The blacklist that built my business

I got fired on a Tuesday. Not for performance — I was the top closer on the sales floor three quarters running. I got fired because someone from my old neighborhood recognized me at a client dinner and mentioned, casually, like passing the bread basket, that I'd been "in and out of rehab" in my twenties.

By Thursday, my access badge didn't work. HR said "restructuring." My manager wouldn't look me in the eye. Fourteen months of record-breaking numbers erased by a single sentence spoken over pinot grigio.