide valuable tips on how to succeed in one's career. However, Annabelle Gurwitch's "Fired!" is different – it compiles people's experiences of getting fired.

Despite the subject matter, the experiences in the book are written not in gloomy, despairing tone. In fact, the contributors' sense of humor often made the stories hilarious. Instead of treating being fired a sign of incompetence, or discussing it as some kind of “end of the world” event, Fired! shows that people, even successful and talented ones, can and do get fired, sometimes due to very trivial reasons outside their control. In fact, it can immediately be seen from the way the contributions are organized into these following chapters:

1. The Job So Terrible You Can Only Hope to be Fired

2. The Firing You Didn't See Coming

3. The Time You Deserved To Be Fired

4. The Time Getting Fired Leads You to Something Better

5. The Time You Had to Fire Yourself

The stories in the book are those contributed by showbiz personalities, although the specific experiences vary from failed major gigs to more mundane ones like a problematic temporary job much earlier in the contributor's life. Gurwitch's own story was about the time she was let go by none other than Woody Allen himself, during a reading for a new play of his. Other people who contributed their experiences to this book include those such as Tim Allen, Bob Saget, Felicity Huffman, Harry Shearer, and Jill Soloway.

I think this book is interesting in two ways – firstly, it provides entertaining real-life stories on a seldom-discussed topic. In addition, I suppose this could also be a good read for people who had been retrenched, for example to show that they don't have to take it too hard, and that many people had similar experience, managed to shrug it off, and proceed to build a successful career. As Felicity Huffman said in her story:

But when I got fired that first time, Bill Macy, my husband, said to me, "Oh, you popped your cherry. Everyone gets fired." And it's true, you do feel like a show business veteran once you've been fired.