Almost fired? Twice (sort of). Most recently (about seven years ago) the school I worked at as a chaplain hired a new head of school who told me at my first meeting that he had lawyers look at my contract. It was complicated, but I was actually employed by a parish (Iʻm an Episcopal priest) that shared the schoolʻs chapel, contracted to serve as chaplain to the school. New guy basically wanted to clean house and also didnʻt like that he had someone as senior administration that he couldnʻt fire. I wound up being called to a parish in Hawaiʻi not too long after, so it didnʻt really matter.
My other close call came just out of high school. I had been working at a pet store for about two years and helped two classmates get jobs. Turned out they began running a multi-store scam involving stealing from one store, getting a receipt printed for their items at a second store, and then returning those items to a third store for cash. Managment thought I was in on it because I had got them jobs (and had a habit in those days of hanging out with criminals though never really committing crimes myself). I was able to convince management that I had no idea what they were doing.
Oh, wait. There was the other time, when working at EB Games, that I accidentally forgot to ring up a guyʻs Voodoo video card. Basically my remorse and my yearslong friendship with the staff saved my ass that day.
I was actually fired from being an RA in college, but thatʻs a whole other story…
As a bit of an odd kid at a Christian school, I gravitated toward other odd kids, some of whom had behavioral issues (winding up in my school because their parentʻs thought it might reform them or whatever). So one of my closest friends in high school happened to be a prolific shoplifter and all around neʻer-do-well. I never condoned his behavior, but I enjoyed him as a person. I was too much of a church kid to do anything like what he did.
Almost fired? Twice (sort of). Most recently (about seven years ago) the school I worked at as a chaplain hired a new head of school who told me at my first meeting that he had lawyers look at my contract. It was complicated, but I was actually employed by a parish (Iʻm an Episcopal priest) that shared the schoolʻs chapel, contracted to serve as chaplain to the school. New guy basically wanted to clean house and also didnʻt like that he had someone as senior administration that he couldnʻt fire. I wound up being called to a parish in Hawaiʻi not too long after, so it didnʻt really matter.
My other close call came just out of high school. I had been working at a pet store for about two years and helped two classmates get jobs. Turned out they began running a multi-store scam involving stealing from one store, getting a receipt printed for their items at a second store, and then returning those items to a third store for cash. Managment thought I was in on it because I had got them jobs (and had a habit in those days of hanging out with criminals though never really committing crimes myself). I was able to convince management that I had no idea what they were doing.
Oh, wait. There was the other time, when working at EB Games, that I accidentally forgot to ring up a guyʻs Voodoo video card. Basically my remorse and my yearslong friendship with the staff saved my ass that day.
I was actually fired from being an RA in college, but thatʻs a whole other story…
How did you go from hanging out with criminals to being a priest?
As a bit of an odd kid at a Christian school, I gravitated toward other odd kids, some of whom had behavioral issues (winding up in my school because their parentʻs thought it might reform them or whatever). So one of my closest friends in high school happened to be a prolific shoplifter and all around neʻer-do-well. I never condoned his behavior, but I enjoyed him as a person. I was too much of a church kid to do anything like what he did.