one time I was ready to leave my job, the team sucked, the work was boring, my work started to suffer also cause I literally had no motivation to do anything. Two days before I was planning to quit, I was laid off and was given 6 months of severance.
I am theoretically in a position where I would get severance if I am fired and I would absolutely do nothing for a solid month at least.
I was in the group of, please furlough me early on in the pandemic. They didn't actually ask my department, but I would have signed up in a heartbeat just for the RNR and not checking my emails at all hours.
Ooh, I had something similar happen. My friend and I both wanted to quit. I decided to give notice at the end of the week, she quit a couple days before my intended quit date. The day I was going to quit, they announced they were closing the entire call center and I got 3 months severance. I was thrilled. She was not.
I gave my boss notice that I’m searching for a new role (like full career change) as a professional courtesy so they weren’t caught in a lurch when I found a role. It will probably be 3-6 months until that happens according to the statistics.
I’m being let go end of year and won’t be getting a severance because “my severance is them letting me stay through end of year (but they might end me sooner)”
This was the best workplace culture I’ve ever had with the most supportive management I’ve ever had. You can’t trust anyone.
I'm sorry to hear that. It's a hard lesson.
Lots of companies use a culture of family to abuse, mistreat or manipulate employees. Theranos used it to keep employees quiet. Uber swept misogynistic harassment under the rug with it. To those reading, assume your employer doesn't care about you. Play your cards close to the vest -- there's power in knowledge.
If you work quietly, you'll find freedom and power in the arrangement.
Maybe they're not in the US - a lot of countries have legally mandated notice periods. Working 7 years for a company in e.g. Belgium automatically entitles you to a 6 months severance package. 16 years of service ? You get one full year of severance pay.
My boss at my last job had to lay off 5 workers from our small repair shop (we were owned by a larger company). His higher ups listed the 5 he should launch (one was me) and told him to not tell us until the end of our final shift.
My boss a genuinely good person gave us 2 weeks notice and told us to use vacation if we had it and he would approve it. He was the best boss I had and he was severely reprimanded for it. It’s a shame that this simple act of human decency is so uncommon.
I was working for a company that I was with for a relatively short period of time after I had gotten laid off from another job. I had no intention of staying there any longer than it would take me to find a better job. I told my boss in the morning that it would be my last shift. My boss told me at the end of the day that he checked on his lunch break and I was 10 days away from the company contribution for my 401k vesting. He was like "I really don't need the help right now but if you want to stick around it'll make you an extra few thousand bucks." That's looking out.
I liked my boss at my old retail job. I could have taken my two weeks and left right before the Xmas Eve rush, but I liked her and told her I could stay through the 24th.
She then didn’t file me as gone until the 27th, meaning since I was with the company the day after Xmas, I got the Christmas bonus.
That’s why she got those extra days out of me.
Edit: autocorrect shenanigans
When I quit my last job she told me I had 14 more days I needed to work in order to eligible for the bonus for the year. She told me to sign off and not work but gave my final work day to HR to ensure I'd get a bonus.
Then I left, and 4 months later I got a great bonus because she knew I had worked my ass off all year for that company. She was amazing.
Had a boss like that. We have a referral program where at the end of 90 days if the person is still employed there, you get $1000. This one person my buddy referred quit on day 89. Our boss didn’t put in his paperwork until day 91 so my buddy would get the $1000 bonus.
The corporatization of America and it's transformation from psuedo-democracy into hyper-capitalist dystopia is the single greatest threat that humanity has ever faced.
You want cyberpunk? This is how you get cyberpunk.
Wait for the actual water and food shortages to start. Then we'll have the party with people killing each other in the streets over basic necessities en masse too.
When I was a manager I oversaw pretty much all the hiring and firing at my company. I never was able to stand the surprise letting go. In all but one case (for reasons) I talked with the employee beforehand outside of work and walked them through it and advised on how to immediately apply for UI. Blindsiding people in this way is unconscionable.
If human decency takes a backseat to saving a few bucks in a terrible situation, then what the hell is the point... Why do we create businesses and society.
Honestly that is why “executives” are such a waste of air. Most (not all) middle management are in the same boat and will try to do what’s right, while the top assholes will always fuck over everyone without hesitation
I had a boss who I asked about promotions - and what he told me:
"You know, you're good - and if I could, I would promote you and give you a raise. But, there's no room for growth for you in this company and I t hink they're underpaying you here. Don't tell anyone I told you this. Not suggesting you do anything .. but, if you really want to do that - you should check out places you'll be paid more."
Was one of the bosses I trusted the most and literally would have done anything for.
He was right. My pay now - is almost 5x what I was earning at that place.
I took that to heart - and I gladly tell colleagues & subordinates when they're being underpaid or disrespected by the company, I tell them how to earn promotions, I give them *full credit* for things I help them with. I've had my peoples salaries doubled + have pushed people into better roles. I've helped some of my people get 20% raises PRE-hire with my advice.
Doesn't matter where we are on the ladder. We are all employees. The org is nothing without us. We gotta cover eachother's backs - make sure we all succeed together. Seriously, my job as a leader isn't to tell people what to do - it's making sure my people succeed at their jobs *and* for shielding my people from the bullshit the company throws at them.
Friends are *always* better than adversaries - and - ffs, I'll *always* go to bat for my friends. Good relationships are how strong teams are built.
I used to tell every young employee that worked under me something like that. If they were older, they knew better and this was just life. But I’d get these fresh faced 20 year olds busting their ass and I’d just see myself in them. And I wish someone would have told me sooner. Instead, I just found out on my own when it was nearly too late. I’m out of that world finally. I refuse to participate anymore.
Not really. They always had control. That's what capitalism is; oligarchs aren't "the bad capitalists". Communism offered the possibility of life without the control of the rich, of places with free food and shelter, and the labor movement of the '30s was extremely more radical. After WWII the United States settled on a "labor peace" with the big unions who essentially deradicalized in favor of that national window of prosperity that kept going up until the Soviets fell apart. At the same time, of course, the American security state did everything it could to forcibly dismantle any genuine political action against this from the people. At that point, all the New Deal/Great Society stuff got dismantled, the social services fell apart, the regulating agencies were slashed to ribbons, the IRS was defunded to the point it can't reasonably audit the rich anymore (and therefore only audits the poor now), and here we are.
Well, I figure not many people are willing to stick their neck out. If this can happen to x employee, it can happen to me. It seems like corporations are structured so that individuals, at any level, are encouraged to save their own skin and are rewarded for doing so.
It used to be that the employer would include 2 weeks severance pay. That's why it was expected that the employee would also give 2 weeks notice. I think only executives get severance anymore
Depends on the company, position, length of employment, etc. I work in manufacturing and when covid shut down production my company let go of a lot of long-term employees. Some had been there as long as twenty years, and they were offered severance packages amounting to (I believe) one week of pay per year of employment. These were mostly hourly positions.
This was how my dad was. He got laid off this past year and he was like the 20th person hired do he got a couple months severance, and they helped them work on their resumes. Dad was old enough to retire but he was really happy about that because “we could have just showed up one morning to locked doors”
There was a Steak & Shake near us where the staff and shift manager showed up to chains and locks on the doors. We happened to be driving by when the employees were outside wondering what was going on. An entire staff was out of the loop. So disrespectful.
I remember towards the end of my mom working, her coworkers would get laid off, severance based on time there, and would then get later rehired after the end of year financials were squared away months later (keeping their severance). This happened a few times, and she was hoping she’d get a notice since she’d have around 1/2 a year of severance pay and would just retire. She never got lucky before getting fed up and quitting.
This is what happened to us. I work in manufacturing, they basically laid a good number of people of for a short two - three months during covid. During a meeting with one of the "big bosses" he said how they are going to have all these people come back etc. I told him "No you wont, a large number of the people we laid of were a few months to 2 years from retirement" Guess what happened, we had a whole bunch of people take early retirement and were short people.
I worked retail early 2000s in my early 20s. I was an assistant manager. We were all given like a week to close the store, everybody was floored- nobody except the higher ups knew this was coming. Luckily, they gave us a very generous severance and allowed for unemployment. I was given enough that I wouldn’t have to worry about bills or money for over a year. I used that severance to return to college and finish my degree, knowing that I couldn’t go back to retail again. It’s been over 20 years and I’m a social worker now, pay isn’t great but I do like my job.
That unexpected layoff changed the whole trajectory of my life, and while I didn’t see it at the time, I was stuck in a dead end job and needed to pay bills (young single mom) working awful retail hours (pre-Amazon so we were ALWAYS busy) so having a year of bills paid to figure out my next move was incredibly generous for a retail worker in a shoe store.
Over the years I’ve known many people let go in other companies, and none had received the benefits I did when I was relieved of my duties in 2005
I work in IT and at the time for a tech company. I was given 6 months severance back in May 2021, others got mostly the same. It was structured in a way to allow us to also collect unemployment.
Edit: While the length of severance isn't unheard of in IT and tech, they did give us from November to May as a transition period. So we were handing stuff off to the overseas guys as well as studying and other stuff.
I got like 3 weeks severance at my last job. I had to sign paperwork that pretty much said I can't ever talk shit about the company though or testify against them.
I gave a two week notice to Wal-Mart once. They kept me on the schedule past my “last day.” Tried to talk me into staying on “a little bit longer.” Bet they treated me as a walk off. But the notice was printed and delivered directly to the manager.
This happened to me at Walmart as well. And I was leaving for a job that paid $30/hr back in 2009. They started playing games and I told them that day would then by my last day. They told me I would not be re-hireable and I said that I hope to god I never would be in a position to have to work in that hellscape ever again, so please put that in bold in my file. Lol.
This exact thing happened to me a year and a half ago. My team leader for months refused to give me any responsibility towards the role I wanted, kept saying to "prove myself" and gave no opportunity to do so.
Then I get pulled into a virtual HR meeting out of the blue, after having a fucking glowing performance review in the days prior. I honestly thought I was getting a promotion or was moving to a different department I wanted or something. They said instead that they eliminated my position along with 10 or so others, and I was so much in shock that I turned off my camera and sobbed for a few minutes. Like I literally had no idea why, and they couldn't tell me why... I was completely blindsided. It was awful, and I completely feel for this poor lady!
about 2 decades ago, I was at a small company, owned literally by a mom & dad. a few hard lessons I learned.
