Got fired by non-aviation job. How does it effect my application for airliner.

5

5ein3

New Member
Hello guys,

Recently, I got "terminated" by non-aviation job(Serving at Red Lobster). It was honestly unfair and there was a discrimination since I was Asian. From this termination, I am worried how it would effect my career application such as airline pilot. I just started training for CFI, and I'm really worried about my record since I got terminated twice already. I was terminated on the first job-serving, and now I got terminated again from Red Lobster. I'm wondering how it's gonna effect my future and I am not quite sure if I should start new job if I thought about the chance me getting fired again. I'm looking for a regional pilot and later legacy airlines. Please provide me some advice how it's gonna effect my career.
 
*affect


I don't mean ill, but you going off right away about being fired for being Asian, followed by also being terminated elsewhere? That IMO raises some flags. One can be racist. Two? Doubtful.

Why were you fired from the second place? What could you have done differently? What did you learn? Not working anymore in hopes of not getting fired isn't really a game plan. Regional and major airlines also fire people. I don't think anything so far is career-ending for you, but I do think you need some serious self-inspection and evaluation.
 
Get your CFI and get a CFI job and don't get fired. As you go forward in aviation it will little matter what you did before. Maybe be a good idea to find something now you can put on your resume as something you did before being a CFI. Maybe work front desk at a flight school or Starbucks barista. You could probably get away with forgetting you ever worked at Red Lobster. Or, as an alternative, maybe you could find someone at Red Lobster you worked with who see's your side of the story and use them as a phone number and job reference. Highly unlikely anyone will bother.

I once flew for an outfit doing Grand Canyon tours. When I left I was told I'd not get a good recommendation. Later, that likely cost me a job. But another job came around shortly thereafter. I will say this situation isn't likely going to be the biggest obstacle you'll need to persevere through if you have a typical flying career.
 
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DE727UPS said:
Get your CFI and get a CFI job and don't get fired. As you go forward in aviation it will little matter what you did before. Maybe be a good idea to find something now you can put on your resume as something you did before being a CFI. Maybe work front desk at a flight school or Starbucks barista. You could probably get away with forgetting you ever worked at Red Lobster. Or, as an alternative, maybe you could find someone at Red Lobster you worked with who see's your side of the story and use them as a phone number and job reference. Highly unlikely anyone will bother.

I once flew for an outfit doing Grand Canyon tours. When I left I was told I'd not get a good recommendation. Later, that likely cost me a job. But another job came around shortly thereafter. I will say this situation isn't likely going to be the biggest obstacle you'll need to persevere through if you have a typical flying career.
Click to expand...

Why were you told that in your GCN job?
 
5ein3 said:
Hello guys,

Recently, I got "terminated" by non-aviation job(Serving at Red Lobster). It was honestly unfair and there was a discrimination since I was Asian. From this termination, I am worried how it would effect my career application such as airline pilot. I just started training for CFI, and I'm really worried about my record since I got terminated twice already. I was terminated on the first job-serving, and now I got terminated again from Red Lobster. I'm wondering how it's gonna effect my future and I am not quite sure if I should start new job if I thought about the chance me getting fired again. I'm looking for a regional pilot and later legacy airlines. Please provide me some advice how it's gonna effect my career.
Click to expand...

People get fired all the darned time and do ok. It *can* affect your candidacy depending on a number of things.

Things like theft, workplace violence, sexual assault — things that would have landed you in jail aren’t the best thing to have on your application because it *may* be assumed that the same behavior will follow that candidate to the new workplace and ain’t nobody got time fo dat.

But overall, it *probably* won’t have a deleterious effect on your application if it was something relatively minor.
 
Cherokee_Cruiser said:
*affect


I don't mean ill, but you going off right away about being fired for being Asian, followed by also being terminated elsewhere? That IMO raises some flags. One can be racist. Two? Doubtful.

