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I think if my meeting with my manager went another way I think I might have spent more time looking for an escape route rather than focusing on the tasks at hand. Someone who thinks they're going to be fired can sometimes cause a self-fulfilling prophecy.

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Thanks for the reply, totally get that the manager averted a self fulfilling prophecy of losing a valued employee.

Did you end up succeeding at the job because of the trust offered by your manager?

Yes, I don’t wanna give too many personal details but I gave them a lot of solid work for years after that.

Some in the comments suggested a differentiator about my performance gap was my self awareness that I was doing poorly - I certainly had an anxiety problem in general that was getting in the way beyond work too, but knowing my manager really had my back went very far. I knew of course that I could still get fired, but it meant a lot to me that no one was jumping at the chance.

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