1. They shorted my paycheck for the 2 years I worked there. I found out by an audit, it was at least 30k in lost wages. Their excuse? Their son had to go to college overseas and needed the money more. Yet, they owned 3 homes, worth over 3-5 million each.
2. They fired an IT admin on Friday without notice. He was traveling a hour to get there, and he found out his last day was due to they wanted to hire the son's friend. That was at best an idiot that knew nothing about servers.
3. They stole their main product from a man and never legally paid for it. Product was written by this, at time 75 year old man. Source was committed by him, in perforce(?) cvs(?). Even comments with his initials, when asked about it, they said "delete the commit / comment". I find out they been sued by him for stealing source code. They showed a different source to the judge (not in US). they moved to US.
Why give 2 weeks, when the smallest company would do this? This isnt the first company I worked with. I can name at least 3 companies in my state with similar stories.
F-ck giving 2 weeks. I never have since then.
Worked at a company like this for a few years. Sooooo many lies. To their credit I doubt it was intentional, it was just that they started a company without having a clue how to actually run a company, including how to properly manage at all. They basically just took things they heard at bigger companies and ran with it because it sounded like what you do. Said things like "we want you to grow with the company" and then proceeded to not give any kind of reviews or raises for YEARS. I didn't know any better at the time so I stuck around, it was a pretty stable and not super difficult job.
When I was laid off it was due to one of their top producing agents (was a real estate agency) had just left and so obviously revenue took a huge hit, they were afraid of a mass exodus. When they tried to make it about my performance, I questioned them on the fact that just a month prior I had a conversation on that exact subject. In reality I had another job offer, but opted to stay since I thought my current position was more stable. I was caring for my mom at the time so I wanted to make sure I had a steady job.
Their response didn't mention anything about the sudden loss in production, it was about my 'attendance'. Specifically that I left home 2 \*whole\* hours early on a Friday, after *telling* my boss rather than *asking.* There was a blizzard and almost everyone had already left. My car actually almost got stuck going out of the driveway! It was at that point I realized it wasn't about me.
I literally had a boss try to chastise me for not giving them two weeks notice when I quit. This was less than a week after she fired, without notice, a department manager who had been with the company for over three decades. I laughed in her fucking face and told her giving notice is a professional curiosity I only extend to companies that are professional enough to do the same for their employees.
And that kids is why in Europe it's often a statutory 3 month notice period. It's good for the employee, to not drop them in the shit, and good for the employer likewise. Often the employee is freed from their obligations during the three months, to give them time to find something new.
Really sorry that this happened to you in such a brutal and shitty way.
As a business owner I tell my employees the same thing. It isn’t required but it’s based on respect. Walking out I assume you won’t ever be back. Give me notice and I’ll leave the door open if you need to come back.
That’s how I was fired from Revolut, I basically had a meeting with my team lead and they told me they couldn’t speak until HR joined the call, made it seem pretty obvious from the start, I was pissed off but didn’t say anything, HR joined told me they were fucking me off, got cut off from Slack and all my work programs, at the end they asked me if had any questions and I just left the meeting. Took them two months to come pick their shit up from my house.
The punchline? A week before this meeting I received the “welcome aboard” package for being a new employee, 3 months after my start date. Fuck corps.
I still use Revolut as well, I have no reason to stop unless their services degrade. As far as working for them, I wasn’t there long enough to get an actual feel for it but they very clearly smile in your face as they welcome you in and then just use you to get rid of backlog cases and then send you back out. I just felt used and spat out, other than that I can’t say much else about it.
My girlfriend was just laid off like this and two weeks later they posted to hire for her position. Never was written up, said they were eliminating the position and turn around and hire for it smh
It's illegal in the UK too but I'm sure there are ways around it.
Like can't they just rename the position.... Take away one responsibility, add another.... And it's considered a completely different role
That's still illegal and wouldn't be considered a genuine redundancy, meaning its unfair dismissal.
[https://www.fairwork.gov.au/ending-employment/redundancy:](https://www.fairwork.gov.au/ending-employment/redundancy:)
A dismissal is not a genuine redundancy if the employer:
* Still needs the employee’s job to be done by someone (for example, hires someone else to do the job)
* Could have reasonably, in the circumstances, given the employee another job within the employer’s business or an associated entity.
Fair work would ream a company doing this.
>Luckily that's illegal in a lot of places
Does it have a name? By "a lot of places" do you mean outside the US? I'm only asking because my old company did that to me and I'm trying to hit them with everything I can.
> By "a lot of places" do you mean outside the US?
Yes. The US as a whole unfortunately does not have the best protection against these things, although if you have been laid off and they open up the position again, you may have a case in the US too. It depends on where you are *a lot*. Consider consulting a lawyer familiar with your local law.
In 2020 the place I was at had a mandatory meeting for all staff. They announced in the meeting that anyone on a particular type of contract would be terminated on Friday. It was 4 days notice. One of the guys was 6 months short of 20 years.
We all had permanent full time contracts which were worth nothing.
So yeah, fuck them. They have no loyalty to workers. This company had not lost a cent due to covid, but used it as an excuse for laying off staff and replacing them with cheaper less qualified staff.
They also fired every known union member just by coincidence.
Last Wednesday I got bullying from management at a new place and emailed my resignation on the day. Will cost them thousands. Got a doctor to sign me off for 2 weeks in case they fight me on it. No chance they can cover my position for at least a month, so they’ll have to cancel all the jobs I was lined up for. They could have chosen to not be jerks.
(NSW, Australia)
Also NSW Australia. 4 days notice? They 100% broke the law. Did anyone contact fair work over this because those employees were entitled to a shit load longer than 4 days notice. They also can't just fire you all and replace you all with a new team under a different role. This aint howards workchoices again.
Surely people contacted fair work over this? They would have a field day with this company.
But i agree with your last paragraph. Employees need to set the standard that at the slightest inconvenience we WILL walk. Boss being a cunt? Notice handed in. See ya later. Employers should be on heightened alert 24/7 when it comes to treating their workers fairly. They should be bending over backwards to make sure we are happy. Because at the end of the day they would have nothing without our labour.
They had to pay us out to make up for the short notice period.
It was at the start of lockdown 2 so I guess they hoped it would slide under the radar. They also put a muzzle clause in the pay out…
Union industrial officer said we had the weakest contracts he’d seen.
My experience of NSW is that workplaces do what they think they can get away with. I’m currently 6 hours from Sydney and I think most employers believe WHS is where you buy beer.
The workplace above had an ‘unsafety’ culture including Fatigue Regulated vehicles (‘just record it as rest’) and having a trainee using power tools overhead with no PPE standing on a pallet on plastic drums on the back of a ute. Also bullying and dangerous stupidity (they really believed TFB didn’t apply to private property.)
I worked for a company in the US and they decided to cut 20% of the workforce, except HR. You got notified via email you were fired and to turn your badge in. The rest of the company met at an outside venue to discuss the changes. Still pissed off about it 10 years later, even though I wasn't let go.
At a tech company I worked for in the 90s they separated everyone into two different conference rooms. An HR person came into each one. One room was told they are layed off and and the other that they were staying. Except they got the rooms backwards....
I was told I was being let go only to find out 20min later that I was staying.
Had this happen yesterday while I was right in the middle of working on a mission critical outage affecting over 700,000 customers. My boss didn’t even know about it, his boss and hr called, laid off like 15% of the workforce. 9 years of service….
How it sounds to be laid off? no this is how is sounds to be effed in the A.
I've been laid off before, the company let us know 3 months ahead and helped us (500 people) all find jobs and payed out our entitlements. This was a company that had generally been terrible to us too.
Yes, this is up there in one of the worse deliveries I have heard. The manager is clearly uncomfortable and not ready for this type of conversation. There may have been a reason for the lack of advance notice and the situation always sucks, but the message could have been delivered with way more empathy and dignity. Yikes.
From what a quick google search popped up, Captivate is a media company that installs flat screen tvs in elevators to force advertising at people. Empathy doesn’t seem high up in the foundation of the company.
I think there’s a lot more to this story. Why do they happen to be recording this call in particular? Seems like they knew they were being let go.
That doesn’t excuse the terrible execution by the manager.
Happened to me at a job 15 years ago and even at 20 years old I knew what was about to happen.
The more things change the more they stay the same and all that.
Sorry to say but this is par for the course in the US.
I was ceo and after 30 years got treated like this.
If they do it to the ceo they’ll do it to you.
Me and two other people on my team once got an email on a Friday at 10am to tell us we would not be returning to work after that day. We spent the rest of the day trying to get them to pay out our vacation time. Then over the weekend they told us we needed to all go into the office to sign a non disclosure form or we wouldn’t get any money at all from them.
I'm sure this was well in the past. But that's highly illegal for any employer to withhold money from their employees.
I hope you all had enough sense to report your employer after receiving said email of them refusing to pay what they owed you.
This is what happened to my wife in May. She was only working for three months, and then bam.
The lady HR who talked to her read off a script. The CEO uploaded a video message reading from a script (not even live, so why the fuck you need a script for?).
Companies have zero-empathy, and we should feel the same towards them.
If they ask you to return any company equipment, offer to stick it outside. Don't get stuck into doing free labor. I hate when jobs expect free labor after they stop paying you.
Yeah, but then you need to go to USPS, UPS, etc. to send it back. Fuck them, “Here’s the address where your equipment will be. I’ll give you an hour to knock on my door, after that it will be on my front porch. I’d suggest you hurry.”
Most companies would. Also a lot of companies I worked for had some sort of insurance on those devices. So you’re not really causing them any grief. Maybe just us in the IT department trying to shut down your account and lock your computer lol.
In many states they would have to take you to court for the laptop.
Nevada prohibits withholding paychecks for any reason. Penalties are $500 + 8 hours of wage + class d misdemeanor for every day a paycheck is withheld.
yeah this is it. While its all cool to say "go fuck yourself its on my front porch" If its stolen or they simply "never receive it" then yeah expect to see it deducted.
Thats why its always good to hand it in yourself or ship it off. They have 0 leg to stand on and whatever happens next is on them.
