Can I really get fired for this?
A little back story- I worked with my boss at another company, that company decided to close our regional office, and we were all out of jobs. My boss started working at another company, and kept encouraging me to come along. I met with her and the owner and absolutely loved him. My boyfriend and I moved to a different city so that I could take the job, and I’ve been extremely happy and planned on retiring from this company one day.
I’ve become really close with one of my coworkers and a few weeks ago we went to lunch for her birthday with her supervisor, another coworker, and the 2 women from HR.
While at lunch the 2 HR women brought up another coworker, we’ll call her Megan (Megan is training me to take over her job when she retires), saying very inappropriate things about her. The way they were talking set the tone as very casual and unprofessional, so I wasn’t thinking everything I say would be examined under a microscope. One of the HR women asked, “when can we get rid of her?” referring to Megan, I said, “not yet, I’m still learning!” I’ve been doing Megan’s job 2 days a week (with her help, we discuss it and go over why/how we make decisions etc). One of the HR women asked, “if you do it 2 days a week can’t you just do it 5 days a week?” I then replied in a whiney, overly dramatic voice, “wahh I hate it!” ***I don’t *actually* hate it, my true feelings are that I just don’t feel fully confident to do it on my own yet and it’s a little stressful, I get stuck on the phone with my trainer for a long time, and being on the phone I actually really don’t like lol I was just joking around not thinking it would be taken seriously.*** I’ve expressed those things to my coworker/friend prior to this lunch and she knew what I meant and knows how much I love working there so she was also laughing. The head of HR (who I’ve had maybe 3 interactions with my whole time at the company) said, “you hate it? It’s supposed to be your job,” and I said, laughing, “I know, I’m still going to do it.” I should’ve realized then that she was taking my comment super seriously and I should’ve explained that I was just joking around and I don’t actually hate it I just don’t feel confident to do it on my own yet so it’s stressful, but I didn’t. It was just an exaggerated comment that I didn’t think about again. After that, the other HR lady said there are parts of her job that she doesn’t like too, and the conversation moved on. I LOVE my job as a whole, the part I’m learning isn’t the only thing that I do and I do think I will grow to love it as much as I love other parts of my job… but I also think it’s not a requirement to love EVERY part of your job as long as you’re DOING your job well. People do jobs they hate every day lol
Ok now to the part that is making me feel crazy. Head HR lady goes NOT to my supervisor, but straight to the owner and 2 heads of the company and tells them I hate my job, that I’m “slow-playing” training so that I don’t have to do it, and that I said I hate it multiple times. The only part of this that is true is that I said “I hate it” but this information was given without context and without her even knowing what I was meaning. OF COURSE I wish I would’ve been smarter and realized she doesn’t know me or what I meant or my sense of humor or the way I exaggerate, that was really stupid of me, but again the vibe was so unprofessional I just didn’t even think about it. I never said I was slow playing training, nor would I do that.
My boss is now very upset with me, says she’s had to fight to keep me from getting fired and that they still want to fire me, but that no decisions have been made yet. Is this seriously a fireable offense? I’ve never been written up for anything, nothing about my performance is in question, I can’t believe this is a possibility. I apologized to my boss for “making her look stupid”, and explained that it wasn’t serious and I don’t actually hate my job. I’m so mad at myself for possibly messing up a job I’ve truly enjoyed, but at the same time I feel like I’m being gaslit into thinking I did something awful. Was it really that bad? Can I really get fired over this?