31-year-old fired by startup and hired again within just a day

Kyle McCann works with a payments startup based in Iowa, US. (Image credit: LinkedIn)

A 31-year-old man in the United States found himself fired from a startup and hired again, all within a day, according to a CNBC report. The key? The attitude he maintained during the conversation with his boss.

Kyle McCann is today the director of operational Strategy at VizyPay -- an Iowa-based payment solutions startup he joined in 2017.

As sales account manager, he had an upbeat beginning. McCann told CNBC Make it he signed many new accounts just within the first two weeks at work.

But then, there came weeks where he did not bring in new customers.

Eight weeks into the job, his boss, VizyPay CEO Austin Mac Nab, asked him to meet him, and McCann knew what was coming. He decided that he would have a positive attitude at the meeting.

McCann told CNBC that in his conversation with his boss, he spoke about his positive experiences at the startup and asked for feedback on how he had done.

His boss described him as humble and praised him for taking responsibility and not making excuses. The way his employee handled the situation, caused Mac Nab to reconsider his decision.

“I felt he was genuine, authentic and hardworking, and my gut instinct kicked in during that conversation, it was a heat-of-the-moment decision,” Mac Nab told CNBC. “I thought, ‘I have to keep him someway, somehow at VizyPay, just not in this job.’”

Mac Nab gave McCann a new role of customer service representative. It paid less than his previous role but he took it.

McCann wrote in a LinkedIn post he stayed because he believed in VizyPay's vision. "I had other opportunities, others that paid more, but I felt something with VizyPay," he said.

Five years down the line, he has a impressive list of accomplishments at the startup and plans to continue working with it for the next five years.