Hmm. Interesting. I could be considered retirement age but I have to work. I will have to be brutally honest (since you were) and confess I had one "exchange" one day with the head manager in my department where some anger "leaked" out and I thought to myself, "You sunk your ship. You're a goner." And sure enough, some information I gathered from talking to other assistant managers lead me to believe this was the incident that got me fired.

Looking back it seems like my mouth opened and stuff came out almost without my ability to stop it. We were in a situation where he was blaming new trainees for some stuff in the department...to another higher up person...and I heard my name. I was sick and tired of being scapegoated so I spoke up and said I was not responsible for the error. It was a terrible thing talking to him like that in front of one of his equals. But I thought it was really low of him to not protect his own.

I was hoping he would come privately and talk to me but he never did. I could have gone to him and apologized but I couldn't bring myself to do it. He is not a person I respect and I have no idea how he became a manager. I am sure he got me fired and he was too much of a coward to tell me himself and got an HR person to do it.

I definitely think at some point psychotherapy might help me. But I also have a big mouth. It always gets me in trouble. I think it is directly connected to my id.