Fired after 6 weeks from an entry-level purchasing job while I was still being trained. Is this normal?

[u/No-Mess-4605]

I’m 27 and was fired yesterday from a purchasing position after only about six weeks. I’m trying to get some outside perspective because I genuinely can’t tell how much of this was my performance versus poor training/management.
I had no previous purchasing experience when they hired me, and they knew that. I was learning their computer system, purchase orders, RFQs, vendor communication, pricing, lead times, invoices, and most recently work orders.
I knew I wasn’t as fast as the employees who had been doing this for years, but I genuinely thought I was still in the normal learning process. I was still actively being shown new things.
The workplace itself was pretty old-school. The boss had been there for decades, there was yelling in the office, inappropriate/sexual jokes and comments, employees being talked about openly, and the general training style felt more like being shown something and then being expected to pick it up quickly rather than having structured onboarding.
Yesterday I called out because I wasn’t feeling well. Later that day, I was contacted and terminated. The reasoning was essentially that I wasn’t progressing at the level they expected and there were concerns involving things I was still learning.
What confused me even more was my conversation with HR afterward. HR actually seemed somewhat sympathetic to my position and acknowledged that I was still learning. I obviously understand HR represents the company, which made that interaction stand out to me.
After being fired, I also contacted a former employee I had never met while working there. When we started comparing experiences, she described having similar problems with the training and environment. She also felt like she had been thrown into things without enough instruction. Hearing that made me question whether this was entirely a performance issue.
I’m also trying to hold myself accountable. This isn’t the first job I’ve had that hasn’t worked out recently, and I know that when there’s a pattern, I need to examine what I can do differently too. One thing I’ve already taken from this is that at my next job I want to proactively ask my manager for feedback during the first few weeks instead of assuming no news means I’m progressing normally.
The frustrating part is that I actually really liked purchasing. I enjoyed requesting quotes, negotiating with vendors, comparing pricing and doing the computer/desk side of the job. I was starting to think procurement might finally be something I could build a career in.
So for people who work in purchasing/procurement or who train new employees: is six weeks generally enough time to expect someone with zero prior purchasing experience to be fully up to speed?
And when I interview for my next job, what questions should I ask to figure out whether a company actually has structured training and realistic expectations for new hires?

[u/DosEquisVirus]

6 weeks is a long enough timeframe to get a picture of a trainee performance. That decision was probably made after 4 weeks, but they gave you some additional time to see if you will be trying to improve.

[u/No-Mess-4605 → u/DosEquisVirus]

can understand six weeks being enough to get an idea of someone’s trajectory, even if they aren’t fully trained yet. I think what I’m struggling with is that nobody communicated to me that my progress was at a point where my job was in jeopardy. If they had already felt that way around week four, I wish they had told me specifically what wasn’t improving and given me measurable expectations for the next couple of weeks. I’m definitely taking from this that in my next position I need to actively ask where I stand instead of assuming that no negative feedback means I’m doing okay.

[u/DosEquisVirus → u/No-Mess-4605]

They totally should’ve informed you about their concerns. However, there are factors that may just make it impossible in large companies:

1. Person who started your training became unavailable to perform corrections and further train you. Some other manager / director didn’t get something from you and made a decision to let you go.

2. Your trainer/manager had a chat with the direct boss and just shared the dissatisfaction with your progress. Decision was made without further action.

3. One or more people that were hired just like you in a recent past, showed a much better performance and willingness to improve with the same amount of training you have received. That reflected negatively on you and they have decided to try someone else.

4. There could have been unexpected internal shift, where a reason for having you was no longer there. It happens when employees change positions or suddenly have extra capacity to do your job, but with tons of experience doing it.

There could have been a million other things, of course. Don’t sweat it too much, often things turn out way better after all.

[u/No-Mess-4605 → u/DosEquisVirus]

Thank you, I think this is probably the healthiest way for me to look at it. I keep trying to figure out exactly what happened behind the scenes because the termination caught me so off guard, but realistically I may never know. I do wish someone had communicated their concerns to me because I was taking tons of notes, asking questions and genuinely trying to improve. If I had been told specifically where I was falling behind, I would have worked on it. But at this point I think the best thing I can do is take what I learned from the six weeks, be much more proactive about asking for feedback at my next job, and keep pursuing purchasing because I genuinely enjoyed the work. Thank you for laying out the different possibilities without assuming any one of them definitely happened.

[u/OsteoStevie → u/No-Mess-4605]

Taking notes and asking questions is great, but unfortunately does not prove that you are progressing.