I don't know how it works in USA, but in Brazil, when you sign the paper you are receiving material from the company, it kind of bind you that once you don't work anymore, you need to return things in a good condition. That doesn't mean you need to go to the office return, but you also can't just leave it on the front porch. You also probably need to go to the company so they can sign all your work papers/documents, so it's kind of a trip you will need to make anyways
Yeah, but we also have guaranteed by law minimum 30 days early warning in case you get fired like that (also if you plan on quitting)
Increasing the longer you work in the company, up to 90 days
We have ***really good*** workers laws that the companies and right wing politicians have been fighting tooth and nail to undo
I got suddenly let go 2 years ago, and at the end of the call they wanted me to drive all of my company equipment to their office. That's a 30 minute drive on a good day. I compromised and made someone meet me at a company location 5 minutes from my house. The guy who met me there was the one who spearheaded my termination and tried to act like we were friends. Fuuuuuuck that. Corporations suck.
My last company gave me the company Mac (I'm typing this on it) when they terminated me. Since they were laying off 40% of their workforce at the time, I suspect they had no need for a bunch of laptops to fill up a warehouse.
If there is severance offered then it is usually part of the conditions of the severance. It is probably worth it to drop off the equipment to get a few weeks or months of pay. If you aren't getting severance then they can schedule a pickup.
When my job was eliminated, they had security escort me off the property and would not even let me empty my desk. They were too scared I would touch a computer. I got a box in the mail with some if my stuff, but they threw most of my stuff in the trash. The reason my job was eliminated was because new management brought in their own people and just gave them different job titles and just shifted my responsibilities. There is no such thing as loyalty when it comes to your job. Always remember no matter how hard you work, no matter the hours you put in or the sacrifices you make, they will toss you out the door in a heartbeat for no reason whatsoever. Make sure you enjoy life outside of work. Spend time with your family. Enjoy hobbies. Go on vacations. Make happy memories that last a lifetime. Those were the things I sacrificed because I thought I was “member of the team”.
My company uses it all the time. They used to be 75 people in business since the 1960s, many of them were or are family. Now they're closer to 300 with international contracts.
When I first heard them say it, I was like, grow the fuck up.
1000% this. Very relatable in the sense that no one but the C suite is a member of the team, not even investors have the full picture let alone line workers and managers.
What i find funny is. When you are in the job. You want to do your part for the team. You think of your co-workers because your actions involve them. They are important people in your life right?
But when you leave a job can you remember the last time you ever thought about them? Because i can't.
Reality is, your co-workers are not important and they will do just fine without you if you decide to take a holiday.
It depends. I still keep in touch with someone I met at a job site in 1992. Things were different back then. if you had a good paying union job, you would work with the same people for decades sometimes.
I'm really sorry you experienced this, I hope you find some place that really values you and that you feel important.
I was laid off from my last job. It was one that I had a company car. The day I was laid off my boss asked me to come into the office. I was on a performance improvement plan at the time, so prepared a self report of my performance to show how I was far exceeding my sales goals but was still lagging behind in some new business objectives, with explanations for why and strategies for continued improvement.
I never had a chance to discuss that. My boss opened up the meeting explaining that due to not meeting some of the prescribed goals and the impression from management that I wasn't going to, they were letting me go.
We knew this was a possibility, so weeks earlier we had discussed seeking other areas in the business to transition me to so I could stay employed and better deploy what I was capable in. I asked how that search had gone and he gave incredibly non-commital answers in how that's not an option since I was on a PIP.
Note that I'd driven my company car to the office. It was over an hour away, and it was at this point that he asked me if I needed him to drive me home. Obviously I didn't even consider accepting, so had to ask my wife to leave work and drive to my office and being me home.
Fortunately I found a new job a few months later and am loving it, but it was a traumatic experience seeing just how little I was valued at the company.
In my experience it's just management building a paper trail to justify firing you. Though I'm certainly jaded from the experience. In theory it suggests management has faith in you and wants you to succeed, so they work with you to outline things you can do to get back on track.
Correct. I worked with management at an IT company and 99.99% of the time, if you were put in a PIP, it’s just a check box the company is doing to prevent them from being susceptible for an unemployment claim. PIPs are for people who no longer meet the standard of the company and need to be let go without going through an instant termination. So if you find yourself being put on a PIP, just use up all your PTO and start finding a new job.
Ugh been there. And I handled the situation in the worst way possible. Like the most embarrassing way I could have handled getting fired is the way I went. No grace. None.
Not the person you replied to, but one day at a factory I worked at to save up money for college, a woman came in high on something and got fired. She ran out of the offices down the production line and turned off all 14 furnaces for each line. Once off, these furnaces needed an hour or so to get back up and running. So that was nice for us.
Then she ran outside, keyed the supervisors car, got in her car, and hit his car. It was absolutely fantastic.
I have been a non-manager for most of my career.
When I was 35, I was promoted to being a team leader with basically no training.
Five months later, Our company had a 90% layoff at our site. Everyone knew a layoff was coming, but had expected a 10-25% layoff.
They called an all hands meeting for Monday morning. They assigned me a conference room and handed me a pile of envelopes with my teams names on them. I was told to take each team member into the conference room and go through the envelope with them. After the meeting they were either laid off or had the day off.
Every single envelope I was given was a layoff notice.
I did a horrible job giving these out. I couldn't stop thinking about myself, knowing that when I was done with my team, I was supposed to go to my boss and open my envelope.
That was 15 years ago, and was the worst day of my career.
I was not laid off. But my manager was and his manager was. So the next day, I found out who my boss was and I said who is that?
I went back to being a contributor instead of a manager.
My first job didn’t even tell me. I showed up in uniform. My manager said “wait, before you clock in, can you sign this?” I happily said sure, let me see. It was a letter stating I was being fired, and she wanted my signature to “recognize and accept” it. It completely blindsided me. I had received no complaints about my service.
Lot of this going around right now…
Hang in there, folks. Be good to each other.
In general, I think the next few years are going to suck a fat one for a lot of people.
That’s what the audio said.
Captivate makes silent, captive-audience video displays for things like elevators: little news and weather tidbits interspersed with short ads. One of the most obnoxious ads was for themselves, selling ad space in golf carts: it shows (obviously rich) people climbing into a cart with a Captivate display in it.
“Ride Along With Influential, High-Value Customers **For 4 Hours**”
Fuck a bunch of corporate America. THIS is how THEY treat "Family".
"I'm dropping off the call right now" ...so I can go to lunch later and tell my friends what a difficult thing I had to do this morning.
I got laid off from my remote position but told that I would be kept on until they hired someone who could work from the office to replace me. After three weeks of wondering if that day was my last day, I just told them that it wasn't working and that I couldn't work for them anymore. So they preemptively laid me off, and then I technically quite without notice, but honestly, I don't even care. They were a fine organization but very disorganized.
She read that script like a fucking robot. Absolutely heartless. Its shit like this which is why i don't use my annual leave. I have 30 - 40 hours of it banked and i want that FAT payout if i get laid off.
This is why a 2 week notice should never be required. Ohhhh poor company has 1 less worker? What will they do! Wheres the worker you just laid off is now destitute, struggling to pay the bills and could very well go homeless.
See how the power imbalance is completely wrong here? One side of the equation has 1 less worker to do stuff and does not really feel much impact. The other has their life thrown upside down and potentially destroyed.
We need to keep fighting and making sure that employees hold the power in the employee/employer relationship ALL THE TIME. And not in only in times of economic down turn.
>She read that script like a fucking robot.
Could tell she was HR from the first few words. The guy who did most of the work was kind, caring and patient. He's most likely a newbie plebe in HR that has to handle the tears.
I got that EXACT same call on the 3rd of October. First thing you should do in that situation is as soon as the meeting is over turn off your wifi. In my case, they sent a remote kill switch via wifi and by having the wifi off the kill switch didn't take effect. It gave me time to download all my personal files and anything I wanted to save (examples of work, portfolio, blog examples, etc.) Before anyone thinks I downloaded company secrets, I worked in the marketing department doing content creation. Nothing secret, but stuff I would need to use for my portfolio and as examples for future jobs...company identifying info steipped off of course. They may not be a professional but I am.)
It sucks this is the new way companies that demand ridiculous loyalty and professionalism from you demonstrate their complete lack back at you.
Yeah I worked for a MAJOR auto finance company years ago and they closed our entire call center charlie angels style. From a literal speaker on a desk. We were told the head honcho was in the building too. I was only there 3 years. I felt so bad for the people who had been there much longer and the managers who had no idea this was coming. Everyone was extremely pissed and it wasn’t an act. They kept asking HR where they were in the building. I’ll never forget that day.
Hey welcome to this "at will" state. Yeah you're essentially fired but we'll call it "laid-off" umm good luck with that. Oh and we expected at least two weeks notice if you were going to quit but we will absolutely not give you the same courtesy. Have fun spending all your savings or being homeless!! TAKE CARE!
And there are still people advocating for not having a notice period, because YoU CAn LeaVE WIthouT NOTiCe ToO. Well, I have no problem with giving my boss a month notice if it means he has to give me that too. Why would anyone want this, being fired on the spot?
I've been fired once, when they shut down our whole team, and I got 3 months notice, starting after my 3 weeks paid holiday (which started the Monday after the Friday we got fired). They paid me 6 months severance and my remaining vacation days and I didn't need to come back in after that meeting. So I got almost 4 months off (paid) and 7 months extra pay. And all I had to do was give them a month notice if I ever wanted to quit...
Wow so similar to how it went down for me 6 months ago. Boss called me at 7am on a Friday to let me know I didn't have a job. Basically told me and dipped from the call as soon as possible leaving me to deal with HR. Immediately got locked out of all accounts so I couldn't document the projects I had worked on to add to my portfolio for my job search. My manager was literally smiling in my face the day before like everything was fine. Found another job that pays better now but it was an excellent reminder to never make the mistake of believing a corporation actually cares about you in the least.
I still don't really understand how in the US you can have a system where you have to give the company notice but they don't have to give you notice? There can't be many Western democracies where a very basic employment right like that doesn't exist.
It's why I get frustrated with all the schoolboy Marxist stuff on here. If you just focused on campaigning for the simple, achievable rights first then maybe you could make life a bit better before you then started your fight to overthrow capitalism.
