Willie Randolph Can Bounce Back From His Mets Firing

The day has finally come when Donald Trump might need to be called in and teach employers how to say, "You're fired!" That is to say, in person and in a professional setting, such as a boardroom.

But Willie Randolph, who managed the Mets baseball team until his termination on Tuesday morning, was not so lucky. Despite a 9-6 victory over the Los Angeles Angels on Monday, general manager Omar Minaya fired Randolph in California.

The firing "stunned" him, Randolph told reporters, despite the fact they'd lost 12 of their 17 final games last season. However, Randolph has handled the situation with class, telling reporters that, "My heart is still with the team and I wish them well. I'm just disappointed I won't get to be the one to lead them to where they're going to go."

Depending on the individual circumstances, getting fired is either a welcome relief or one of the worst days of your life. But anyone—including Randolph—can bounce back and turn an impromptu termination into a smart career move.

Actress Annabelle Gurwitch, for example, also suffered from a high-octane firing: a little director you may have heard of named Woody Allen. After the director fired her from a play, Gurwitch made lemonade with her book, Fired!: Tales of the Canned, Canceled, Downsized, and Dismissed, as well as a documentary film by the same name.

"There's something very liberating about being fired by the best," Gurwitch says. "Failure is the greatest teacher we have—particularly failure on a large scale. There's always a new direction that comes after being fired."

Gurwitch has managed to do just that—she put out both the book and the film and she know hosts her own show on the Discovery Channel's Planet Green network. She calls her own firing "transformational" because she realized she wanted to be the employer, not the employee.

Here are some other high-profile firings that and times people bounced back better than ever.