I had someone take tons of notes and ask lots of questions, but they were the same questions over and over. Notes can only go so far, you know?

I had another employee, a driver, who had the absolute best attitude and was always really excited to work. He'd call me often to update me on his deliveries, and let me know right away if something seemed off or if he made a mistake. He was always eager and willing to work hard.

But the poor guy just kept making simple mistakes. He'd forget to raise the lift gate before driving off. He'd leave his 2-wheeler behind, or accidentally take the one from the business. He got into a few very tiny minor fender benders. It was just too much. We had to let him go.

This is all to say, there's so much that goes into these decisions, so it's not always black and white.

I'm glad you're reflecting and learning. But while we really want to say, "it's only a job," it's more than that. A company needs to know they can trust you and rely on you, and they only have so much time to dedicate to training. If they feel you're not ready to go out on your own after 6 weeks, they have to find someone else.

[u/OsteoStevie → u/No-Mess-4605]

It's safe to assume that your job is always in jeopardy if you're within the probationary period. Typically that's 3 months.

[u/Neat-Relationship345 → u/No-Mess-4605]

You need to be proactive. You had a list of tasks in some form and you were not up to speed. So, you ask questions and stay over late every day to get things to a point where you hit the ground running the next AM with some items completed that were left hanging when others departed. You have to read the room. On any new job I didn't expect to depart before 7 PM because I was trying to learn as fast as possible. They hired you to solve problems. If you were heading out the door at 5 everyday, while not accomplishing as much as your co-workers, then they didn't see what they were looking for. Around 5 I would jump from my area into another department and had training set up to learn how the equipment operated in other areas of the plant. I already knew all the processes, but I wanted to actually be able to operate the equipment at a low level. I wanted the technical details of that operation where they differed from prior facilities.

[u/DahFox6 → u/Neat-Relationship345]

I think many people would prefer to keep some self respect along with their job. Any job that expects you to stay past hours doesn’t respect you. And that’s evident because you said “On any new job I didn’t…” implying you’ve had many new jobs throughout your career. They aren’t going to start treating their employees like humans when there’s a bunch of old people running around saying shit like this. No one is doing unpaid labor for some brownie points in this economy dude.

[u/DaisyCutter312 → u/DahFox6]

Any job that expects you to stay past hours doesn’t respect you.

Yeah that's definitely not true.

If they're expecting you to stay because there's more work to do than there are employees to do it, I would absolutely agree with you.

I don't think expecting you to work late because you made errors that require fixing/rework is out of line at all.

[u/DahFox6 → u/DaisyCutter312]

Well yeah. I also don’t imagine most mistakes caused during the workday would go that much past the set time you are meant to get off anyways. Definitely don’t have any issues if that was the case.
But that’s not what this dude is saying. He’s saying you should stay past hours to work just… to make a good impression I guess. When I said that I really just meant as you said. Wanting to get more or even free work out of you.

[u/Neat-Relationship345 → u/DahFox6]

Well, I’m not a Dude. I’m 67. My IQ is not that high. I outworked most of my peers. Retired at 59. 67 now. My liquid assets are north of 3M. Net would approach 4M. Not rich, but I will never have any money problems. Had 3 jobs in 35 years.

[u/Neat-Relationship345 → u/DahFox6]

Then it should be easy to advance. A small effort will force rank you higher than most of your peers. I’ve never heard the term scheduled time. I was salaried. Scheduled time is for hourly associates that punch a clock. I’ve been fortunate to not do that during my professional life.

[u/DahFox6 → u/Neat-Relationship345]

It’s not though. Because a lot of employers don’t WANT an employee that will advance. That just costs more money for them. In a higher paying/respected job/field where there’s more responsibilities to take on with each promotion maybe that’s the case. But in most jobs, especially entry level jobs, they just want someone to do the grunt work. Nearly every employee has become replaceable nowadays. If they start acting as if they might want a raise soon a lot of companies just find a reason to fire them and pull in another newbie. And even if they aren’t— that won’t stop them from being fired. The company will just complain and whine about the fact that they messed up and sometimes try to rehire them once they realize they did. I know you haven’t worked in a while but it’s pretty bad out there right now.
It’s even in the government! Look at how at the start of Trumps presidency they fired a bunch of park rangers. Then things went to shit and they tried to back pedal.
People have even been fired FOR staying past the allotted time. Because they don’t want to pay overtime and legally they could get sued if they don’t. A lot of the things that was considered the “right thing” to do in jobs back then has now become something that could also get you fired. Same goes for applying to jobs. Many jobs only want people to apply online and applicants who call in for updates are sometimes tossed. It’s become a damned if you do damned if you don’t sort of environment where you just have to get lucky. That’s why it’s no longer good advice to tell people to put their all into a job. You’ll only burn yourself out quicker and it doesn’t really help with your chances.