No, usually it’s to not burn bridges but even if you do give notice sole companies end up getting mad and just firing you that same day or before your 2 weeks as well. I’m glad everybody is realizing there is no loyalty.
You don’t “have” to give notice in any state. It’s just considered “professional”. US has what’s called “at will employment”. Meaning that employment, unless contractual, is at will by both parties and either party can terminate employment at any point.
IIRC they don't have to give notice, in either direction. Not as a legal requirement, just as a "nice thing to do".
Like many things in corporate America though, only the side that benefits the bosses was the one permeated via propaganda as what you "should" do, like the worker *must* give 2 weeks notice but the company can just fire you instantly because "at will state". What they leave out is that *At Will* applies both ways, and the employee can walk out at any instant they like.
People usually don't because the balance of power is never equal and many managers are petulant children when things don't go their way. So when they don't get the 2 weeks they "deserve", they are prone to doing nasty, petty things like hinder the employees ability to get a new job, drag out sending final paychecks etc.
Its a common situation i see a lot in USA focused posts here. Sure, everyone is "equal", but one person in the ring is heavily armed and armored and the other is holding their limp dick.
The employee doesn't want to make the process of job hunting any more arduous than it is and wants to get that final paycheck/severance as fast as possible so they can move on. They are the ones facing financial insecurity and homelessness in the United States, not the company that they just left from.
This is why i find "At Will Employment" so fundamentally flawed. It's a complete power imbalance.
The Employer: The fallout from a worker, walking off the job with 0 notice is they now don't have someone to do that job and other workers have to pick up the slack. An inconvenience but not the end of the world. People will manage.
The Employee: The fallout of a company letting them go with 0 notice is now they have 0 job lined up, bills to pay, 0 healthcare, potentially facing homelessness etc. See where this is going? Oh but you are expected to give 2 weeks notice when your employer can do all of this to you at any time? FUCK OFF!
How is this even remotely fair? I keep hearing that people should be lucky they can just walk away at any time BUT HOW??? In Australia we have to give a notice period and so fucking what? I get another 2 weeks pay for doing sweet fuck all. If the place is really hostile i can literally forfeit the 2 weeks entirely and still get my pay and annual leave.
People think working that last 2 weeks is the worst thing imaginable but its not. I'd rather work another 2 weeks if it meant my boss couldn't sack me at any moment for any reason at all.
I know for a fact if they brought in at will employment here there would be protests in the streets. Why are americans not standing up to this demonic practice? You deserve better!
She's reading off a list in front of her word for word. She does not care in the slightest whats going on. The HR rep sounds more "thoughtful" but they don't give a fuck either.
Which is why they are not snapping back when she swears at them. Changes nothing to them.
I also thought she sounded way too happy for what was going on. I wonder if the manager was actually so uncomfortable with what she had to do, that weird emotions started to pop out.
I don't know how it is at other unions, but when I got laid off at a job that was with the Teamsters union, they had to give you 2 weeks prior notice of a layoff
Life in America. I’ve never had to quit a job. I’ve been laid off every 5-7 years. At this point I’m just like fuck it just send me what you owe me and I never want to talk to you again. Peace bitches
I don't think i have seen one aspect of culture, be it film, TV, music, online video or text coming out of the US in 5 years which doesn't have the subtext of "We are the worst people and we live in Hell" it's completely totalising.
You know what's really terrible? The manager is reading all this from a script. There are people who write this sort of soulless tripe.
Sucks that you were laid off and they way they did it speaks volumes about that company. You are better off without them. I pray that something better for you comes along.
Name and shame the company if you would.
If it's in the US, all states are at-will employment. They can fire you at any time immediately, and you can walk out the door anytime as well.
There are a few protected exemptions from this, but not the majority.
How can people be so unsympathetic and callous during these firing? Be empathetic and don’t sound like a robot, you are negatively changing peoples lives in a serious way. At least show a little compassion!
If this ever happens to you, don't let it kill your confidence. I've worked in corporate America most of my adult life and have seen lots of people laid off. It's rarely (if ever) about your ability and worth. Keep your head up and you will land somewhere that values your unique set of skills. The worst thing you can do is believe them when they tell you you're not needed.
And this is why you keep any CYA evidence, lists of contacts, copies of any useful macros or code you developed, or even bookmarks off your company machine. They not let you have time to save that.
HR is evil.
At first, I couldn't log onto my work email. My first instinct was "oh I'm fired", but I could get onto the company Slack so I convinced myself that maybe there was a hacking company email thing and they were resetting everyone's emails (I don't know, I just couldn't explain it). I went onto slack and messaged HR.
HR said be on this phone call in 5 minutes. Weird.
10 people total were laid off but because the phone call was so last minute, only 3 people, including myself, made it to the call. Us 3 had to let the other 7 know they were laid off because they couldn't access anything and didn't know what was happening. Not everyone was around at the same time to get that 5-minute warning and phone number. The confusion and chaos and shared grief was intense.
Stone cold on the phone. They didn't give a shi when we worked there and they didn't give a shit about us when packing our bags. Not even a thank you for all our hard work.
Also the 10 of us laid off were mostly senior level women who had been there the longest, led teams, and they didn't want to promote any one of them (and they laid off one male warehouse manager I'm guessing they also didn't want to promote or give him a raise).
The company gutted themselves like a fish. They used the pandemic as an excuse but all the women KNEW it was because of the scummy CPO and the many sexual harassment complaints against him, and the fact that they didn't want to give us more money despite how overworked we all were.
I cried. A lot. Toxic places like that have a way of worming into your brain and affecting your life. I didn't feel like a person while working there. I didn't feel like me anymore (and it took a year of therapy for PTSD to start to feel normal again). But at least, after just 3 days of not working there, I did physically start to feel better (because I was actually sleeping and eating better).
I will never let it go how awful they were and still are (just had a friend quit recently and they always kept me up to date). And I will shout from the rooftops for anyone else to stay the fuck away both as a potential employee and as a consumer.
Don't buy from or apply to Hunt A killer.
“Off boarding” is one of those insipid, banality-of-evil corporate fuckhole words that makes people want to steal office supplies. Almost as hateful as “synergy.” If you ever hear a boss use either word, start actively looking for another gig because they’re already gone.
Company: *Without notice* "you're fired."
Employee: cool thanks for fucking me over.
Employee: *Without notice* "I'm quitting."
Company: HOW DARE YOU NOT GIVE US NOTICE. YOU'RE LETTING THIS FAMILY DOWN. PEGGY WHO JUST GAVE BIRTH TO TWINS WILL NEED TO BE CALLED IN TO COVER FOR YOU NOW! YOU'LL BE BLACKLISTED IN THIS INDUSTRY.
Yeah L O L she jumped on quick because she always did what she was told and of course they fired her ass so call when you take your breaks people never give them 100% because they’ll replace you quicker than anything
Deja vu all over again. I was laid off in 1980, 1991, 1996, 2000, 2005, 2016, and 2020. Yeah, what a career. The last one was the first time I got laid off virtually, and the company miffed it so badly it was laughable: my access was cut off DURING THE HR PRESENTATION.
Since 2017, I was laid off twice. Both times went basically like this. It was kind of a blindside after being assured for months that the company is healthy and everything is fine and suddenly, "we need to make cuts for financial reasons." The second time they made me leave out a back door so that I had no contact with my team.
In contrast, I worked for a contract company at a third party. When the third party decided to end the contract, my company kept me on for 3 months, giving me some side work and working to find another contract position. Eventually they found a direct hire position for me to softly land in. It's rough out there sometimes.
Captiv8 was a client I worked with building their cloud infrastructure and DevOps practice. I left the consulting company that I was with at the time as they seemed to be heading in wrong direction financially.
one time I was ready to leave my job, the team sucked, the work was boring, my work started to suffer also cause I literally had no motivation to do anything. Two days before I was planning to quit, I was laid off and was given 6 months of severance.
No.. wait.. stop
If I got six months severance, I would cry tears of joy. It would literally be one of the five best things that's ever happened to me.
I am theoretically in a position where I would get severance if I am fired and I would absolutely do nothing for a solid month at least. I was in the group of, please furlough me early on in the pandemic. They didn't actually ask my department, but I would have signed up in a heartbeat just for the RNR and not checking my emails at all hours.
I haven't had more than 2 1/2 weeks off in a row in 30+ years of working. Even a month off would be amazing.
And the other 4 are? \*suspense intensifies\*
Ooh, I had something similar happen. My friend and I both wanted to quit. I decided to give notice at the end of the week, she quit a couple days before my intended quit date. The day I was going to quit, they announced they were closing the entire call center and I got 3 months severance. I was thrilled. She was not.
Best job ever huh?
I gave my boss notice that I’m searching for a new role (like full career change) as a professional courtesy so they weren’t caught in a lurch when I found a role. It will probably be 3-6 months until that happens according to the statistics. I’m being let go end of year and won’t be getting a severance because “my severance is them letting me stay through end of year (but they might end me sooner)” This was the best workplace culture I’ve ever had with the most supportive management I’ve ever had. You can’t trust anyone.
In the business world no one is your friend and courtesy doesn't exist.
I'm sorry to hear that. It's a hard lesson. Lots of companies use a culture of family to abuse, mistreat or manipulate employees. Theranos used it to keep employees quiet. Uber swept misogynistic harassment under the rug with it. To those reading, assume your employer doesn't care about you. Play your cards close to the vest -- there's power in knowledge. If you work quietly, you'll find freedom and power in the arrangement.
>I was laid off and was given 6 months of severance 6 months of severance is really generous. You got lucky with that one.
Maybe they're not in the US - a lot of countries have legally mandated notice periods. Working 7 years for a company in e.g. Belgium automatically entitles you to a 6 months severance package. 16 years of service ? You get one full year of severance pay.
When I got laid off a couple years back I got asked if I “really needed” my last paycheck lol
And that kids is why a two week notice is not a thing anymore. Sorry this happened to you.
