Hitting rock bottom in corporate America after being on top of my game

Name withheld, GA

Starting Over

Life takes many turns and brings many tribulations in business, as well as in your personal life. I have been in the medical device industry for the past 25 years, working with different start-up companies. My co-workers would describe me as a team leader with a work-hard/play-hard philosophy. I was a consistent top-performing sales professional and President’s Award winner. While celebrating our company’s success and accolades at our national sales meeting, I tried to be the “life of the party” and get a rise out of my co-workers with funny phrases, some of which could potentially set off the younger generation if someone didn’t have a sense of humor. I was given a President’s Club Award and a new watch on the first night of the meeting. A clinical colleague wasn’t amused by some of my comments around the dinner table and started writing a diary of everything that was said. She told upper management about my behavior, which ultimately resulted in my being terminated. I lost trust in many, many leadership people within the company because I felt they didn’t value my performance as a top-producing sales professional who was generating millions of dollars for the company. It took me approximately two years to recover from the incident, and it affected me emotionally, leaving scars behind. I have since joined a new company, bigger and better, with a culture that is amazing and rewarding to each employee as we impact patient care throughout the country. I learned my lesson: sometimes you cannot trust everyone you thought you could in a work environment. It is a shame that, even though success in start-up companies is a team effort, everyone ultimately looks out for themselves. That was never my philosophy in life.