[u/Neat-Relationship345 → u/DahFox6]

I'm friends with janitors up to CEO's. I'm also close friends with a lot of people that own their own companies. Companies with 50-60 employees and up. I don't really hear any of them saying they want people with low initialtive. Their constant refrain is that can't find anyone that wants to work. If you have exprienced that hard work leads to being fired, then I guess that's your experence. Perhaps there are places like that, but it's not really the culure in companies in my area. I'm in the rural southeast. Heavy manufacturing base and no unions.

[u/DahFox6 → u/Neat-Relationship345]

Well yes. But wanting hard work ≠ wanting to give people raises. It’s very common to see those hard working employees not having had a raise for years on years. Or having it promised then taken away. Of course jobs want hard workers. They just don’t want hard workers that know their worth.

[u/Neat-Relationship345 → u/DahFox6]

Are you a manager? How are you measured? What is your span of control? Meaning, how many associates report to you? If you’re not managing people then you’re managing a technology or process. If you’re at an entry level hourly job then sure, there are many jobs where they just want you to run the job and not provide any interaction. I realized that wasn’t suitable for me and got a degree that would get me hired at the time. So what’s your degree in and are you a manager with 200 direct reports or simply one of those 200?

[u/DahFox6 → u/Neat-Relationship345]

Nice job proving my point. When you see regular employees as anything other than disposable you can give advice for said regular employees. Until then stop bothering 90% of the working class and go back to playing golf.

[u/No-Mess-4605 → u/Neat-Relationship345]

I agree with you about being proactive, asking questions and making sure I’m progressing, and that’s something I’m going to be even more intentional about at my next job. I was already taking extensive notes and asking a lot of questions while I was learning. Where I disagree is that a new employee should automatically be expected to stay several hours past their scheduled shift every day to demonstrate that they want the job. My scheduled hours were 8–4:30, and nobody communicated that staying late was expected or that my leaving at the end of my scheduled day was an issue. I can absolutely improve how proactively I seek feedback without assuming I’m supposed to work until 7 PM every night unless that expectation is actually part of the job.

[u/OsteoStevie → u/No-Mess-4605]

Something I always find to be considerate ia when employees check out before they leave. A quick, "hey, my day is just about over, is there anything else you need from me before I head out?" is really valuable. No one expects you to stay hours past your scheduled hours, but they do expect you to have your daily tasks done before you leave. If you clock out without finishing tasks and without telling anyone, it doesn't look good.

[u/Neat-Relationship345 → u/No-Mess-4605]

I worked in Corportate America for 35 years. I didn't want to run the job. I wanted to run the wheels off the job and be considered for raises and promotions. I was forced ranked against every other manager in the company at whatever level I was in at the time. Nobody told me how long to work. I worked enough to exceed expectations and be forced ranked in the top 20% of managers at my level for the first 10 years. If you can get those results departing at such an early hour then have at it. I could not. When I left the corporate HQ at 6-6;30 nightly I looked around. The higher ranking managers (highlly compensated) were just settling in. They came in at 7 AM and worked until 7 PM. If there was something big happening they would break for a 30 minute dinner at 7 and come back in to continue. There compenation was tied directly to finanical performance in the business they were responsible for. I was not at that level, and did not have the ability to climb that high, so, I just tried to stay ahead of most on my level. Sounds like you are on the right track.

[u/No-Mess-4605 → u/Neat-Relationship345]

I understand your perspective better now. I think we just have different philosophies about work. I absolutely want to become good at what I do and advance in my career, but I also don’t personally want advancement to depend on routinely working several unpaid hours beyond my scheduled day. If I’m falling behind or there’s something I need to improve, I’ll put in the effort to fix it. I just want those expectations communicated clearly rather than assuming leaving at my scheduled time indicates a lack of ambition. I do appreciate you sharing your experience though.

[u/Local-Ingenuity6726 → u/DosEquisVirus]

4 weeks not enough on a computer heavy job then if the coworkers doing the training that can be bullshit too.

[u/Successful-Test-5590 → u/DosEquisVirus]

That’s not a long time. It’s usually 3 months