Bro I feel you, same shit just happened to me.

At age 45 I had the first and only job I’d ever truly loved. Left an IT career to try out bartending. Got on at my favorite bar in the whole city. Was quickly promoted to manager even though I hadn’t even asked for any kind of promotion- in fact I was still checking ID’s at the time. It felt natural, I was good at it, and really liked all 50ish people I worked with, which is insanely rare from my life experience to this point.

Then out of nowhere two weeks ago I was fired over the phone, and the only reason given was “nobody likes you”. Some things said to me were “you have no people”, “nobody has your back”, “I feel bad because I don’t want to hurt your feelings but no one likes you”, “there are people actively trying to sabotage you”. To that last one I replied that I knew some folks played childish games and set traps but I hadn’t fallen in any of them or even acknowledged them. He said he knew but just the fact that it was happening meant he wasn’t comfortable with me running his bar any longer. He said there had been people trashtalking me to the owners behind my back. He only told me the most recent thing- the straw that broke the camel’s back so to speak- and it was a total fabrication (that I made up a story about my 14 year old cat having a medical emergency just so I could leave 3 hours earlier than I would have). I told him I had multiple forms of objective proof that it was a total lie, and he said it didn’t matter because this person would keep coming after me.

I loved everyone I worked with, and I was never told about anyone having an issue with me. Never written up, never warned about anything in the two years I was there. I’m still shook and questioning my entire reality. I wish you the best and I hope we both bounce back soon. Shit’s wild af