I was fired from work
I was presented the phrase, "..me despidieron del trabajo…" which translates to "I was fired from work". So, I looked up the conjugation for "despedir" to find that despidieron was the listed as the preterite for el, ella, & usted.
At least the preterite usage makes sense because "was fired" implies a single (non-recurring) event that happened recently in the past. Since it was stated in the example sentence that "I was fired", and not "He, She, or You was/were fired" then why not the conjugation of the preterite "Yo" to lay it down like this "Me despedí del trabajo"?
4 Answers
They fired me.
me despidieron del trabajo
me = me direct object
despidieron = they fired
del trabajo= from the job.
When you use despedir in the pronominal sense it converts they got rid of me to I took my leave.
Me desperdí- I took leave (I left) (I fired myself?)- I said bye bye.
Normally I would use renunciar to say that I quit though.
So, I looked up the conjugation for "despedir" to find that despidieron was the listed as the preterite for el, ella, & usted.
This is not correct. It is They fired me (preterite for "ellos").
In this case the impersonal form of despedir is used (3rd person plural). It doesn´t really mean that "They fired me" but that "an unnamed agent fired me." It has the same result as passive voice, but it is active voice with "they" not mentioned. Your translation confused you because it translates an active voice statement to a passive voice statement, although the meaning is basically the same.
We can also say: Me corrieron (less formal) and Me hecharon a patadas (slang) but still using the impersonal form.
To say "Me despedí del trabajo" would mean that you said goodbye to your work, but this could be confusing because this is how we structure any sentence to say goodbye to someone, ie: Me despedí de ella ayer.
Al:
I'm going to respond to your comment in Julian's post: "The actual translation of "I was fired" came from Fluencia.com - sample conversation (Level 2 Unit 2) which is where I was originally confused."
I can understand the source of your confusion. Fluencia, and almost every other good Spanish education program, whether it is a book or a website, does a translation based on how things would typically be said in both languages, not a literal word for word translation.
In this particular case "Me despidieron del trabajo" is one of the most common ways of saying this in Spanish. There are others that use the verb echar = to throw...as in they threw me in the street. I was fired, or I got fired, is the most typical way of saying it in English.
There are two ways of writing this passive sentence in Spanish which more closely align with the English.
Yo fue despedido del trabajo. (formal passive)
Se me despidió del trabajo. (se passive, AKA reflexive passive)
The first one could very literally be translated as I was fired from the job.
The second one could be translated as: "They" fired me from the job.
Neither of these would be typical ways of saying this in Spanish, although they would mean the same thing. For one thing, passive se is usually used for non-human objects, so the second sentence would be very unusual. I think the first is pretty unusual too...to use Yo in the formal passive, I've hardly ever seen it.
A very obvious example of the phenomena of which I speak is:
Tengo hambre.
I am hungry.
I have hunger. (literal, but you would never say this in English)
Just like you wouldn't hear, at least not nearly as often:
Estoy hambriento. in Spanish.
I am hungry.
One of the easy things about Spanish is the fact that many of the grammatical techniques are similar to English. For example, all of the perfect tenses use an auxiliary verb and a past participle just like in English. One of the difficult things (but interesting) is that although similar techniques often exist in both languages, common usage is different. (and many differences in usage of perfect tenses as well)
You will notice this difference in spades when you understand the do's and don'ts of the Spanish gerundio (gerund / verb + ing) in English.
Hope you enjoy the journey. 
As always, please correct my Spanish and set me straight if I am mistaken about any of the above. One of the best ways for me to learn is to write what I believe to be true, and then learn from my mistakes via your corrections.
"Me despedí del trabajo" doesn't really make sense because it would mean that 'I fired myself from the job' rather than they fired me.
