by Abdulhadi Hairan

Created on: September 09, 2007   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

It was a chilly evening of January 2005 when I went to my second duty in a newspaper. (The first duty was in the morning time). Immediately after I entered the office, a co-worker told me that my job was terminated. All the co-workers were staring at me like I was a strange creature.

Shocked and confused, I went directly to the office of the newspaper owner to know about this. He was a sober man and always kind to his workers. But no sooner than I entered the room, I felt that some thing was happened extremely wrong. I had never seen him so angry.

Before I say anything, he said in an unusual manner, 'You are ousted from your job. You know the reason. That is the decision. No discussion, please. You can go now.' With this, he turned to the man sitting there whom I had not noticed and began to talk to him.

I was completely ignored. It was the most unbearable insult I had faced in my life. So I went out of his room and headed to my home.

When I reached home, a co-worker and my close friend also came to our home. Then he told me the whole story.

I was working as sub-editor and in-charge of a city page for past one year at the newspaper. But the salary was so low that we were even not able to make it hand to mouth. Then I got a chance of a two-hour extra work in another newspaper. I grabbed the chance and started to work there.

It was not a problem to work with more than one organisation. All my co-workers had many duties in different organisations. It is not possible to live with one job as the Pakistan's local newspapers pay very low salaries. My fault was only that I had edited a false news story fabricated by a so-called reporter who was beloved to the boss.

The next day of my ousting from the job, I got a better job in the newspaper I was working at part-time.

There were two lessons for me in this event. One positive and another negative. The positive is: I never lose my faith and confidence in similar incidents because I know, and this is my experience, I am going to get a better job.

And the negative lesson is: never do anything that is unfavourable to the bosses if you want to remain in your job.

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