Fired

Chapter Seventeen - Changes

I’m the kind of person who likes to stay under the radar, especially at work. I don’t like to attract attention from any of the big bosses. The reason is that if they start getting all up in my business and they find something they don’t like, it will probably end up not going so well for me.

Well the president of CBN decided that he wanted to get involved in the show I was producing - the International 700 Club. I was told that I needed to start using him as talent. He was a little wooden in his on-camera presence but I did what I needed to do and we worked okay together. But, sure enough, he started looking more closely at what I was doing.

He thought that there should be more independent production involved in the show rather than it mostly just being a by-product of the domestic show. Earlier, when there was more money, we had several producers who would travel internationally and produce pieces for the program. But due to budget cuts, that was no longer happening. Now he wanted me to come up with independent projects domestically.

This was what my immediate boss told me when we met to discuss the president’s wishes. That was when I told her that I didn’t want to invest the time that would be necessary to do what the president was asking. School was the priority for me at the time and my work was “just a job”. 

I have since had an adjustment in my view of work in general and a job in particular. I now see any job as a calling from God to further His purposes in and through me to others with whom the job brings me into contact. No job is just a job. But looking back, even though it was the wrong thing to say both theologically and practically, I wonder if it was something that I was supposed to say to set in motion the things that happened next. They’re not things I would have necessarily chosen but it seems that God was doing His thing.

Shortly after, my boss came back to me to tell me that they wanted to make a change. She told me that she had been surprised at what I had said and thought it would be best to take me off the International 700 Club. I wondered out loud if maybe it was time for me to just go altogether. I told her to let me talk it over with Laura. The problem was that I had nowhere else to go. I still needed to support my family but had no other prospects. Laura and I decided that I needed to stay.

My boss and co-workers were more than gracious. They actually came up with a whole new position. There was a lot of raw footage shot on international trips that had never been logged, so no one knew exactly what was on the tapes. They decided to create a job to make that my new main task, along with providing production help to anyone who needed it. The new position (or billet, as they call it) had to go through the red tape to get approved first, which was not a given. But somehow it was given and I began the task.

With a ministry like CBN that relies on financial support from donors, there are ups and downs in the finances. When the money and the budget get too tight there are rounds of layoffs. Our department had been fairly immune to the layoffs during the eight years I had been there. Our name had been changed from the International Department to Worldreach and we were the darling project. But soon after I started my new position money got tight again.

One day one of the other employees came into my office and shut the door. Joyce had been at CBN a long time and was very good friends with our boss. She was also one of our good friends, having watched our kids on occasion and allowing Alexis to hang with her when I brought her into the office from time to time.

Joyce sat down in one of my chairs with tears in her eyes. Although she wasn’t supposed to, she felt like she just had to warn me about what was about to happen. The hammer had fallen on Worldreach and they were looking for places to make cuts. As they looked around, they saw that my billet was new and decided that if it wasn’t needed before, it wasn’t really needed now. I was going to be let go.

I was asked to come to the big boss’s office. As I entered, I saw two other guys from Worldreach who were also getting the axe, several of the bosses and the personnel department lady. The mood was somber but I tried to stay light-hearted as I greeted everyone and took a seat. They launched.

From the time Joyce told me, I had felt a certain steadiness in my head and emotions. I had a “just take this situation as it comes and see where we end up” attitude. It was almost like a new adventure I was getting to experience as I had never been fired before. But all of a sudden, as the conversation continued and the impact of what was happening hit me, my emotions begin to well up until they overwhelmed my intellect and I began to cry. I was starting to wonder what I was going to do to support my family 

They were very apologetic but I understood their dilemma. Through my tears I said,

“I want you guys to know that even though this is difficult, I appreciate the opportunity you have given me to work here for the past eight years and I trust that God is in control of the situation and He will somehow continue to guide and provide for me and my family.”

There were tears and hugs all around and CBN did sweeten the deal for their laid-off employees. They gave a severance package that included a month’s salary for each year in a full-time position, which was 6 ½ for me. I packed up my things and went home to tell Laura.