“I got fired today
And I’m really sore about it, frankly” –Say Anything, “Fired”

Yep. I got fired today.

It was a work day like any other. I did my one work assignment, attended the EOD team meeting, and went home. Then, around 7 PM, I got a call. Didn’t recognize the number, so I didn’t answer it. They called again and left a voicemail. I didn’t even bother listening to the VM and simply called the number back. It was a woman from HR at the contract company I work for. She said the company let me go, effective immediately. I panicked. Kept stumbling over my words. Fuck. This can’t be happening again. Not like this.

But in order to give you the full story, I have to take you back a bit.

As you know, I worked for the autonomous division of a major Japanese automaker. There are 2 sides to the autonomous testing: safety driver and software operator. The safety driver is, obviously, the driver of the test vehicle. They’re responsible for taking over when the autonomy mode starts acting weird. The software operator (SwOp for short) is responsible for making sure that the cameras, LiDARs, etc. are working properly. They relay things to the driver to let them know what the cameras and LiDARas see. For example, when driving on the highway, the SwOp will call out “good cut-in” when another vehicle cuts in front and the autonomous vehicle slows down like normal because it can detect a vehicle in front of it.

Over the past couple of months, I had been working towards getting certified for both safety driver and software operator. The software operator evaluation came first. I was a nervous wreck. It wasn’t the job itself that bothered me–I’m an IT guy, so having to do computer stuff in a moving car is second nature to me. The part that bothered me was the eval itself. Because not only do I have to make sure that I’m doing the job properly, but I also have to make sure that I’m answering whatever questions the trainers decide to throw at me. And I’m expected to do both at the exact same time. The first time I took the eval, I was completely overwhelmed and the trainers knew it. So the following week, I went through more training and at the end of the week, I took another eval. I passed it, no problem.

Then my supervisors decided to start training me for safety driver. Which shouldn’t have been a problem, considering I was already trained for manual driving (i.e. normal, non-autonomy data collection). The problem was that, again, I’m expected to answer questions about hardware and whatnot while also paying attention to the road. Not only that, but they were the exact same questions as the software operator eval. Again, I was overwhelmed. But the main reason I failed that eval is because the trainers said I don’t have a “safety first” mindset. Whatever the hell that means. Apparently I’m expected to ask everyone if they have their seatbelts on before the car leaves the garage? No one told me that during the initial training. Also, apparently the driver is supposed to have a “captain of the ship” mentality which means they can disengage (i.e. disable autonomy and drive like normal) at any time, no questions asked, yet during my eval the software operator tells me that I’m supposed to disengage whenever HE tells me to? And THAT’S the reason I failed? Make it make sense. So, a week later, I had a one-on-one meeting with my supervisor and discussed it. Apparently the company realizes that their training methods are severely lacking in certain areas and my supervisor assured me that he was going to take my feedback about my eval into consideration during his weekly meeting with the trainers. He then told me that this week, I would do software operator testing and that next week, I would resume safety driver training so that I could eventually re-take the driver eval.

Which brings us to that phone call today. The HR lady kept reiterating that the reason I was being let go was that the higher-ups had “safety concerns” about me driving their vehicles. What safety concerns? You trust me enough to do manual driving and go out on solo missions, yet autonomous driving is a bridge too far? Apparently, yes. So, since my contract is almost up anyway (my 1-year anniversary with the company would’ve been next month), they decided to simply not extend it. This really sucks. I liked that job. I got along with all my coworkers. The work itself was easy. I thought there was a real chance that I’d get hired in full-time, especially because when I initially got hired in, that’s what my boss said was the initial plan–that eventually ALL of us contractors would get hired in. But several months ago, there was a restructuring in my department and all the hire-ups got moved to different positions, which means that the person that made that promise wasn’t my boss anymore.

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So. What’s next from here? Well, my plan is to not think about it at all this weekend, if I can help it. But first thing Monday, I have to turn in my company equipment (laptop, cell phone, etc.) and then start updating my resume and whatnot. Hopefully I’ll have a new job in no time.

Thanks for reading.

NOTE: If you were expecting Part 2 of my proving grounds adventure, it’s probably not happening any time soon. That moment is so far in my rear view that I can’t even remember what happened back then. Maybe someday I will revisit it, but for now, Part 2 is TBD.

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Song of the Day: Hiroshi Okubo feat. Kimara Lovelace – Ridge Racer (One More Win) (Ridge Racer Type 4 OST)

My favorite racing game soundtrack of all time.