I was fired for "culture fit"

I was fired from my first job out of college. After only 3 months I was called into HR and told that I was being let go. I asked why, and they said I wasn't a good "culture fit". For years I thought I'd been lied to. I would've liked some honest feedback, to be told what I did wrong.

It was a tough blow for me: I was fresh out of college and was recently married. My income as a software engineer at that company was about $600 (yes, US dollars, these were different times), and I figured I needed about $1200 to sustain myself. I took another job and managed to get them to pay me $700 (my parents and in-laws kindly helped us cover the rest of our expenses). I started working evenings as a contractor for a staff augmentation company out of the US. After six months of 8-hour shifts at my day job followed by 4-hour shifts at my contract job, I decided to take the plunge and do contract work full-time. I had saved about 3 months of expenses and figured I would be able to find more work before my cash ran out if my contract work ran dry. I did contract work for about a year.

Around 2014, I decided I needed to start another business (I had had a few side-hustles over the years, but nothing really stuck). I went on Reddit and made a post saying I had software developers for hire in the Dominican Republic. Rory Laitila wrote to me and he became my first client. I hired my friend Alex to do the work and Blue Coding had started. 8 years later we have a team of about 100 and are hoping to close the year at about $5M in revenue.

There is a lot to tell about how we grew, but this post is about that first job. The company I worked for was a software firm that portrayed itself as a local Google. It had cappuccino machines and beanbags, and an open office plan at a time when that wasn't yet a thing. They were all about "culture". I was the kid who was eager, I wanted to learn and I wanted to improve things. I remember I proposed changes to the parking layout, and even when out and bought the paint so the improvements could be made. I always had suggestions, and always wanted to be involved in new initiatives to move things forward. I might not have been very wise, and my ideas probably weren't very good. In retrospect, this company was not for me. Their idea of "culture" was one of conformity to a comfortable job. I guess I really wasn't a good culture fit. They let me go, and I'm thankful for it many years later.

I always wondered what I could have done at my first company if I had been given the chance, the guidance, and the environment to grow in. What great things could I have built for them? There's probably a young me at your company too. He is ambitious and willing to work really hard. He wants to make things better and is eager to push forward. Is your company a place where he can release his potential? or will it be that first job that let him go??