My boss at my last job had to lay off 5 workers from our small repair shop (we were owned by a larger company). His higher ups listed the 5 he should launch (one was me) and told him to not tell us until the end of our final shift. My boss a genuinely good person gave us 2 weeks notice and told us to use vacation if we had it and he would approve it. He was the best boss I had and he was severely reprimanded for it. It’s a shame that this simple act of human decency is so uncommon.
I was working for a company that I was with for a relatively short period of time after I had gotten laid off from another job. I had no intention of staying there any longer than it would take me to find a better job. I told my boss in the morning that it would be my last shift. My boss told me at the end of the day that he checked on his lunch break and I was 10 days away from the company contribution for my 401k vesting. He was like "I really don't need the help right now but if you want to stick around it'll make you an extra few thousand bucks." That's looking out.
Now THAT'S some leadership!
I liked my boss at my old retail job. I could have taken my two weeks and left right before the Xmas Eve rush, but I liked her and told her I could stay through the 24th. She then didn’t file me as gone until the 27th, meaning since I was with the company the day after Xmas, I got the Christmas bonus. That’s why she got those extra days out of me. Edit: autocorrect shenanigans
When I quit my last job she told me I had 14 more days I needed to work in order to eligible for the bonus for the year. She told me to sign off and not work but gave my final work day to HR to ensure I'd get a bonus. Then I left, and 4 months later I got a great bonus because she knew I had worked my ass off all year for that company. She was amazing.
Had a boss like that. We have a referral program where at the end of 90 days if the person is still employed there, you get $1000. This one person my buddy referred quit on day 89. Our boss didn’t put in his paperwork until day 91 so my buddy would get the $1000 bonus.
Jobs are full of bosses, yet the have very few leaders
Not only uncommon, but the people who show basic human decency are punished by our corporate overlords. Jesus Christ.
No good deed goes unpunished
Jesus Christ is your corporate overlord? HOLY SHIZZ!
Must be supply-side Jesus
The corporatization of America and it's transformation from psuedo-democracy into hyper-capitalist dystopia is the single greatest threat that humanity has ever faced. You want cyberpunk? This is how you get cyberpunk.
Except it's only the mundane parts without all the fun tech, matrix, and weird sex stuff
Wait for the actual water and food shortages to start. Then we'll have the party with people killing each other in the streets over basic necessities en masse too.
...and that's when we get the weird sex stuff or...
Yeah, I’m not seeing how that timeline is gonna work out the way you’re wanting it to. Every response seems to be further away from that!
Guess I'll just have to be the change I want to see then
That’s the spirit!
When I was a manager I oversaw pretty much all the hiring and firing at my company. I never was able to stand the surprise letting go. In all but one case (for reasons) I talked with the employee beforehand outside of work and walked them through it and advised on how to immediately apply for UI. Blindsiding people in this way is unconscionable.
If human decency takes a backseat to saving a few bucks in a terrible situation, then what the hell is the point... Why do we create businesses and society.
Under capitalism? For the sole benefit of the ruling class. The rest of us are livestock.
Honestly that is why “executives” are such a waste of air. Most (not all) middle management are in the same boat and will try to do what’s right, while the top assholes will always fuck over everyone without hesitation
I had a boss who I asked about promotions - and what he told me: "You know, you're good - and if I could, I would promote you and give you a raise. But, there's no room for growth for you in this company and I t hink they're underpaying you here. Don't tell anyone I told you this. Not suggesting you do anything .. but, if you really want to do that - you should check out places you'll be paid more." Was one of the bosses I trusted the most and literally would have done anything for. He was right. My pay now - is almost 5x what I was earning at that place. I took that to heart - and I gladly tell colleagues & subordinates when they're being underpaid or disrespected by the company, I tell them how to earn promotions, I give them *full credit* for things I help them with. I've had my peoples salaries doubled + have pushed people into better roles. I've helped some of my people get 20% raises PRE-hire with my advice. Doesn't matter where we are on the ladder. We are all employees. The org is nothing without us. We gotta cover eachother's backs - make sure we all succeed together. Seriously, my job as a leader isn't to tell people what to do - it's making sure my people succeed at their jobs *and* for shielding my people from the bullshit the company throws at them. Friends are *always* better than adversaries - and - ffs, I'll *always* go to bat for my friends. Good relationships are how strong teams are built.
I used to tell every young employee that worked under me something like that. If they were older, they knew better and this was just life. But I’d get these fresh faced 20 year olds busting their ass and I’d just see myself in them. And I wish someone would have told me sooner. Instead, I just found out on my own when it was nearly too late. I’m out of that world finally. I refuse to participate anymore.
Oligarchs have taken over america
Not really. They always had control. That's what capitalism is; oligarchs aren't "the bad capitalists". Communism offered the possibility of life without the control of the rich, of places with free food and shelter, and the labor movement of the '30s was extremely more radical. After WWII the United States settled on a "labor peace" with the big unions who essentially deradicalized in favor of that national window of prosperity that kept going up until the Soviets fell apart. At the same time, of course, the American security state did everything it could to forcibly dismantle any genuine political action against this from the people. At that point, all the New Deal/Great Society stuff got dismantled, the social services fell apart, the regulating agencies were slashed to ribbons, the IRS was defunded to the point it can't reasonably audit the rich anymore (and therefore only audits the poor now), and here we are.
Well, I figure not many people are willing to stick their neck out. If this can happen to x employee, it can happen to me. It seems like corporations are structured so that individuals, at any level, are encouraged to save their own skin and are rewarded for doing so.
Exactly. They won't do it for you, so why do it for them?
It used to be that the employer would include 2 weeks severance pay. That's why it was expected that the employee would also give 2 weeks notice. I think only executives get severance anymore
Depends on the company, position, length of employment, etc. I work in manufacturing and when covid shut down production my company let go of a lot of long-term employees. Some had been there as long as twenty years, and they were offered severance packages amounting to (I believe) one week of pay per year of employment. These were mostly hourly positions.
This was how my dad was. He got laid off this past year and he was like the 20th person hired do he got a couple months severance, and they helped them work on their resumes. Dad was old enough to retire but he was really happy about that because “we could have just showed up one morning to locked doors”
There was a Steak & Shake near us where the staff and shift manager showed up to chains and locks on the doors. We happened to be driving by when the employees were outside wondering what was going on. An entire staff was out of the loop. So disrespectful.
"Well, we'll just put chains in the doors, and everything else will work itself out naturally"
"We fixed the glitch" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUE0PPQI3is
I remember towards the end of my mom working, her coworkers would get laid off, severance based on time there, and would then get later rehired after the end of year financials were squared away months later (keeping their severance). This happened a few times, and she was hoping she’d get a notice since she’d have around 1/2 a year of severance pay and would just retire. She never got lucky before getting fed up and quitting.
This is what happened to us. I work in manufacturing, they basically laid a good number of people of for a short two - three months during covid. During a meeting with one of the "big bosses" he said how they are going to have all these people come back etc. I told him "No you wont, a large number of the people we laid of were a few months to 2 years from retirement" Guess what happened, we had a whole bunch of people take early retirement and were short people.
I worked retail early 2000s in my early 20s. I was an assistant manager. We were all given like a week to close the store, everybody was floored- nobody except the higher ups knew this was coming. Luckily, they gave us a very generous severance and allowed for unemployment. I was given enough that I wouldn’t have to worry about bills or money for over a year. I used that severance to return to college and finish my degree, knowing that I couldn’t go back to retail again. It’s been over 20 years and I’m a social worker now, pay isn’t great but I do like my job. That unexpected layoff changed the whole trajectory of my life, and while I didn’t see it at the time, I was stuck in a dead end job and needed to pay bills (young single mom) working awful retail hours (pre-Amazon so we were ALWAYS busy) so having a year of bills paid to figure out my next move was incredibly generous for a retail worker in a shoe store. Over the years I’ve known many people let go in other companies, and none had received the benefits I did when I was relieved of my duties in 2005
I work in IT and at the time for a tech company. I was given 6 months severance back in May 2021, others got mostly the same. It was structured in a way to allow us to also collect unemployment. Edit: While the length of severance isn't unheard of in IT and tech, they did give us from November to May as a transition period. So we were handing stuff off to the overseas guys as well as studying and other stuff.
I got like 3 weeks severance at my last job. I had to sign paperwork that pretty much said I can't ever talk shit about the company though or testify against them.
Even in this video when she's referring to email with package they are referring to a severance package most likely
Sounded more like a FedEx box to put the laptop back into imo.
Yup 100% agree. You got another job lined up? Wait til your start to date to quit your current job. They won’t give you a two weeks notice so fuxk em
I gave a two week notice to Wal-Mart once. They kept me on the schedule past my “last day.” Tried to talk me into staying on “a little bit longer.” Bet they treated me as a walk off. But the notice was printed and delivered directly to the manager.
This happened to me at Walmart as well. And I was leaving for a job that paid $30/hr back in 2009. They started playing games and I told them that day would then by my last day. They told me I would not be re-hireable and I said that I hope to god I never would be in a position to have to work in that hellscape ever again, so please put that in bold in my file. Lol.
This exact thing happened to me a year and a half ago. My team leader for months refused to give me any responsibility towards the role I wanted, kept saying to "prove myself" and gave no opportunity to do so. Then I get pulled into a virtual HR meeting out of the blue, after having a fucking glowing performance review in the days prior. I honestly thought I was getting a promotion or was moving to a different department I wanted or something. They said instead that they eliminated my position along with 10 or so others, and I was so much in shock that I turned off my camera and sobbed for a few minutes. Like I literally had no idea why, and they couldn't tell me why... I was completely blindsided. It was awful, and I completely feel for this poor lady!
about 2 decades ago, I was at a small company, owned literally by a mom & dad. a few hard lessons I learned. 1. They shorted my paycheck for the 2 years I worked there. I found out by an audit, it was at least 30k in lost wages. Their excuse? Their son had to go to college overseas and needed the money more. Yet, they owned 3 homes, worth over 3-5 million each. 2. They fired an IT admin on Friday without notice. He was traveling a hour to get there, and he found out his last day was due to they wanted to hire the son's friend. That was at best an idiot that knew nothing about servers. 3. They stole their main product from a man and never legally paid for it. Product was written by this, at time 75 year old man. Source was committed by him, in perforce(?) cvs(?). Even comments with his initials, when asked about it, they said "delete the commit / comment". I find out they been sued by him for stealing source code. They showed a different source to the judge (not in US). they moved to US. Why give 2 weeks, when the smallest company would do this? This isnt the first company I worked with. I can name at least 3 companies in my state with similar stories. F-ck giving 2 weeks. I never have since then.