Why were you fired from the second place? What could you have done differently? What did you learn? Not working anymore in hopes of not getting fired isn't really a game plan. Regional and major airlines also fire people. I don't think anything so far is career-ending for you, but I do think you need some serious self-inspection and evaluation.
Click to expand...
The reason why I said it was a little racist is because I was fired because of a minor things. But the manager already had 2 different report for being racist, and I got targeted by the manager. Point out everything I do. and ended up firing me with a small things. Nothing against a law.

The other manager told me that if you wish you can re-apply to the same red lobster after 6 month and if we still need server we will be happy to hire you again. If I do that, it could be good to cure my resume.

Again, I havent done anything against the law, and it was only minor stuff.
 
DE727UPS said:
Get your CFI and get a CFI job and don't get fired. As you go forward in aviation it will little matter what you did before. Maybe be a good idea to find something now you can put on your resume as something you did before being a CFI. Maybe work front desk at a flight school or Starbucks barista. You could probably get away with forgetting you ever worked at Red Lobster. Or, as an alternative, maybe you could find someone at Red Lobster you worked with who see's your side of the story and use them as a phone number and job reference. Highly unlikely anyone will bother.

I once flew for an outfit doing Grand Canyon tours. When I left I was told I'd not get a good recommendation. Later, that likely cost me a job. But another job came around shortly thereafter. I will say this situation isn't likely going to be the biggest obstacle you'll need to persevere through if you have a typical flying career.
Click to expand...
First of all, in our place, being CFI doesn't earn a lot. I will definitely be CFI once I can apply for that for hours, but I'm not gonna be CFI for money. Around 15 per hour. Can't live my life with 15 per hour. So I will have to work in other places too.

I have a lot of people in Red Lobster who said it was unfair and people are still trying to get me back right away because it was not understandable for everyone. How can they be my job reference? Can I like put them as the Red Lobster reference?
 
derg said:
People get fired all the darned time and do ok. It *can* affect your candidacy depending on a number of things.

Things like theft, workplace violence, sexual assault — things that would have landed you in jail aren’t the best thing to have on your application because it *may* be assumed that the same behavior will follow that candidate to the new workplace and ain’t nobody got time fo dat.

But overall, it *probably* won’t have a deleterious effect on your application if it was something relatively minor.
Click to expand...
The direct reason why they fired me was because of poor performance. (Not greeting table within 1 mins)
 
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that you getting fired from Red Lobster will have zero effect on your application at your first airline unless there was some law breaking involved.

It *could* have an effect on your current applications at flight schools or something along those lines, but you specified long term career.

And as the Beagle said, yeah, getting hired at Red Lobster again might be tough. :)
 
Next time they say, "Hey, Can you step into my office, I think we need to have a chat about your future here", then say "Oh that's great timing, I was just going to tell you I got a better opportunity elsewhere and will leave as soon as its good for you".


Get some positive work experiences in your portfolio and leave this in the dust and focus on aviation. Try working as a fueler, ramper, line help, something that will have more relevance to aviation and if it doesnt work out refer to the top of the post. :)
 
5ein3 said:
Can I like put them as the Red Lobster reference?
Click to expand...
That's what I'm saying. If you feel the need to put all your job history on an application, which you might, then set it up with somebody to be your reference. 99% of the time nobody is going to check that in depth, especially the more flying jobs you have as you move forward. I got hired over the phone for low level flying jobs twice. I hardly think they cared about non-flying work history. In your first post, you mention not getting another serving job cause you might get fired. Then you say you can't live on CFI wages. What flight school pays $15/hr? That horrible. Anyhow, at some point something has to give. You need to eat. So you might have to just take another serving job. What if you worked at a restaurant that only hired Asians? Be creative.
 
5ein3 said:
The direct reason why they fired me was because of poor performance. (Not greeting table within 1 mins)
Click to expand...

I wouldn’t fret another moment about that if that’s the case.

Now if you slapped your manager and threatened to set his house on fire afterwards, that’s another story.
 
derg said:
Now if you slapped your manager and threatened to set his house on fire afterwards, that’s another story.
Click to expand...
Oh, so you’re saying that might be a problem *standing there shuffling and staring at my shoes*?