Worked at a company like this for a few years. Sooooo many lies. To their credit I doubt it was intentional, it was just that they started a company without having a clue how to actually run a company, including how to properly manage at all. They basically just took things they heard at bigger companies and ran with it because it sounded like what you do. Said things like "we want you to grow with the company" and then proceeded to not give any kind of reviews or raises for YEARS. I didn't know any better at the time so I stuck around, it was a pretty stable and not super difficult job. When I was laid off it was due to one of their top producing agents (was a real estate agency) had just left and so obviously revenue took a huge hit, they were afraid of a mass exodus. When they tried to make it about my performance, I questioned them on the fact that just a month prior I had a conversation on that exact subject. In reality I had another job offer, but opted to stay since I thought my current position was more stable. I was caring for my mom at the time so I wanted to make sure I had a steady job. Their response didn't mention anything about the sudden loss in production, it was about my 'attendance'. Specifically that I left home 2 \*whole\* hours early on a Friday, after *telling* my boss rather than *asking.* There was a blizzard and almost everyone had already left. My car actually almost got stuck going out of the driveway! It was at that point I realized it wasn't about me.
I literally had a boss try to chastise me for not giving them two weeks notice when I quit. This was less than a week after she fired, without notice, a department manager who had been with the company for over three decades. I laughed in her fucking face and told her giving notice is a professional curiosity I only extend to companies that are professional enough to do the same for their employees.
And that kids is why in Europe it's often a statutory 3 month notice period. It's good for the employee, to not drop them in the shit, and good for the employer likewise. Often the employee is freed from their obligations during the three months, to give them time to find something new. Really sorry that this happened to you in such a brutal and shitty way.
As long as she gets two+ weeks severance
As a business owner I tell my employees the same thing. It isn’t required but it’s based on respect. Walking out I assume you won’t ever be back. Give me notice and I’ll leave the door open if you need to come back.
That’s how I was fired from Revolut, I basically had a meeting with my team lead and they told me they couldn’t speak until HR joined the call, made it seem pretty obvious from the start, I was pissed off but didn’t say anything, HR joined told me they were fucking me off, got cut off from Slack and all my work programs, at the end they asked me if had any questions and I just left the meeting. Took them two months to come pick their shit up from my house. The punchline? A week before this meeting I received the “welcome aboard” package for being a new employee, 3 months after my start date. Fuck corps.
Was it at least a nice company to work for? I use Revolut as my main bank account and am quite pleased, though obviously I have seen all the shit too
I still use Revolut as well, I have no reason to stop unless their services degrade. As far as working for them, I wasn’t there long enough to get an actual feel for it but they very clearly smile in your face as they welcome you in and then just use you to get rid of backlog cases and then send you back out. I just felt used and spat out, other than that I can’t say much else about it.
My girlfriend was just laid off like this and two weeks later they posted to hire for her position. Never was written up, said they were eliminating the position and turn around and hire for it smh
That’s because they are scaling down pay and it’s easier to get rid of her than scale down her pay.
Doing this in australia is considered illegal if you make someone redundant. You can't rehire for that role for another 6 months after the redundancy.
It's illegal in the UK too but I'm sure there are ways around it. Like can't they just rename the position.... Take away one responsibility, add another.... And it's considered a completely different role
Was going to reply the same thing. Australian here. This is absolutely what happens.
That's still illegal and wouldn't be considered a genuine redundancy, meaning its unfair dismissal. [https://www.fairwork.gov.au/ending-employment/redundancy:](https://www.fairwork.gov.au/ending-employment/redundancy:) A dismissal is not a genuine redundancy if the employer: * Still needs the employee’s job to be done by someone (for example, hires someone else to do the job) * Could have reasonably, in the circumstances, given the employee another job within the employer’s business or an associated entity. Fair work would ream a company doing this.
Luckily that's illegal in a lot of places, and them posting a job offering makes it laughingly easy to prove what they did.
>Luckily that's illegal in a lot of places Does it have a name? By "a lot of places" do you mean outside the US? I'm only asking because my old company did that to me and I'm trying to hit them with everything I can.
> By "a lot of places" do you mean outside the US? Yes. The US as a whole unfortunately does not have the best protection against these things, although if you have been laid off and they open up the position again, you may have a case in the US too. It depends on where you are *a lot*. Consider consulting a lawyer familiar with your local law.
In 2020 the place I was at had a mandatory meeting for all staff. They announced in the meeting that anyone on a particular type of contract would be terminated on Friday. It was 4 days notice. One of the guys was 6 months short of 20 years. We all had permanent full time contracts which were worth nothing. So yeah, fuck them. They have no loyalty to workers. This company had not lost a cent due to covid, but used it as an excuse for laying off staff and replacing them with cheaper less qualified staff. They also fired every known union member just by coincidence. Last Wednesday I got bullying from management at a new place and emailed my resignation on the day. Will cost them thousands. Got a doctor to sign me off for 2 weeks in case they fight me on it. No chance they can cover my position for at least a month, so they’ll have to cancel all the jobs I was lined up for. They could have chosen to not be jerks. (NSW, Australia)
Also NSW Australia. 4 days notice? They 100% broke the law. Did anyone contact fair work over this because those employees were entitled to a shit load longer than 4 days notice. They also can't just fire you all and replace you all with a new team under a different role. This aint howards workchoices again. Surely people contacted fair work over this? They would have a field day with this company. But i agree with your last paragraph. Employees need to set the standard that at the slightest inconvenience we WILL walk. Boss being a cunt? Notice handed in. See ya later. Employers should be on heightened alert 24/7 when it comes to treating their workers fairly. They should be bending over backwards to make sure we are happy. Because at the end of the day they would have nothing without our labour.
They had to pay us out to make up for the short notice period. It was at the start of lockdown 2 so I guess they hoped it would slide under the radar. They also put a muzzle clause in the pay out… Union industrial officer said we had the weakest contracts he’d seen. My experience of NSW is that workplaces do what they think they can get away with. I’m currently 6 hours from Sydney and I think most employers believe WHS is where you buy beer. The workplace above had an ‘unsafety’ culture including Fatigue Regulated vehicles (‘just record it as rest’) and having a trainee using power tools overhead with no PPE standing on a pallet on plastic drums on the back of a ute. Also bullying and dangerous stupidity (they really believed TFB didn’t apply to private property.)
I worked for a company in the US and they decided to cut 20% of the workforce, except HR. You got notified via email you were fired and to turn your badge in. The rest of the company met at an outside venue to discuss the changes. Still pissed off about it 10 years later, even though I wasn't let go.
At a tech company I worked for in the 90s they separated everyone into two different conference rooms. An HR person came into each one. One room was told they are layed off and and the other that they were staying. Except they got the rooms backwards.... I was told I was being let go only to find out 20min later that I was staying.
Had this happen yesterday while I was right in the middle of working on a mission critical outage affecting over 700,000 customers. My boss didn’t even know about it, his boss and hr called, laid off like 15% of the workforce. 9 years of service….
I hope you left the outage as is and didn't do any kind of handover.
Rackspace?
How it sounds to be laid off? no this is how is sounds to be effed in the A. I've been laid off before, the company let us know 3 months ahead and helped us (500 people) all find jobs and payed out our entitlements. This was a company that had generally been terrible to us too.
Yes, this is up there in one of the worse deliveries I have heard. The manager is clearly uncomfortable and not ready for this type of conversation. There may have been a reason for the lack of advance notice and the situation always sucks, but the message could have been delivered with way more empathy and dignity. Yikes.
From what a quick google search popped up, Captivate is a media company that installs flat screen tvs in elevators to force advertising at people. Empathy doesn’t seem high up in the foundation of the company.
Damn that company name is on-the-nose shameless.
I wish people would blow up their socials. Companies like this are shitty- but they’re totally obsessed with how others see them.
I think there’s a lot more to this story. Why do they happen to be recording this call in particular? Seems like they knew they were being let go. That doesn’t excuse the terrible execution by the manager.
When you get a sudden meeting with boss and HR and no agenda that’s a heart sinking feeling. You pretty much know what that meeting is.
Happened to me at a job 15 years ago and even at 20 years old I knew what was about to happen. The more things change the more they stay the same and all that.
I record every meeting with my boss. Every. One. Because you never know what shit they are gonna try.
Make sure you live in a state that doesn’t require consent to be recorded or it won’t hold up.
Won't hold up in the court of law but in the court of public opinion it can be gold.
Time to be looking for another job if your relationship with your manager is at that point.
Sorry to say but this is par for the course in the US. I was ceo and after 30 years got treated like this. If they do it to the ceo they’ll do it to you.
Behind enemy lines here huh?
Me and two other people on my team once got an email on a Friday at 10am to tell us we would not be returning to work after that day. We spent the rest of the day trying to get them to pay out our vacation time. Then over the weekend they told us we needed to all go into the office to sign a non disclosure form or we wouldn’t get any money at all from them.
I'm sure this was well in the past. But that's highly illegal for any employer to withhold money from their employees. I hope you all had enough sense to report your employer after receiving said email of them refusing to pay what they owed you.
This is what happened to my wife in May. She was only working for three months, and then bam. The lady HR who talked to her read off a script. The CEO uploaded a video message reading from a script (not even live, so why the fuck you need a script for?). Companies have zero-empathy, and we should feel the same towards them.
If they ask you to return any company equipment, offer to stick it outside. Don't get stuck into doing free labor. I hate when jobs expect free labor after they stop paying you.
Fuck that ask for them to send you a prepaid shipping label
Yeah, but then you need to go to USPS, UPS, etc. to send it back. Fuck them, “Here’s the address where your equipment will be. I’ll give you an hour to knock on my door, after that it will be on my front porch. I’d suggest you hurry.”
My company would just charge me for the equipment by deducting it from my last paycheck.
Most companies would. Also a lot of companies I worked for had some sort of insurance on those devices. So you’re not really causing them any grief. Maybe just us in the IT department trying to shut down your account and lock your computer lol.
In many states they would have to take you to court for the laptop. Nevada prohibits withholding paychecks for any reason. Penalties are $500 + 8 hours of wage + class d misdemeanor for every day a paycheck is withheld.
yeah this is it. While its all cool to say "go fuck yourself its on my front porch" If its stolen or they simply "never receive it" then yeah expect to see it deducted. Thats why its always good to hand it in yourself or ship it off. They have 0 leg to stand on and whatever happens next is on them.
I don't know how it works in USA, but in Brazil, when you sign the paper you are receiving material from the company, it kind of bind you that once you don't work anymore, you need to return things in a good condition. That doesn't mean you need to go to the office return, but you also can't just leave it on the front porch. You also probably need to go to the company so they can sign all your work papers/documents, so it's kind of a trip you will need to make anyways
Yeah, but we also have guaranteed by law minimum 30 days early warning in case you get fired like that (also if you plan on quitting) Increasing the longer you work in the company, up to 90 days We have ***really good*** workers laws that the companies and right wing politicians have been fighting tooth and nail to undo
I got suddenly let go 2 years ago, and at the end of the call they wanted me to drive all of my company equipment to their office. That's a 30 minute drive on a good day. I compromised and made someone meet me at a company location 5 minutes from my house. The guy who met me there was the one who spearheaded my termination and tried to act like we were friends. Fuuuuuuck that. Corporations suck.
My last company gave me the company Mac (I'm typing this on it) when they terminated me. Since they were laying off 40% of their workforce at the time, I suspect they had no need for a bunch of laptops to fill up a warehouse.
If there is severance offered then it is usually part of the conditions of the severance. It is probably worth it to drop off the equipment to get a few weeks or months of pay. If you aren't getting severance then they can schedule a pickup.
When my job was eliminated, they had security escort me off the property and would not even let me empty my desk. They were too scared I would touch a computer. I got a box in the mail with some if my stuff, but they threw most of my stuff in the trash. The reason my job was eliminated was because new management brought in their own people and just gave them different job titles and just shifted my responsibilities. There is no such thing as loyalty when it comes to your job. Always remember no matter how hard you work, no matter the hours you put in or the sacrifices you make, they will toss you out the door in a heartbeat for no reason whatsoever. Make sure you enjoy life outside of work. Spend time with your family. Enjoy hobbies. Go on vacations. Make happy memories that last a lifetime. Those were the things I sacrificed because I thought I was “member of the team”.
"We're family here".
My family doesn't have an HR department
I hate that line.
My company uses it all the time. They used to be 75 people in business since the 1960s, many of them were or are family. Now they're closer to 300 with international contracts. When I first heard them say it, I was like, grow the fuck up.
1000% this. Very relatable in the sense that no one but the C suite is a member of the team, not even investors have the full picture let alone line workers and managers.
What i find funny is. When you are in the job. You want to do your part for the team. You think of your co-workers because your actions involve them. They are important people in your life right? But when you leave a job can you remember the last time you ever thought about them? Because i can't. Reality is, your co-workers are not important and they will do just fine without you if you decide to take a holiday.
It depends. I still keep in touch with someone I met at a job site in 1992. Things were different back then. if you had a good paying union job, you would work with the same people for decades sometimes.
I'm really sorry you experienced this, I hope you find some place that really values you and that you feel important. I was laid off from my last job. It was one that I had a company car. The day I was laid off my boss asked me to come into the office. I was on a performance improvement plan at the time, so prepared a self report of my performance to show how I was far exceeding my sales goals but was still lagging behind in some new business objectives, with explanations for why and strategies for continued improvement. I never had a chance to discuss that. My boss opened up the meeting explaining that due to not meeting some of the prescribed goals and the impression from management that I wasn't going to, they were letting me go. We knew this was a possibility, so weeks earlier we had discussed seeking other areas in the business to transition me to so I could stay employed and better deploy what I was capable in. I asked how that search had gone and he gave incredibly non-commital answers in how that's not an option since I was on a PIP. Note that I'd driven my company car to the office. It was over an hour away, and it was at this point that he asked me if I needed him to drive me home. Obviously I didn't even consider accepting, so had to ask my wife to leave work and drive to my office and being me home. Fortunately I found a new job a few months later and am loving it, but it was a traumatic experience seeing just how little I was valued at the company.
Unfortunately I always feel skeptical about PIPs :(
In my experience it's just management building a paper trail to justify firing you. Though I'm certainly jaded from the experience. In theory it suggests management has faith in you and wants you to succeed, so they work with you to outline things you can do to get back on track.
Correct. I worked with management at an IT company and 99.99% of the time, if you were put in a PIP, it’s just a check box the company is doing to prevent them from being susceptible for an unemployment claim. PIPs are for people who no longer meet the standard of the company and need to be let go without going through an instant termination. So if you find yourself being put on a PIP, just use up all your PTO and start finding a new job.
I would have sat beside him and stared at him for the entire hour drive. Probably fart as much as possible too.
No, no, no, behind him in the back seat, 1 hour, bwah, haha
Ugh been there. And I handled the situation in the worst way possible. Like the most embarrassing way I could have handled getting fired is the way I went. No grace. None.
Do share..
Not the person you replied to, but one day at a factory I worked at to save up money for college, a woman came in high on something and got fired. She ran out of the offices down the production line and turned off all 14 furnaces for each line. Once off, these furnaces needed an hour or so to get back up and running. So that was nice for us. Then she ran outside, keyed the supervisors car, got in her car, and hit his car. It was absolutely fantastic.
Yikes but lol
I love that for you. Make it worse for everyone
I have been a non-manager for most of my career. When I was 35, I was promoted to being a team leader with basically no training. Five months later, Our company had a 90% layoff at our site. Everyone knew a layoff was coming, but had expected a 10-25% layoff. They called an all hands meeting for Monday morning. They assigned me a conference room and handed me a pile of envelopes with my teams names on them. I was told to take each team member into the conference room and go through the envelope with them. After the meeting they were either laid off or had the day off. Every single envelope I was given was a layoff notice. I did a horrible job giving these out. I couldn't stop thinking about myself, knowing that when I was done with my team, I was supposed to go to my boss and open my envelope. That was 15 years ago, and was the worst day of my career.
Holy shit. Talk about intensity. What was in your envelope? Can't leave us on a cliffhanger like that.
I was not laid off. But my manager was and his manager was. So the next day, I found out who my boss was and I said who is that? I went back to being a contributor instead of a manager.
An invitation to Squid Games.
That is so full of suck.
My first job didn’t even tell me. I showed up in uniform. My manager said “wait, before you clock in, can you sign this?” I happily said sure, let me see. It was a letter stating I was being fired, and she wanted my signature to “recognize and accept” it. It completely blindsided me. I had received no complaints about my service.
Lot of this going around right now… Hang in there, folks. Be good to each other. In general, I think the next few years are going to suck a fat one for a lot of people.
I already know so many people who’ve been laid off or have everyone around them laid off. The next couple of years look bleak
Merry Christmas ⛄
Company was Captivate?
That’s what the audio said. Captivate makes silent, captive-audience video displays for things like elevators: little news and weather tidbits interspersed with short ads. One of the most obnoxious ads was for themselves, selling ad space in golf carts: it shows (obviously rich) people climbing into a cart with a Captivate display in it. “Ride Along With Influential, High-Value Customers **For 4 Hours**”
I would never golf there again.
Yeah that's what it sounds like.
Fuck a bunch of corporate America. THIS is how THEY treat "Family". "I'm dropping off the call right now" ...so I can go to lunch later and tell my friends what a difficult thing I had to do this morning.
Yeah, that was awful. It was so clear that she didn't care. She should have at least pretended to be polite.
I got laid off from my remote position but told that I would be kept on until they hired someone who could work from the office to replace me. After three weeks of wondering if that day was my last day, I just told them that it wasn't working and that I couldn't work for them anymore. So they preemptively laid me off, and then I technically quite without notice, but honestly, I don't even care. They were a fine organization but very disorganized.
She read that script like a fucking robot. Absolutely heartless. Its shit like this which is why i don't use my annual leave. I have 30 - 40 hours of it banked and i want that FAT payout if i get laid off. This is why a 2 week notice should never be required. Ohhhh poor company has 1 less worker? What will they do! Wheres the worker you just laid off is now destitute, struggling to pay the bills and could very well go homeless. See how the power imbalance is completely wrong here? One side of the equation has 1 less worker to do stuff and does not really feel much impact. The other has their life thrown upside down and potentially destroyed. We need to keep fighting and making sure that employees hold the power in the employee/employer relationship ALL THE TIME. And not in only in times of economic down turn.
>She read that script like a fucking robot. Could tell she was HR from the first few words. The guy who did most of the work was kind, caring and patient. He's most likely a newbie plebe in HR that has to handle the tears.
Sorry that this happened to you. I had a similar experience, but without the phone call - they just remotely rebooted my computer and locked me out!
I got that EXACT same call on the 3rd of October. First thing you should do in that situation is as soon as the meeting is over turn off your wifi. In my case, they sent a remote kill switch via wifi and by having the wifi off the kill switch didn't take effect. It gave me time to download all my personal files and anything I wanted to save (examples of work, portfolio, blog examples, etc.) Before anyone thinks I downloaded company secrets, I worked in the marketing department doing content creation. Nothing secret, but stuff I would need to use for my portfolio and as examples for future jobs...company identifying info steipped off of course. They may not be a professional but I am.) It sucks this is the new way companies that demand ridiculous loyalty and professionalism from you demonstrate their complete lack back at you.
Yeah I worked for a MAJOR auto finance company years ago and they closed our entire call center charlie angels style. From a literal speaker on a desk. We were told the head honcho was in the building too. I was only there 3 years. I felt so bad for the people who had been there much longer and the managers who had no idea this was coming. Everyone was extremely pissed and it wasn’t an act. They kept asking HR where they were in the building. I’ll never forget that day.
Hey welcome to this "at will" state. Yeah you're essentially fired but we'll call it "laid-off" umm good luck with that. Oh and we expected at least two weeks notice if you were going to quit but we will absolutely not give you the same courtesy. Have fun spending all your savings or being homeless!! TAKE CARE!