Just don’t tell’em you like mushrooms. I hear that can cause issues.;)
 
5ein3 said:
Hello guys,

Recently, I got "terminated" by non-aviation job(Serving at Red Lobster). It was honestly unfair and there was a discrimination since I was Asian. From this termination, I am worried how it would effect my career application such as airline pilot. I just started training for CFI, and I'm really worried about my record since I got terminated twice already. I was terminated on the first job-serving, and now I got terminated again from Red Lobster. I'm wondering how it's gonna effect my future and I am not quite sure if I should start new job if I thought about the chance me getting fired again. I'm looking for a regional pilot and later legacy airlines. Please provide me some advice how it's gonna effect my career.
Click to expand...

First off, I'm sorry you got fired, and best of luck with your career going forward.

But I doubt this will significantly hurt your chances of an airline career, especially once you have a few years of unblemished work history afterward. If asked about it in an interview, just explain what you learned from the experience, and as @JDean3204 said above, you probably will need to take responsibility for getting fired, so it doesn't look like you're rationalizing or trying to blame others- although I personally don't doubt that you were discriminated against.

As an example, I know someone (who actually used to be a member of this website), who got fired from a flying job. He and I both worked at the same aerial survey company back in 2014, and he flew a company plane 6 hours to go home and see his girlfriend. Naturally, he was fired once our boss found out; and on top of that, he had a pretty checked past beforehand, including an underage drinking ticket and a shoplifting conviction. Today he is a 777 captain at a charter airline.

I myself have never been fired per se, but I did have to resign in lieu of termination from my first airline, since I washed out of initial training. I have other marks of Cain my record, including other training failures and an accident back when I was instructing. I've certainly been lucky that we've had a very pilot-friendly job market in recent years, except during the Pandemic, but I've been able to have a decent career at the airlines despite my checkered past, and even escaped the regionals last year.

So I doubt getting fired will be a significant hindrance in your airline career.
 
OP, don't worry about it. Sometimes things happen and nobody is going to care about Red Lobster.

In my career there's some debate; I say I quit, they say they fired me. I quit a job where they wanted me to be "creative" in how certain forms were filled out and I walked out on the spot after a short altercation with the DO. I had a job literally by nightfall, but I was really worried when I got home and told my wife. She said, "did you do the right thing?" I said, "I think so." She said, "then don't worry about it, you'll find something else." And she was right, I had my old job back at a really good company by 8pm, and a little over a year later I got poached to go fly corporate for an extremely high quality operation.

A close friend of mine refused to do some nonsense at his charter jet job because they were doing some sketchy things and treating their people poorly and was subsequently "let go." That didn't slow him at all. A year later he was the DO of another company, and now he's running his own contracting company and has been making so much money flying rich people around that he says he'll never go back to a "real job" or an airline again.

I know another guy that was fired from multiple 135 operations - not Red Lobster but real charter airlines - and is now at a major 121 carrier in the left seat. To be fair, I didn't really like the guy, but in his defense he didn't let these setbacks slow him down and managed to learn and grow. He took lemons and made lemonade. I've known other people with criminal records and major substance abuse problems overcome their past and go on to have extremely good flying careers doing interesting work. One friend of mine in flight school got a DUI at his first charter job - they kept him, he bounced back, then went on to fly all over the world for a couple ACMI companies before coming back to run that place. I've met people who have been in multiple accidents who are still happily turning Jet-A into heat and noise for money. I know guys who've been fired, guys who should've been fired, and guys who's negligence has literally resulted in accidents where people have died who are all still gainfully employed in aviation.

The main thing is, they learned from their mistakes and moved forward. Getting canned from Red Lobster isn't necessarily a problem. What you do next is what makes or breaks you - you didn't get fired, you got force fed an opportunity to learn. Look at why you got fired, if you think your actions or behavior had any role in your firing (seriously evaluate this), note that and change your behavior. There's literally nothing else you can do but learn from this, then move forward and don't look back.
 
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