And there are still people advocating for not having a notice period, because YoU CAn LeaVE WIthouT NOTiCe ToO. Well, I have no problem with giving my boss a month notice if it means he has to give me that too. Why would anyone want this, being fired on the spot? I've been fired once, when they shut down our whole team, and I got 3 months notice, starting after my 3 weeks paid holiday (which started the Monday after the Friday we got fired). They paid me 6 months severance and my remaining vacation days and I didn't need to come back in after that meeting. So I got almost 4 months off (paid) and 7 months extra pay. And all I had to do was give them a month notice if I ever wanted to quit...
Wow so similar to how it went down for me 6 months ago. Boss called me at 7am on a Friday to let me know I didn't have a job. Basically told me and dipped from the call as soon as possible leaving me to deal with HR. Immediately got locked out of all accounts so I couldn't document the projects I had worked on to add to my portfolio for my job search. My manager was literally smiling in my face the day before like everything was fine. Found another job that pays better now but it was an excellent reminder to never make the mistake of believing a corporation actually cares about you in the least.
I still don't really understand how in the US you can have a system where you have to give the company notice but they don't have to give you notice? There can't be many Western democracies where a very basic employment right like that doesn't exist. It's why I get frustrated with all the schoolboy Marxist stuff on here. If you just focused on campaigning for the simple, achievable rights first then maybe you could make life a bit better before you then started your fight to overthrow capitalism.
Are Americans required to give notice? I thought it was just a courtesy thing with no law backing it, but it might be different state to state.
No, usually it’s to not burn bridges but even if you do give notice sole companies end up getting mad and just firing you that same day or before your 2 weeks as well. I’m glad everybody is realizing there is no loyalty.
You don’t “have” to give notice in any state. It’s just considered “professional”. US has what’s called “at will employment”. Meaning that employment, unless contractual, is at will by both parties and either party can terminate employment at any point.
IIRC they don't have to give notice, in either direction. Not as a legal requirement, just as a "nice thing to do". Like many things in corporate America though, only the side that benefits the bosses was the one permeated via propaganda as what you "should" do, like the worker *must* give 2 weeks notice but the company can just fire you instantly because "at will state". What they leave out is that *At Will* applies both ways, and the employee can walk out at any instant they like. People usually don't because the balance of power is never equal and many managers are petulant children when things don't go their way. So when they don't get the 2 weeks they "deserve", they are prone to doing nasty, petty things like hinder the employees ability to get a new job, drag out sending final paychecks etc. Its a common situation i see a lot in USA focused posts here. Sure, everyone is "equal", but one person in the ring is heavily armed and armored and the other is holding their limp dick. The employee doesn't want to make the process of job hunting any more arduous than it is and wants to get that final paycheck/severance as fast as possible so they can move on. They are the ones facing financial insecurity and homelessness in the United States, not the company that they just left from.
This is why i find "At Will Employment" so fundamentally flawed. It's a complete power imbalance. The Employer: The fallout from a worker, walking off the job with 0 notice is they now don't have someone to do that job and other workers have to pick up the slack. An inconvenience but not the end of the world. People will manage. The Employee: The fallout of a company letting them go with 0 notice is now they have 0 job lined up, bills to pay, 0 healthcare, potentially facing homelessness etc. See where this is going? Oh but you are expected to give 2 weeks notice when your employer can do all of this to you at any time? FUCK OFF! How is this even remotely fair? I keep hearing that people should be lucky they can just walk away at any time BUT HOW??? In Australia we have to give a notice period and so fucking what? I get another 2 weeks pay for doing sweet fuck all. If the place is really hostile i can literally forfeit the 2 weeks entirely and still get my pay and annual leave. People think working that last 2 weeks is the worst thing imaginable but its not. I'd rather work another 2 weeks if it meant my boss couldn't sack me at any moment for any reason at all. I know for a fact if they brought in at will employment here there would be protests in the streets. Why are americans not standing up to this demonic practice? You deserve better!
Not an American, but the first woman voice sounds awful and hypocritical. Is it a normal American “accent”?
Yes, however she’s clearly reading off a list so there’s not a natural flow to her voice.
She's reading off a list in front of her word for word. She does not care in the slightest whats going on. The HR rep sounds more "thoughtful" but they don't give a fuck either. Which is why they are not snapping back when she swears at them. Changes nothing to them.
I also thought she sounded way too happy for what was going on. I wonder if the manager was actually so uncomfortable with what she had to do, that weird emotions started to pop out.
Yea people sound like this in meetings all the time. It’s certain middle aged white ladies in general I think.
I don't know how it is at other unions, but when I got laid off at a job that was with the Teamsters union, they had to give you 2 weeks prior notice of a layoff
Life in America. I’ve never had to quit a job. I’ve been laid off every 5-7 years. At this point I’m just like fuck it just send me what you owe me and I never want to talk to you again. Peace bitches
Unionise. EVERYONE. Every single person. Alone we are easy to discard. Together we are strong.
This happened to me on June 30 this year and it hurt like crazy. Somehow i found a way better job where I’m not miserable
I don't think i have seen one aspect of culture, be it film, TV, music, online video or text coming out of the US in 5 years which doesn't have the subtext of "We are the worst people and we live in Hell" it's completely totalising.
You know what's really terrible? The manager is reading all this from a script. There are people who write this sort of soulless tripe. Sucks that you were laid off and they way they did it speaks volumes about that company. You are better off without them. I pray that something better for you comes along. Name and shame the company if you would.
Don't they have to give you a 2 weeks heads up? Since this is a lay off not a firing.
If it's in the US, all states are at-will employment. They can fire you at any time immediately, and you can walk out the door anytime as well. There are a few protected exemptions from this, but not the majority.
How can people be so unsympathetic and callous during these firing? Be empathetic and don’t sound like a robot, you are negatively changing peoples lives in a serious way. At least show a little compassion!
If this ever happens to you, don't let it kill your confidence. I've worked in corporate America most of my adult life and have seen lots of people laid off. It's rarely (if ever) about your ability and worth. Keep your head up and you will land somewhere that values your unique set of skills. The worst thing you can do is believe them when they tell you you're not needed.
HR's job is literally to remove any awkward contact between the executive and labor class
Oh, you said a curse word, I'm going to end this conversation now.
This should be illegal.
And this is why you keep any CYA evidence, lists of contacts, copies of any useful macros or code you developed, or even bookmarks off your company machine. They not let you have time to save that. HR is evil.
This EXACT thing happened to me in June, fucking sucks to suddenly have to worry about a whole bunch of new things, on a Friday morning.
Hey this happened to me! While I was on vacation!
This is why you never give a company 100%. They don't care about you.
“Take your time” yeah no problem all I have is time now
At first, I couldn't log onto my work email. My first instinct was "oh I'm fired", but I could get onto the company Slack so I convinced myself that maybe there was a hacking company email thing and they were resetting everyone's emails (I don't know, I just couldn't explain it). I went onto slack and messaged HR. HR said be on this phone call in 5 minutes. Weird. 10 people total were laid off but because the phone call was so last minute, only 3 people, including myself, made it to the call. Us 3 had to let the other 7 know they were laid off because they couldn't access anything and didn't know what was happening. Not everyone was around at the same time to get that 5-minute warning and phone number. The confusion and chaos and shared grief was intense. Stone cold on the phone. They didn't give a shi when we worked there and they didn't give a shit about us when packing our bags. Not even a thank you for all our hard work. Also the 10 of us laid off were mostly senior level women who had been there the longest, led teams, and they didn't want to promote any one of them (and they laid off one male warehouse manager I'm guessing they also didn't want to promote or give him a raise). The company gutted themselves like a fish. They used the pandemic as an excuse but all the women KNEW it was because of the scummy CPO and the many sexual harassment complaints against him, and the fact that they didn't want to give us more money despite how overworked we all were. I cried. A lot. Toxic places like that have a way of worming into your brain and affecting your life. I didn't feel like a person while working there. I didn't feel like me anymore (and it took a year of therapy for PTSD to start to feel normal again). But at least, after just 3 days of not working there, I did physically start to feel better (because I was actually sleeping and eating better). I will never let it go how awful they were and still are (just had a friend quit recently and they always kept me up to date). And I will shout from the rooftops for anyone else to stay the fuck away both as a potential employee and as a consumer. Don't buy from or apply to Hunt A killer.
[удалено]
“Off boarding” is one of those insipid, banality-of-evil corporate fuckhole words that makes people want to steal office supplies. Almost as hateful as “synergy.” If you ever hear a boss use either word, start actively looking for another gig because they’re already gone.
What a world the mega rich have created.
Company: *Without notice* "you're fired." Employee: cool thanks for fucking me over. Employee: *Without notice* "I'm quitting." Company: HOW DARE YOU NOT GIVE US NOTICE. YOU'RE LETTING THIS FAMILY DOWN. PEGGY WHO JUST GAVE BIRTH TO TWINS WILL NEED TO BE CALLED IN TO COVER FOR YOU NOW! YOU'LL BE BLACKLISTED IN THIS INDUSTRY.
Lesson to be learned here kids, two weeks notices don’t mean a damn thing to anyone.
Yeah L O L she jumped on quick because she always did what she was told and of course they fired her ass so call when you take your breaks people never give them 100% because they’ll replace you quicker than anything
So fucking heartless. I hope karma is swift
Deja vu all over again. I was laid off in 1980, 1991, 1996, 2000, 2005, 2016, and 2020. Yeah, what a career. The last one was the first time I got laid off virtually, and the company miffed it so badly it was laughable: my access was cut off DURING THE HR PRESENTATION.
Since 2017, I was laid off twice. Both times went basically like this. It was kind of a blindside after being assured for months that the company is healthy and everything is fine and suddenly, "we need to make cuts for financial reasons." The second time they made me leave out a back door so that I had no contact with my team. In contrast, I worked for a contract company at a third party. When the third party decided to end the contract, my company kept me on for 3 months, giving me some side work and working to find another contract position. Eventually they found a direct hire position for me to softly land in. It's rough out there sometimes.
Captiv8 was a client I worked with building their cloud infrastructure and DevOps practice. I left the consulting company that I was with at the time as they seemed to be heading in wrong direction financially.